Word: ddt
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...tools used by man to control his environment often contain unknown dangers. DDT, for example, was once heralded as the ultimate pesticide, then was deemed an insidious killer. Now the U.S. Government finds itself in court defending a newer pesticide called Mirex, which conservationists claim has toxic side effects...
...DDT is now widely indicted for killing wildlife and endangering man, but the latest charge has a reverse twist. In California, which is afflicted with 43 kinds of mosquitoes, two species have become virtually immune to DDT plus all other available insecticides...
...brief period after DDT was first put to use In 1945, the pasture mosquito seemed under control in California. But within seven years, the insects had become so resistant to the new chemical that researchers had to develop another organic compound, ethyl parathion. That failed in 1961-as did methyl parathion in 1963, and fenthion in 1968. Today, California has no chemical able to kill the pasture mosquito in safe dosages...
...Southeast Asian veterans are infected with malaria. What really worries health officials, though, is Culex tarsalis, the second mosquito species that has foiled all insecticides in California. Culex transmits encephalitis, a disease that attacks the human brain. California's most recent encephalitis outbreak occurred in 1952, the year DDT failed, and a major flood turned much of the Great Central Valley into mosquito breeding grounds. The outbreak felled 757 people, and 50 died. Now the problem may be more serious. In pre-DDT days, 40% to 60% of the population developed an immunity to encephalitis through "inapparent infections." Because...
That there is a little DDT in everything...