New pesticide scare will have major repercussions

The Angry Environmentalist Speaks Out:

by "Fossil Bill" Kramer

"PESTICIDE USE MAY BE TIED TO BIRTH DEFECTS", blares a recent headline in a

major Midwest newspaper. The lengthy front-page story quotes Dr. Vincent

Garry of the University of Minnesota as stating that data linking

herbicides and birth defects are "suspicious" and "warrant a real close

look".Act Now to Save the Earth - Only 800 Billion Years to Doomsday

There's no question this demands thorough evaluation. Researchers must

eliminate what are called "confounding" factors such as known causes of

birth defects including stress, diet, heredity, etc. But most readers,

brainwashed by years of green propaganda that pesticides are deadly, will

automatically conclude these "suspicious" data are fact.

The one-sided article expounds at length on statements by Theo Colborn of

the World Wildlife Fund who says, "even small amounts of certain chemicals

can affect human embryos at the most critical periods of gestation."

This, of course, is true. But WWF is not noted for objectivity. When quotes

from this ultra-green organization are used to condemn farm chemicals, as

Colborn goes on to do, it would seem appropriate, before spreading alarm,

to check other sources.

Like the National Academy of Sciences which recently reported that

synthetic chemicals in food, including pesticides, do not pose a threat.

But not a word was mentioned of this, though NAS statements are surely at

least as important as any from Theo Colborn.

This scare piece, or major exaggerations of it, by now will have appeared

in media across the nation. But few who saw or heard it will have gotten

the complete story.

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