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Published on Visualizing Ecology (http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter)

Amanda Hakan wk.8

"DDT is no so universally used that in most minds the product takes on the harmless aspect of the familiar. Perhaps the myth of the harmlessness of DDT rests on the fact that one of its first uses was the wartime dustingofmany thousandsof soldiers, refugees, and prisoners, to combat lice" (pg.21).

The naiveness of people at this time period, when DDT was first intorduced as a pesticide, is really astonishing. They believed that just because it was used to get rid of or prevent lice to soldiers in the war was enough proof to use it on their produce. I dont understand why it didnt cross their minds that yes, it kills/prevents lice, KEYWORD KILLS, but doesnt that mean its considered poison???? Just because the soldiers survived the 'dusting' of DDT doesnt mean that its fine to have direct contact with it. Not only that, but using it to grow crops not only means that they will eat it through their vegitables but it also means that it will start a circulation throughout the entire food chain humans eat. For example, they spray corn with pesticides (like Pollan mentions in Omnivores Dillemma), then that corn is shipped to grocery stores, where people eat it, the corn is shipped to CAFO's to feed the livestock, which the animals then eat and then gets digested into their bodies and the animals get sent to the butcher and then sent to the grocery store. After the meat is sent to the grocery store it is then purchased by customers who then feed it to their families. They dont realize that they are eating a HUGELY concentrated amount of poison. Rachel Carson mentions a process along these lines in Silent Spring. She talks about how after each step the poisons become more and more concentrated, thus, making them so much more harmful. 
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