Thanks for the tip-off, both of you. I will now look up the web to find out where they will spray. I don't want anyone spraying in my area any time. We were farmers when the last few of my little children were babies playing on the floor when the Dioxin and Malathion were tracked in. Maybe these pesticides were much stronger than the ones used when my older children were small. One child was born with an obstruction in his small intestine and was operated on the day he was born. Two miles away, another child had the same obstruction except he was three months old at the time. I suspect neurological damage in another of my children and a neighbor child. I heard the farmers talking later about how the Dioxin was outlawed and some of them were talking about how to get it, anyway. I read a few years ago that it has been outlawed in this country but that it comes in on the produce from other countries. I wash all our fruits and vegetables in the sink with a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide.
As you noticed, the amount found harmless for "the average person" is meaningless.
Lest anyone panic, let me point out that no farmer anywhere in the world should have ever been using "dioxin" for anything -- it's an unintentional by-product of industrial processes, not an herbicide or pesticide. It is one of the most toxic chemicals known. It's unlikely anyone spraying it on a field would survive the experience. For more information about dioxin, I found this web page to be helpful:
http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/
I'm guessing Louise has the name confused with a similar sounding chemical that was used and probably is likewise toxic -- maybe DDT?
I'm certainly no expert, but from what I've read, Malathion is quite a bit more toxic than resmethrin (the cold fog sprayed by MMCD to kill adult mosquitos) and permethrin (a mosquito repellant also used by MMCD). Malathion is a component of Agent Orange, and is widely considered to teratogenic (can cause birth defects) and to cause cytogentic aberration which can lead to increased risk of cancer.
However, I agree with Louise that we are probably slowly "killing" ourselves with all the chemicals we use. When I was a kid, maybe 1 child in 100 had asthma. Today it seems like 8 or 12 out of a classroom full will have some form of it.
Chris Johnson Fulton
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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