s uch products in 1960 s howed that a third contained res idues , a s ituation which the Food and
Drug Administration characterized as ‘far from encouraging’. To find a diet free from DDT and
related chemicals, it seems one must go to a remote and primitive land, still lacking the
amenities of civilization. Such a land appears to exist, at least marginally, on the far Arctic
shores of Alaska— although even there one may s ee the approaching s hadow. When s cientis ts
investigated the native diet of the Es kimos in this region it was found to be free from
insecticides. The fresh and dried fish; the fat, oil, or meat from beaver, beluga, caribou, moos e,
oogruk, polar bear, and walrus; cranberries, salmonberries and wild rhubarb all had s o far
escaped contamination. The re was only one exception—two white owls from Point Hope
carried small amounts of DDT, perhaps acquired in the cours e of s ome migratory journey.
When some of the Eskimos themselves were checked by analysis of fat samples, small residues
of DDT were found (0 to 1.9 parts per million). The reason for this was clear. The fat samples
were take n from people who had left their native villages to enter the United States Public
Health Service Hospital in Anchorage for surgery. There the ways of civilization prevailed, and
the meals in this hos pital were found to contain as much DDT as thos e in the mos t populous
city. For their brief stay in civilization the Eskimos were rewarded with a taint of poison. T he
fact that every meal we eat carries its load of chlorinated hydrocarbons is the inevitable
cons equence of the almos t universal spraying or dusting of agricultural crops with these
pois ons. If the farmer s crupulous ly follows the ins tructions on the labels , his us e of agricultural
chemicals will produce no res idues larger than are permitte d by the Food and Drug
Admi nis tration. Leaving as ide for the moment the ques tion whe ther thes e legal res idues are as
‘safe’ as they are represented to be, there remains the well-known fact that farmers very
freque ntly exceed the pres cribed dos ages , us e the chemical too clos e to the time of harves t,
us e s everal ins ecticides where one would do, and in othe r ways dis play the common hu ma n
failure to read the fine print.
Even the chemical indus try recognizes the frequent mis us e of ins ecticides and the need for
education of farmers. One of its leading trade journals recently declared that ‘many us ers do
not s eem to unders tand that they may exceed insecticide tolerances if they use higher dosages
than recommended. A nd haphazard us e of ins ecticides on many crops may be bas ed on
fa rmers ’ whi ms .’ The files of the Food and Drug Adminis tration contain records of a dis turbing
numbe r of s uch violations. A few examples will serve to illustrate the disregard of directions : a
lettuce farmer who applied not one but eight different ins ecticides to his crop within a s hort
time of harves t, a s hipper who ha d us ed the deadly pa rathion on celery in an amount five times
the recommende d maximum, growers us ing endrin—mos t toxic of all the chlorinated
hydrocarbons—on lettuce although no residue was allowable, spinach sprayed with DDT a
week before ha rvest. There are also cases of chance or accidental contamination. Large lots of
green coffee in burlap bags have become contaminate d while being trans ported by ves s els als o
carrying a cargo of insecticides. Packaged foods in warehouses are subjected to repeated
aeros ol treatments with DDT, lindane, and other ins ecticides , which may pe netrate the
packaging materials and occur in measurable quantities on the contained foods. The longer the
food remains in storage, the greater the danger of contami nation.
To the ques tion ‘But does n’t the gove rnme nt protect us from s uch things ?’ the ans wer is , ‘Only
to a limited exte nt.’ The activities of the Food and D rug Adminis tration in the field of cons umer
protection against pesticides are severely limited by two facts. The first is that it has jurisdiction
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