Word: ddt
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...area's population has been accompanied by the peril of pollution. The EPA found high concentrations of such heavy metals as copper, cadmium and lead in rivers flowing into the bay from Baltimore, Washington and other cities; high levels of organic compounds, including PCB's, Kepone and DDT, were detected in Pennsylvania and Virginia rivers that flow into...
Another breakthrough is rotenon, a widely used biodegradable insecticide that has replaced DDT. While the Indians used the chemical to kill fish, it is now effectively applied to the new purpose...
Victor J. Yannacone Jr., a Long Island lawyer who fought to ban the insecticide DDT in the '60s, filed a class action against the manufacturers of Agent Orange in 1979. (He later withdrew from the case in a dispute with other attorneys for the veterans.) During the next five years the case provoked waves of other suits, countersuits, motions and medical examinations, as well as conflicting claims about the harmful effects of dioxin on humans...
...Duncan Hines muffin mixes off the shelves, and in Massachusetts, the public health commissioner recommended that consumers return 46 different cake mixes and grain products to the store. The cause of the panicked shelf cleaning was a chemical called ethylene dibromide, or EDB. A highly effective pesticide similar to DDT, it is also a dangerous carcinogen. Farmers have used EDB to keep bugs off grain and citrus fruit for more than 30 years, and scientists have known the cancer risk for the past ten years. But the Federal Government has been slow to act, prompting nervous state authorities to begin...
...some New England, Southern and California communities, planes and spray trucks are now dousing large areas with malathion (which has largely replaced banned DDT). But many scientists are skeptical about the chemical's effectiveness, just as they are about such gadgetry as electronic bug zappers. The main impact, says Entomologist John Edman of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is psychological: "It reassures people something is being done...