> >Now Oz I generally agree with you but this time....
> >DDT was first identified as a problem by a non-scienbtist Rachel Carson
> >in her 1945 book "The Silent Spring" and has been a target of green
> >groups ever since.
> Well, nobody has come in to say this date is incorrect, so I guess it
> probably is. I am astonished.
Hmm. Oz, the date is not correct. Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring"
came out in 1962. I believe the first person who warned against
DDT was Morton Biskind who labelled the substance
"dangerous to all forms of life") in an article from 1953
("Public health aspects of the new insecticides", Amer.Jour.Dig.Dis,
November 1993). Morton Biskind used data derived as early as 1945
on the toxicological and bioaccumulative propeties of DDT.
DDT was reported as an insecticide in 1944 (by P.Langer, Helv.Chim.Acta,
1944, 27, 892), although the insecticidal properties were known as early
as 1939. DDT was patented by J.R.Geigy S.A in 1940. In USA it
was first used 1942, and by 1945 DDT had become widely available
in many countries. After the whistle was blown by Rachel Carson
it took some 10 years for the message to come through in action (as is
the tradition, when problems with pesticides emerge). Hungary
came first with a ban in 1968, in the USA the ban came in 1972.
Shamefully, my own country, Denmark, came very late with
a ban (after a lot of talking, in 1984). Those who had become
addicted managed to buy up 2.5 tonnes the last year (1983) it was
available to consumers. I remember the last Danish bastion was
propagation of coniferous trees; the producers maintained to the last
minute that the ban would make future propagation
of coniferous trees impossible -- a familiar song, isn't it?
Best regards,
Torsten Brinch
-- Torsten Brinch - Risboege, 6640, Denmark - e-mail: iaotb@inet.uni-c.dk http://inet.uni-c.dk/~iaotb/ IAO Agrochemical Pages Denmark