In article , lgb
wrote:

In article ,
says...
m not a fanatic, and I'm not going to apply any adjectives to YOU. But,
you might ask yourself a question. When you make statements like
"relatively
innocuous", what are you basing that on?

Check out the following:

http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/malathio.htm

For those too lazy to look, here's a quote or two:

Regulatory Status: Malathion is a slightly toxic compound in EPA
toxicity class III. Labels for products containing
it must carry the Signal Word CAUTION.

Effects of malathion are similar to those observed with other
organophosphates, except that
larger doses are required to produce them [2,8].


Extoxnet is funded by Monsanto & other chemical companies in the US &
Canada, so it is the first source of info for people who want the best
possible spin or wish to ignore the full scope of the issues.

And are you aware that the EPA by law is not permitted to include in their
assessments the proven hazards of the break-down metabolites which are
more hazardous than the parent chemicals?

What Extoxnet likes to ignore are such EPA statements as (from the EPA
website itself): "There is insufficient scientific evidence to assess the
potential for causing cancer in humans."

When Dr Harold T. Smith, senior project leader with the Animal & Plant
Health Inspection Service of the USDA, announced that the EPA was
considering changing Malthion's status because the best studies indicate
it to be carcinogenic, behind the scenes political pressures were soon
brought to bear against the EPA (in the current Republican climate of
"industry profits before public health") so that when the EPA made the
report Dr Smith had prematurely announced, the warnings were rendered
tepid, such as "There is evidence of carcinogicity."

The EPA in the long run decided not to recategorize this pesticide as more
than moderately dangerous even while acknowledging the validity of the
research done by people like Dr. Jerry Reeves at David Grant Medical
Center Travis Air Force Base, which concluded Malathion causes aplastic
anemia & childhood leukemia from exposures lasting for as brief a time as
two minutes, concluding in fact that "all cases" scene in an eight year
period were caused by malathion & propoxur. All cases.

THe EPA decided it was only a Category III risk even while acknowledging
the research of Dr. Albright & his team at St. Luke's Hospital Kidney
Center in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, which established that LOW levels of
malathion exposure cause kidney failure in humans. THe manufacturer had
already admnitted LOW exposures had caused kidney failure in animals but
insisted no such study proved this was a risk for humans. Albright's
published case proved otherwise, & he was very certain, LOW exposure, one
time, of household use, was the cause of kidney failure.

The EPA was pressured into lending small weight to the St Luke Hospital
findings because it was definitively true of only one case. So too the EPA
which does not often consider research done in Europe failed to give any
weight to Erasmus University research of Dr. Lindhout which established
that use during pregnancy of malathion in a headlouse shampoo caused birth
defects reesulting in infant paralysis. But the manufacturer denies
malthion per se was the cause, because what really causes birth defects is
a metabolite produced by the liver from malathion. The EPA decided not to
include in their assessment the harmful effects of any breakdown chemical
or metabolite, though not denying the validity of the findings that low
level malathion exposure during early pregnancy is the source of the
metabolite that causes infant paralysis.

The final wishywashy warnings the EPA ended up with in their final
document were softened but still alarming in parts, but it was regarded as
a political victory at Drexel Chemical. Not a scientific victory.

In the end a political decision was made: the threat from West Nile Virus
vs a few paralyzed children fell in favor of malthion. The economic harm
from medflies to citrus crops was found to be a bigger financial hit than
the medical costs of childhood leukemias & elder kidney failures. Remember
these are only the risks for LOW level exposures when used as directed.

An animal modeled study in Finland ran some of the same tests for which
the chemical industry liked the outcomes. They made change. They used
older adult rats instead of young rats. They discovered that allegedly
safe levels of malathion cause serious brain damage, & they concluded that
government safety boundaries based on what can be tolerated by young
healthy rats has no application for what exposure will do the population
at large. Brain damage would be expected at least for the elderly.

The EPA set out criteria that EXCLUDED injury to the the central nervous
system, so their decision excluded many other definitive cases of nerve
damage, paralysis, & brain damage in humans caused by low level exposures
to this toxin.

As for environmental risk, that is ferocious. A study at Kent State
University Department of Biological Science headed by Eric Lesnett
established definitively that bluegill fish exposed to malathion
experience extreme gill degeration.

A study headed by Dr. Solomon at Rutgers University published in
TERATOLOGY is even more alarming, as Dr. Solomon is convinced his findings
on the dangers of the breakdown metabolites to fish would be found in
humans as well, if anyone bothered to look for these effects, which have
not been studied because the law does not require chemical manufacturers
to assess the dangers of the chemicals these toxins break down into,
including malaoxon & paroxon which are more dangerous than the parent
compound. Dr. Solomon discovered that exposure of malathion caused heart
defects in fish at the rate of 12% to 38$. Where fish had the break-down
metabolites in combination with the metabolites of at least one other
pesticide, the heart defect rate raised to 50%.

That was just one of many studies that proved the dangerousness of the
metabolites exceeds the dangerousness of the parent chemical, but the EPA
does not require assessment of the metabolites & does not include the
break-down chemicals in their safe-usage definitions. It is also one of
scores of studies that shoe malathion risk increases by multiple factors
if a second common garden chemical is involved in exposures. So if you use
TWO garden chemicals, your risk can double, triple, or increase by factors
of ten -- yet once again the chemical companies are not required to prove
their chemicals are safe-as-used when the environment also has other
chemicals safe-as-used in the environment. That studies prove these
combinations are many times more harmful than the "official" assessment is
not part o the EPA's assessment because the law requires them to assess
only what the law requires the chemical companies to test, so some of the
definitive & extreme hazards of malathion cannot be considered by the EPA
unless & until Congress demands that the hazards caused by the by the
break-down chemicals me included in the risk assessment. They are excluded
-- yet they are known to render maliathon extremely hazardous to fish
populations, & to have caused such things in humans as kidney failure &
infant paralysis.

Its tragic that you find a chemical-industry-funded website that
intentionally overlooks the actual authoritative risks. And it's just
stupid that you use malathion for purposes which cause harm to the garden
strictly apart from risk to human life & the environment. It would be an
ignorant choice even if the only ill effect had been the destruction of
beneficial insects required for the healthy balance of the garden. It's
certainly unfortunate that the actual risks extend far beyond the narrow
boundaries of what the EPA is Congressionally restricted from including, &
it's unfortunate that the current political climate prefers the chemical
company "spin" over the complete science. But it remains that even if
hadn't been true that it is a great danger to human health & the
environment, it's a known hazard to the garden itself, a self-perpetuating
hazard that destroys a garden's ability to manage the majority of its own
requirements.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
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"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson