Pesticides—Blessing or Curse?
EACH year the land and crops of many nations are drenched with millions of pounds of poisonous chemicals. Chemical pesticides are used to kill unwanted insects, rodents and fungi. Chemical poisons are also used to kill weeds and defoliate plants.
The degree to which chemical poisons are used in some areas was noted by the New York Times of December 26, 1969. Speaking of cotton farms in the state of Mississippi, it said:
“From March through November, the air is filled with chemicals to keep weeds from sprouting, and others to kill them if they do; with chemicals to kill boll weevils, boll worms and other insects; and finally, at harvest time, with a foul-smelling defoliant to take the leaves off the cotton plants. . . . Altogether, the chemicals are spread 10 to 20 times a season.”
Evidence Mounts
Yet, there were those who for many years warned against the trend of using more and more chemicals on crops and lands. They argued that harm was being done that could have serious long-term consequences.
Today, the evidence is mounting that pesticides and other poisons are doing what these persons said. In recent years the harsh consequences of the heavy use of pesticides have become evident. These poisons have proved to be killers of large numbers of birds and fish, rendering some species almost extinct.
It has also been found that some of the long-lasting pesticides such as DDT were finding their way into humans. Newsweek of January 26, 1970, stated: “American women carry in their breasts milk that has anywhere from three to ten times more of the pesticide DDT than the Federal government allows in dairy milk meant for human consumption.”
Thus, even government officials and scientists are worried now. Dr. Charles F. Wurster, biologist at the State University of New York, said: “The danger is no longer debatable; it’s established, scientific fact.” Another scientist who examined the evidence remarked: “I’m scared.”
Animal Life Affected
Chemical poisons are carried through the air when sprayed, or washed from the land into rivers and lakes, affecting the fish. In the Mississippi River, mosquito fish were found to contain so much poison that Dr. Denzel B. Ferguson of the Mississippi State University zoology department declared: “These fish are living bombs. Anything that comes along and eats them is just doomed.”
Last year the United States government seized 28,000 pounds of Lake Michigan salmon. It was contaminated with too much DDT and dieldrin. The salmon contained nearly four times as much pesticide as the allowable limit.
American birds such as the bald eagle, peregrine falcon and brown pelican are in danger of being wiped out. In the ocean off California, tiny marine plants and animals known as plankton absorb pesticides that have washed off from the land or have been carried to the ocean through the air. Fish eat the plankton and build up pesticides in their systems. Then, as pelicans eat the fish the pesticides build up in them. This has upset their intricate reproductive system. Now female pelicans lay eggs with such thin shells that the eggs crack and fall apart almost immediately. Eggs that may last a few days are so fragile that when the female sits on them, they break apart under her weight.
Thus, even though the pelicans may not be killed directly by pesticides, they are being exterminated because their eggs do not hatch. As the San Francisco Chronicle stated: “It looks as though the huge brown birds will hatch no young at all in California this year, and the path of death is sweeping inexorably southward as far as the Mexican islands off Baja California.”
At a turkey farm in Arkansas, the powerful pesticide heptachlor was used on live turkeys to control chiggers. Out of a total of 300,000 turkeys checked, 124,000 were found to be contaminated with the pesticide.
At times, large numbers of animals are killed directly by pesticides. For instance, in Hanover, New Hampshire, pesticides used on elm trees wiped out hundreds of birds. About 70 percent of the robins were killed.
Medical World News of February 27, 1970, reports on an experiment where twenty-five fertilized eggs were injected with small amounts of a chemical defoliant widely used in the United States (and in Vietnam). Only fifteen chicks survived. Eleven of the fifteen were crippled and had other defects. In the unhatched chicks serious disorders and deformities were found.
Powerful and Long-lasting
So powerful and long-lasting are some pesticides that traces of them have been found in Antarctic penguins. This was thousands of miles away from the nearest point of use!
What makes the problem grave is that some pesticides, such as DDT, are not soluble in water. So they accumulate in the organisms that are exposed to them. In time the animal may contain far more pesticide residues in its system than are in the environment. Indeed, it is said that some animals may contain more than a million times as much as their environment!
When one animal eats another, such as birds eating fish that contain pesticides, the poisons accumulate rapidly in the eater. Hence, the higher up we go in the chain of animals, the more concentrated become the accumulations of poisons.
The use of pesticides, particularly DDT, has been so widespread that Dr. Lorenzo Tomatis of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France declared: “There is no animal, no water, no soil on this earth which at present is not contaminated with DDT.” Also, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin stated of DDT: “In only one generation, it has contaminated the atmosphere, the sea, the lakes and streams, and infiltrated the fatty tissue of most of the world’s creatures.”
Because DDT has turned up in milk, meat, vegetables, fruit and people, government officials in the United States placed strict limits on its use after January 1, 1970. But Robert H. Finch, Secretary of the Health, Education and Welfare department said that residues of DDT would show up in foods for “ten years or longer” after a ban goes into effect. While several other countries have also limited the use of DDT, hundreds of other pesticides continue to be used.
