Word: ddt
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...embedded a message about the folly of trying to conquer nature within an exposition about the dangers of pesticides to animal and human life. Despite the formidable opposition of the chemical industry, which ridiculed Carson as an overly emotional woman unqualified to judge the health effects of compounds like DDT, her thorough research and exquisite ability to turn dry science into evocative prose won the hearts and minds of the public, who made the book an enormous best seller...
...Ninety-one percent of pollution entering Lake Superior is entering atmospherically, like DDT used in developing countries," Colborn said. Traces of the chemical DDT can be found in everyone's tissues in the world today, Colborn said...
...were banned in America. Most immediately responded that the company should try to take it business abroad where environmental standards were looser or nonexistent, and the teaching fellow agreed that this was a smart recommendation. Is it any wonder that some American companies still use dangerous pesticides such as DDT in Latin America...
...worst enemy. Brought to the southern U.S. as shipboard stowaways in the 1930s, the fierce-biting ant (which likes to sink its mandibles not only into people and livestock, but also into electrical insulation, sometimes knocking out traffic lights) was officially targeted for eradication following the wartime development of DDT and other superpesticides. After three decades of spraying fire-ant territory with the killer compounds, however, the U.S. government was forced to concede defeat. It turns out the pesticides had all along been doing less damage to the invader than to its predators. Pouring chemicals on the ants actually helped...
...according to a new, heavily promoted book, there is powerful evidence to support another hypothesis. Our Stolen Future (Dutton; $24.95) says a wide range of reproduction-related ills may be caused by chemical pollutants in the environment, including DDT, some forms of dioxins and PCBs, and a number of other synthetic substances. The idea is that exposure to even traces of these chemicals in the womb can interfere with proper development of the reproductive system, leading to serious consequences years or decades later. Male infertility is just one part of the problem, say the authors; these pollutants may also...