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Show Utah County Farm Bureau Gives Other Side of DDT Story A recent UPI release points out that responsible scientists are beginning to speak out in favor of DDT. It quotes Dr. Francis A. Gunther, an entomologist entom-ologist at University of California. Califor-nia. Dr. Gunther said that lead, such as used in gasoline, may be the real cause of some environmental en-vironmental problems previously previous-ly blamed on DDT, such as thin shelled eggs of Aspreys and other wild birds. Another leading scientists also al-so was quoted as saying that DDT is a remarkable product. While not harming a single person per-son in 26 years of intensive use, it had saved millions of humans hu-mans from death at the hands of horrible diseases transmitted by insects. A Dr. Jukes warned against worldwide bans on DDT or a U.S. ban on exporting the chemical. He told UPI the move to ban DDT is "emotional" "emotion-al" and unf actual. More than 530 million people have been "exposed to DDT without a single case of sickness resulting," result-ing," he said, adding, "the effects ef-fects on wildlife which have been attributed to DDT really need further testing because there are poisons in the environment envir-onment such as poly-chlorinated biphenyla which produce a similar effect." On the other side, he pointed to the malarial country of Ceylon, Cey-lon, where a DDT eradication program brought the number of cases of the disease down to 17 in 1963. The campaign was stopped in 1964 and by the end of 1968 there were a million cases of malaria in Ceylon, Dr. Jukes said. Utah County Farm Bureau President Eldon Money also added his personal observation. He said that anyone under 30 years of age doesn't know the problem that flies used to be. Eating outside during the summer sum-mer months of July, August and September was an impossibility imposs-ibility because of the swarms of flies. This has been changed by the use of DDT. For the first time in 25 years, we have noticed flies outdoors and even indoors becoming a problem a-gain. a-gain. Mr. Money said that the hysteria over DDT use is the cause. |