Word: dieldrin
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...success prompted the introduction after World War II of a host of similar chlorine derivatives, including chlordane, heptachlor, aldrin, dieldrin, toxaphene and endrin. Wartime research on nerve gases also led to the development of a whole family of phosphorus-based insecticides, such as parathion, malathion and dimethoate, which, unlike DDT and other chlorine-based compounds, tended to break down more quickly into innocuous substances in the soil...
...demise was followed by those of other insecticides. In October 1974, the EPA halted the manufacture and restricted the sale and use of two products that are highly effective against corn pests: aldrin and dieldrin, which had also been linked to cancer in laboratory animals. Last year, for the same reason, it placed severe restrictions on the sale and use of heptachlor and chlordane, effective termite killers. The EPA has also curtailed the use of Mirex, the pesticide that is most effective against the fire ant as well as harvester and Texas leaf-cutting varieties. Tests showed that the substance...
...public health seem to be. Indeed most specialists in the new field of environmental disease believe that 85% of all cancers are caused by exposure to substances in the air or water. These include everything from compounds in tobacco and automotive fumes to asbestos, vinyl chloride, the pesticide dieldrin, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform...
...Environmental Protection Agency forbade the use of the pesticides aldrin and dieldrin on corn and citrus crops. Because such spraying accounts for 90% of the chemicals' usage, EPA'S action is a virtual ban. Shell Chemical Co., the sole U.S. producer, is appealing the decision in federal court. The pesticides now protect the crops from cutworms and other insects. But they are so long-lasting that they get into animal feed, water supplies, and thus into human food as well. What the pesticides do to people is still unknown. But they have been found to trigger cancers...
...that sufficient evidence to ban the agricultural chemicals? No, argued Shell: cancer in the mouse alone cannot predict the likelihood of cancer in man. But Administrative Law Judge Herbert L. Perlman, who reviewed all testimony and scientific evidence gathered during EPA's hearings, had a different view. "Dieldrin has probably accumulated in the body tissue of every individual" in the U.S., he said. It would therefore be "irresponsible in the extreme" to wait until a wave of human cancers provides proof of the chemicals' suspected danger. The EPA agreed, noting that slightly more expensive substitutes are available...