University of Virginia Library

DDT A Clear Danger

—Ed.

By Dick Hickman

According to Sam Love,
Southern Regional Coordinator for
Environmental Teach-In, Inc.,
"Ecological activism in the South
will assume different forms than
other areas, because the problems
are more subtle. Without an industrial
wasteland on which to focus,
our tactics must differ from those
of groups in the East and West.
Pesticides and fertilizers are as
much to blame for the rape of our
as industrial filth."

Recent studies have shown that
DDT and other pesticides have a
detrimental effect, not only on
organisms other than those for
which they were intended, but on
human beings as well. Human cells
have been exposed in cell cultures
to various chlorinated hydrocarbons,
including DDT. These compounds
proved toxic to the cells,
and induced progressive morphological
changes leading to cell destruction.

Dr. W.C. Hueper, former director
of the National Cancer Institute,
has said, "The total number of
pesticides capable of producing
cancers in various organs and tissues
of man and/or animals is appreciable."
David Peakall, Ph.D., at the
Cornell University Department of
Biology, has shown that the circulating
levels of sex hormones are
lowered by chlorinated hydrocarbons
(DDT). This could mean that
sexual activity is affected. There is
also reason to fear that some
pesticides may constitute as important
a mutagenetic risk as radiation,
possibly a more serious one, reported
Dr. James F. Crown of the
University of Wisconsin in Science
and Citizens, June-July 1968.

It appears that man can eat the
amounts of DDT found in his diet
without short-term harms. However,
a long-term effect has not
been adequately studied. Americans
now average 12 ppm of DDT in
their fatty tissue (thus, according to
FDA standards, we are unfit to
cat!). Babies now receive more
DDT in their mothers milk than is
permitted in cow's milk. Since the
Chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides
have been in use for less than
25 years, the effect of ingesting
them in sub lethal amounts are not
known.

The ecological dangers of DDT
and other pesticides are manifold,
especially in light of the fact that
pesticides have been found in the
fauna along the northern coast of
Antarctica, even though none have
ever been allowed on that continent.

Experiments indicate that DDT
in very small concentration can
reduce growth and photosynthesis
in certain marine plankton. "Such
single-celled algae are the indispensable
base of marine food chains,"
according to Dr. Charles F. Wurster,
Jr., of SUNY at Stony Brook in
Biological Conservation, January,
1969.

Several years ago, in 1965, the
President's Environmental Pollution
Commission concluded, in Restoring
the Quality of Our Environment,
that "We know enough now
to begin to apply the techniques of
integrated control in their simplest
form to pest management..use of
these techniques will result in
substantial decreases in pollution of
the environment without a decrease
in effectiveness of control."

However, according to a study
published in the Emory University
Journal of Public Law, sixteen
states (including Virginia and
several Southern states) have
finite or no laws whatsoever
covering general use and application
of pesticides.

Pesticides are being added to the
environment by the millions of
pounds each year. In 1968, production
of DDT was 103.5 million
pounds, and total production of all
other persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons
insecticides was 120 million
pounds. Without doubt, the
continued use of such large
amounts of such pesticides, about
whose long-term effects we know
so little, constitutes a and
present danger to man and his
environment.