What Effect on Man?
Studies show that Americans have an average of 12 parts per million of DDT in the fatty tissues of their bodies. This is more than twice the amount allowed in fish sold commercially. England’s Guardian Weekly of November 15, 1969, reported: “It has also been discovered that the blood of the average American contains more DDT than is permitted in meat . . . chlorinated insecticides can cause chronic poisoning in people most exposed to them, and liver and kidney damage are known to be hazards.”
Breast-fed babies were found to be getting from their mother’s milk twice the quantity of pesticides recommended as the limit by the World Health Organization. Swedish toxicologist Dr. Goran Lofroth noted that when such amounts are present in animals, they begin to show biochemical changes.
Traces of pesticides have been found in the tissues of stillborn and unborn babies. In some cases the concentrations of poisons were as high as existed in the mother. The pesticides were found in the babies’ liver, kidney and brain, with the greatest concentration being in the fatty tissue.
In a case reported by national television in the United States, a father mistakenly fed his hog grain that had been treated with mercury, grain that is supposed to be planted but not eaten. Later, he butchered the hog and his family ate it. Serious illness resulted to his pregnant wife and several children. There were blindness, speech defects, brain damage and other complications. It was said of one child that if she lived she would be a “vegetable” because of such severe brain damage.
In experiments with rats, heavy doses of pesticide produced cancer, birth abnormalities and long-term heredity defects. True, most persons do not get a concentrated dose of chemical poisons at one time. But what happens to humans who are taking in small amounts daily in the food they eat, the air they breathe and the water they drink? Are we to assume that insects, birds and fish can be killed and some species rendered nearly extinct, yet no harm come to man from these same poisons?
Upsetting Balance
Pesticides have disturbed what is called “the balance of nature.” An example of this was reported by Dr. Lamont C. Cole of Cornell University, as noted by U.S. News & World Report of November 24, 1969:
“The World Health Organization sent DDT to Borneo to kill mosquitoes. It worked fine. But it didn’t kill roaches, which accumulated DDT in their bodies. Lizards which lived in the thatched huts ate the roaches. The DDT slowed the lizards. Cats then easily caught the lizards. But the cats died . . . With the cats gone, rats came, carrying a threat of plague. And, with the lizards gone, caterpillars multiplied in the huts, where they fed on the roof thatching. Then the roofs started caving in.”
What is ironic is that while pesticides have killed insects, these same types of insects have produced strains that are resistant to those pesticides. Thus, more powerful poisons are needed to kill them. But it is said that there is no pesticide that insects cannot eventually handle.
What are these insects? The United States Department of Agriculture made a census of all insects regarded by man as harmful. Out of more than 800,000 known types the number classified as “harmful” came to only 235, less than 1/25th of 1 percent of those known to science!
The work of insects that pollinate plants far offsets the damage done by other insects. If pollen-carrying insects were eliminated, most blooming plants and flowers would become extinct. If bees alone were to disappear, it is estimated that 100,000 types of flowering plants would die out.
Also, consider this comment by World Book Encyclopedia: “Farmers have contributed to the spread and increase of insect pests by upsetting the balance of nature, and replacing the varied plant life of the wild fields with acres of one kind of plant.” Certain insects seem to thrive when large areas are planted in a single crop.
What Alternatives?
Are there alternatives to the use of pesticides? Yes. One is the use of insects that eat other insects considered harmful. Pest-controlling insects are many, such as ladybugs, praying mantises, lacewing flies and trichogramma wasps.
In Kansas, certain crops were being destroyed by greenbugs, so farmers imported large quantities of ladybugs from breeders. After six weeks, the ladybugs had brought the greenbugs under control. One large user of ladybugs reported that the greenbugs were almost completely controlled within two days. And the ladybugs were not a threat to crops.
Other alternatives include growing strains of plants more resistant to insects; insect-sterilization techniques; mechanical controls; interplanting of crops; use of sprays made from organic materials such as onions, garlic, mint and others.
In regard to the function and control of insects, the following observation of Organic Gardening and Farming of August 1969 is of interest. It states: “The more we observe her methods, the more we come to understand that the insect is Nature’s censor in destroying unwanted vegetation. . . . in general, insects prefer to feed on plants grown with chemical fertilizers rather than on those grown by the organic method. Control of insect pests is possible in any number of ways, without resorting to the use of poison sprays and chemicals. Plants strongly attacked by insects are often nutritionally unbalanced.”
It is becoming apparent that many of the problems encountered by man in his use of chemical poisons are due to his lack of knowledge and foresight, as well as his economic greed. This emphasizes the need for direction by the Creator of all plants, animals, insects and man. In God’s new order we can expect this direction so that man will be brought into harmony with the rest of God’s earthly creation.
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The milk of human mothers may contain much more DDT than is allowed in dairy milk
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A scientist says: ‘There is no animal, water or soil on the earth not contaminated with DDT’