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Scarlet and Rhett, Anthony and Cleopatra, Henry and Anne of a Thousand Days, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, are all diminutive in stature next to the greatest chemical romance in history ~ DDT and Montrose. Yes, I too was surprised at the lack of name recognition from the second half of the famous couple. However, for name dropping sake, Du Pont once was romantically linked with Miss D, but ditched her, for shall we say, a more financially secure partner? She came through for CIBA and a few others, but a less flashy sort, in, of all places, Southern California, was the one for her. Montrose Chemical Company soon became the world's largest producer of DDT. As with all stellar celebrity couples, there is still talk of the break up and finger pointing at whose to blame.

Some say it was purely politics, some say as they always do, The New York Times was to blame. In 1957, the NY Times ran an article advocating the restriction of DDT spraying in Nassau County. Shortly after, an editor at The New Yorker requested the biologist, Rachel Carson, to write about the suspected dangers of DDT. That request spawned one of the most influential books of the ecology movement ~ Silent Spring. But many others have thrown their hats into the arena from all sides. There were even professorial types devoted to the longevity of the famous couple. A professor at Arizona State University drank DDT daily to show it had no ill effects. Now that's a committed relationship...yet, presently, no one knows where he is.

Some have called Miss Carson a mass murderer. However she was mainly pointing out the folly of indiscriminate mass agricultural spraying and its detrimental effects on American wildlife and human health due to that frenzied practice. Today, the use of DDT for vector control is still in effect in some countries; primarily by a reduced method of indoor residual spraying or coating of interior walls, especially in India. Presently, the largest producers of DDT are China, North Korea and India. And surprisingly, at least to me, many here in the US are dying to get their hands on some of it. And not all of it is due to West Nile, Avian or any of that. Farmers are once again lamenting the 1972 ban as they need bigger and better yields on their crops to compete and pests are part of the problem. As an omnivore, this is a bit unsettling, to say the least.

There is one fact that all agree on ~ DDT and its offspring DDE and DDD all stay in the soil for about 75 years. So therefore we still have some of that heady cocktail infusion in our food and water chains. Even though the agricultural ban on DDT took place in 1972, twenty-seven years after its introduction in 1945. Here are some fairly recent alarming test results. I for one am not toasting to the comeback of DDT or the following: In 2002, the CDC found detectable levels of DDT in 50% of all blood samples tested by the agency. Later in 2005, while testing commercially produced milk, 85% had detectable levels of

DDE, the breakdown product of DDT. If one consumes gourmet food products from other countries which still use DDT, the levels found in those food products would certainly be much higher. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, the dangers of DDT are still lurking well within your personal grasp.

Michelle Viggiano - Four Winds Healthy Home - Green Carpet and Air Duct Cleaning www.healthyhomeaz.com serving Scottsdale, Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Fountain Hills, Carefree, Cave Creek, Gilbert, Chandler, and all of the surrounding areas.