Word: ddt
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...DDT Eaters And Other Eco-Centrics...
...Instead of a vitamin a day, Pest Control Executive Robert Loibl and his wife Louise start breakfast with a 10-mg. capsule of DDT. After 93 days on DDT, the North Hollywood, Calif., couple figured they had ingested as much of the pesticide (some 300 times more than the average daily intake) as persons consuming food dusted with the chemical would get in 83 years. "We feel better than we used to," crows Loibl. "In fact, I think my appetite has increased since I began taking DDT...
...Loibls' experiment is designed to prove that DDT, which they claim is the most maligned of pesticides, is "harmless." They believe that the environment is better served with spraying. On the surface, their consumption of DDT appears to have caused them no harm. Blood tests and urinalysis conducted by Government physicians, says Loibl, "showed nothing out of the ordinary." But while the Loibls seem safe enough now, they could become ill in the future. More important, even if DDT is not immediately harmful to man, it is destructive to many beneficial insects and to some fish and birds...
...businessmen and conservatives with whom he feels most comfortable. Two weeks ago, he addressed members of the National Petroleum Council and fired off his latest gripes in a speech titled "Wait a Minute." Among other things, he wants the nation to "wait a minute" before banning the use of DDT, forcing detergent manufacturers to remove phosphates from their products, making offshore drilling "too difficult," or closing down industries guilty of polluting if they support entire communities. He opposes tough enforcement of federal air-pollution standards, which he says were set "without regard to the economic costs...
...combat the new onslaught, the pesticide industry offered up a chemical poison trademarked Sevin. It is not as toxic or long-lived as DDT, but just as surely kills the caterpillars. Nonetheless, environmentalists strongly oppose Sevin because it is fatal to fresh-water insects, fingerling fish and bees. Heeding the environmentalists' warnings, residents of most infested areas this year voted against aerial spraying of pesticides and settled back to let nature take its course...