Quote Originally Posted by Moveon View Post
We all pollute. I drive a truck and it burns gas. But ever since 1973 I've driven a smaller fuel efficient car or truck. I use to ride a bike to work when I was younger. But even doing that created CO2 emissions. So you are right we all produce some form of pollution.

But not all pollution is as toxic as some others. I've spoken about Dosage before so I won't repeat that. But if you remember part of the Dosage equation is Concentration. And toxicity has a lot to do with the Concentration of the substance as well as how toxic it is. Some things are more toxic than others and will do more harm in less concentration.

And you are absolutely right in that a lot of chemicals like DDT were thought to be great and ended up doing more harm than good. It's hard to find a chemical that can work to kill fire ants and not do harm to other insects or people up the food chain.

My last post was directed at people who make these toxic chemicals without testing their total effects. Hopefully someday we will learn a lesson from things like DDT and DIOXIN and do some testing on any new chemicals to make sure that they are more focused to do the job without harming the entire environment food chain.

But I was just pointing out that all these different chemicals that we all use add up inside our bodies over time. Some are more harmful than others. For example I use to have to handle PCB for my job in a analytical testing lab. We took samples of various oils and tested them for the present of PCB's to help clean up this contaminate in the environment. Most were found in old electrical transformers that our client (Electric Company) used in their transformers. Any time they had to work on a transformer they tested the oil inside to see how high the concentration of PCB's were in the oil. I had to get rid of all these small vials containing the OIL. I would dump the small vial of oil into a 30 gal plastic drum for later disposal. And even though I wore rubber gloves the PCB's oil still went though the glove and got on my fingers and thumbs. To this day I have a rash on my index fingers and both thumbs that comes and goes. At times it's painful. I have to use medicine on my fingers to make the rash go away for a while. So I know the effects of handing a toxic chemical even when wearing protective gloves etc.

There is a creek up near SW central Indiana that has PCB's in the water and fish. There are fish consumption advisories saying not to eat the fish in this creek.

We have put many different chemicals into the environment over the years and some of them can bio-accumulate in our bodies. Mercury and lead are two others that have a high toxicity.

We all make mistakes and hopefully we all try to do better next time.
My father practiced dentistry for 50 years died at 77 and worked with mercury almost ever day. I would go to the office sometimes after school and he would let me play with a small amount of mercury--it was actually amalgam which was silver mercury tin and copper. he has filled thousand of teeth with this as has my brother who practiced for 55 years and is still living at 87. They still use this today to fill teeth.