Safe Produces gone bad

[xelasnave]

Well you can guess what sparked this thought but I started thinking about the products used widely by communities and humans generally that turned out to be damaging. I thought we could see how many we can recall in an effort to remind ourselves our sophisication sometimes plays tricks upon us..
I will start with an old one before most folks time.
D.D.T
Can you thing of one more?
alex

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Hydric Acid (or DHMO) - that one scares me. It's so dangerous but we use it all over. Should be banned.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

Pettition your MP NOW!!!

[xelasnave]

I thought there was a world shortage in the pure form
alex

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Thalidamide was used to supress morning sickness.
Bad move.

[leon]

Food addativies, they are causing great concern for the very young, have you seen the 5 year old Macca's Burger that still looks as if it was bought yesterday, not even any mould.

[xelasnave]

That is it the list is complete.. I cant think of anything else. Maybe plastic bags but they were not the problem it was irresponsible humans so perhaps they dont count.
alex

[Mick (Michael)]

Food additives! yes Ethylene glycol, they even put anti freeze in our food. I work with this stuff daily in the earth moving industry, it's toxic. An interesting fact is that after the electrical short in the Apollo 1 module, Ethylene glycol was the source of fuel for the fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#Cause

[wraithe]

dieldren, it was commonly used to keep white ants from eating our homes and to protect certain crops, last users of it where the power supply companies...now its in the soil and takes quite some time to be rid of...but the british have some how come across a wild cabbage that if grown in the soil where the dieldren is present, it breaks it down...dont try telling the agricultural department tho..they only take on ideas that are out of date... If any stock has traces in the meat when slaughtered, they are rejected and the farmer faces quaranteen

[wraithe]

another oldy thats still leaving an effect on the younger generation thru inhereting it from there parents, is sheep dip, or known as lucy jet...(dont know the official name) but i can tell you it will knock off crows and is one poison they can't bring back up..once ingested by them they usually only get about 50 metres before it kills them, and in effected humans it is passed on to there off spring, (and thats from a male thats effected)..pretty dangerous stuff and very lasting effects to future generations...

[wraithe]

another chemical used that has some issues is atrazeen..used in crops of canola as there are strains of canola that is resistent to it...there is quite a list of dangerous chemicals used in agriculture, and if you think glyphosate(or roundup) is dangerous then consider this, "glyphosate is very safe compared to most herbicides and insecticides used in agriculture"...
all these chemicals do damage to the environment in some form or another, some are leached into streams and leached into sub soils..ok some do evaporate into the atmosphere, and others have a very short active state, but at the end of the day most of these chemicals if not used correctly, will cause the insect or weed to become resistant to them then the agricultural industry has to devise a more dangerous chemical to replace them...now how many are still present in the crops when we recieve them...

[fringe_dweller]

tobacco
asbestos
cane toads

[Adrian-H]

Money and People

[astro_nutt]

Lead...used in paints...plumbing...and until recently...Super grade petrol

[fringe_dweller]

more human folly

commercial livestock feed containing the entrails, spines and brains of their own kind - mad cow disease, scrapie.
organised religon
introduced species to oz - rabbits, foxes and elephants
excess salt
leeching as a cure for diseases
vegetable oils, other than olive oil - cheap palm oil, yuck - that stuff sticks to your arteries like glue - and its in everything now! in fish and chips it took over from lard.
bacon and eggs for breakfast everyday
Canola oil, the first genetically modified food product - no one seems to realise this?
hair spray! CFC's ozone layer

[ving (David)]

bah! everything is proving to be bad for these days, but our life expectancy is longer than its ever been... must be all the preservatives!

SAY YES TO PRESERVATIVES!

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Lets not forget enriched uranium isotopes !

[norm]

CCA Treated pine!

[Starkler (Geoff)]

I wonder whats responsible for so many kids these days having allergies, food intolerances and disorders such as ADHD which were unheard of when I was a kid

Next it will be "Sex causes cancer", hmmm, bring it on then. There are no CFC's in the ozone layer, ADHD has been around a billion years, it was only undiagnosed, Lead in Petrol in exponentially better for you than the additives in todays petrol and cane toads make great fertiliser, just like rabbits make good stew, foxes make great coats and thalidamide was bad for pregnant women but is a fantastic drug when used in certain cancer sufferers, in fact it is making a comeback. I guess my point is, very few of the aforementioned entities are actually bad, just misused or misunderstood. DDT sucks though, and it has a longggggg witholding period.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

This subject can give differing answers to where you live too.

Up here in the Golden Triangle the ground is saturated with Arsenic!!! They used it to seperate the gold from the muck.

Cattle and Sheep still suffer Arsenic poisoning and Sovereign Hill Tourist park loses approx 6 horses a year purely to Arsenic poisoning in the ground they are eating from. It is known to have leached into the waterways around the Golden Triangle over the last 150 years.