dream." That is how photographer and writer Fred Ward (right) described his visit to Lhasa in Tibet. Fred has traveled the world as a distin? guished free lance; National Geographic members will remember his articles on Cuba, the Canadian North. and diamonds. With such a background of experience, did Tibet disappoint him? had feared I would finally get to Lhasa and ?nd that it looked like someplace else," he told me On his return. ?But it doesn?t. It still has a strong sense of mystery, of remote? ness, a strange appeal. It is still the Everest of the traveler. To prepare himself for the arduous jour- ney through China to Tibet, a journey made by very few Western journalists, Fred jogged daily for seven months and lost 17 pounds-J?the less weight, the better one works at high altitudes.? And work he did. making photographs by day and interview- ing by night, a regimen that ?nally so ex- hausted him that he missed the farewell banquet for his group. knew I had to use every minute,? Fred said. ?It is the one place I always wanted to visit, ever since I saw those famous pictures of the Potala in an old Indeed, it was with a feeling of greeting an old and long-lost friend that I viewed his photographs, for Lhasa marks a true turn- ing point in the history of the GEOGRAPHIC. The January 1905 issue carried the maga- zine?s first photographic story. The Editor had received in the mail fifty black?and- white photographs of Lhasa made by two Russian explorers named Tsybikoff and Norzunoff, and forwarded by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society of St. Peters- burg. In a daring and fateful move, Gilbert H. Grosvenor filled a full 11 pages with pic- tures. He thought he would be fired, but he lasted in the job for fifty more years. From that day on, the GEOGRAPHIC was a magazine that would use the photographic essay as well as the written word to tell the story of far-off peoples and places. And for people like Fred Ward, those pictures repre- sented the genuinely remote and romantic, the faraway Shangri-la that inhabits the dreams of every adventurous person. WW FULFILLMENT of a life's NATUCONAL THE NATIONIL GEOGRAPHIC VOL 157. H0. 2 COFYRIGHT ?9 IBM) 81' NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY WISHINGIDN, D. C. COPYRIGHT SECURED February 1980 The Pesticide Dilemma 145 America ?s bounty from farm and forest rests on careful use ofa billion pounds ayear ofinsect and weed killers. How great are the risks of poisoning ourselves and our environment? Allen A. Boraiho and photographer Fred Ward document a crucial and growing public debate. Tunisia: Sea, Sand, Success 184 A NorthA??ican Arab republic without much oil relies on education and human energy in the uphill battle faced by all developing nations. By ilze Edwards and David Alan Harvey, with a double supplement map ofAfrica. LINES ABOUREIK In Long-Forbidden Tibet 2 18 Few outsiders?and only a handful of Western journalists?have visited that remote, little- lznown land locked behind the high Himalayas. Fred Ward describes and photographs or people and a way of life slowly emerging from the past. The White Mountain Apache: Three Perspectives 260 An Indian struggle to retain traditional ways in today?s world is recounted by tribal leader Ronnie Lupe; by a young woman coming of age, Nita Quin tero; and by a white reporter-photographer who married into the tribe, Bill Hess. COVER: Armed with a sling, a Tibetan shepherdess tends yaks on Peng Bo State Farm. Photograph by Fred Ward. 143 POISONING THE PESTS that each year destroy crops worth billions of dollars, are we also unwittingly poisoning ourselves? This is one of the most hotly debated topics of public policy. The first pesticides were chemical miracles that ensured bountiful harvests and malaria-free populations; unquestionably, they saved millions of lives. However,nature?s response has been to increase resistance of pests to some poisons; other pesticides pose dangers to human health. There are now some 35,000 different commercial products to control insects, weeds, fungi, and other destroyers. The fed? eral government has the responsibility ofpermitting on the market only those whose benefits outweigh their risks. Scientists often debate among themselves the efficacy and reliability of the tests used in making that determination. Ithas taken more than a year for the GEOGRAPHIC to produce the following article. Seldom has such a project been as thoroughly researched and checked with indus- try, government, medical, and academic experts. With a steadily expanding population and a decrease in arable land, the world must use pesticides to maintain high crop yields and affordable food. At the moment there is simply no other way to farm on the scale required. Answers to questions of environmental danger, sensible regulation with diligent enforcement, proper appli- cation, and acceptable chemicals thus are a world necessity. THE EDITOR The Pesticide Dilemma By ALLEN A. BORAIKO NAHUSAI. EDITORIAL Photographs by FRED WARD BLACK NDRES MURILLO has the face of an Aztec: straight black hair, eyes like obsidian, a high-bridged nose. He is 50 and dignified and strains to shake my hand with strength. His doctor says that pesticide poisoning is destroying his nervous system, that his life will be unnatu- rally shortened. His wife has guessed this, and Andres?s seven children know that the tremor in his right arm and leg will spread throughout his body. His heart and lungs too are damaged. Before he dies, Andres may rouse furious controversy and contention. He has sued the manufacturers of four pesticides he once used as a farm worker. and has filed a work? ers? compensation claim against his former employer. The outcome is uncertain: Hop- in to avoid a precedent?setting jury award, the defendants will produce their own medi- cal experts to counter in court that the chemicals have not harmed Andres. Mean- while, his plight underscores increasing public concern about the pesticides used in growing much of our food and fiber. ?Some days I get so depressed I say noth- ing at all, but you are welcome here,? Andres told me at his home in California?s San Joaquin Valley. The valley is ten million acres of cotton, grapes. and oranges in the 145 s' I spray,aplanebarrels?alang . I. aboveaTemscotwn?eIda Billions ofgallons of pesticide solutions are applied yearly to United States crops, rangelands, and forests. 147 state that uses more pesticides than any oth- er: at least 250 million pounds in 1977, the year Andres became totally disabled. ?For years I sprayed almond orchards at $3.36 an hour,? Andres said. ?Many things were not done right. For instance, I had to spray even when it was windy enough to blow the pesticides all over me. ?Imagine how strong the sprays were: I mixed them in new plastic buckets that be- gan disintegrating in three days. I fought for gloves and a face mask?the fumes gave me had headaches and I sometimes vomited? but there was never a clean filter for the mask or enough water to wash with. risked my job to complain to my super? visors. but I got nowhere. Now that I am sick. everything is handy for the workers, and they mix sprays with pumps instead of by hand. But if no one had been hurt, prob? ably nothing would have changed. I still hear nothing from the grower." Andres gestured with his fluttering arm. would not will my illness to anyone, not even my greatest enemy. I cannot work, and now my children are deprived of many things I could give them before. That is why I am suing, even though my case may be dif- ficult to prove." 18 NO COMFORT to Andres, but his case illustrates the dilemma of pesticides: They protect us from insects, weeds, dis- ease, and hunger, but some pose a risk of cancer, birth defects. genetic mutations. and sterility. In a predicament, we vacillate. Even as we try to shield ourselves against chemical pollution, we spread a billion pounds of pes? ticides each year. Do they work? Farmers seldom doubt it; environmentalists often do. Consider: Herbicides cut fuel-consuming tillage, reduce erosion, and conserve soil moisture. During one season, they can reduce from 60 hours to 12 the time ittakes to keep an acre of corn free of weeds. We now use more weed killers than insecticides. - Insect resistance to pesticides is acceler- ating. Today 400 species of insects and mites are resistant to pesticides, more than twice as many as in 1965. Some can tolerate whole categories of agricultural poisons. Two-thirds of agricultural pesticides 148 Pest oontrol and damage oost billions Plagued by two thousand detrimental insects, weeds, and plant diseases, U. S. farmers and foresters devote more than 2.25 billion dollars a year to pest control. Proponents point out that pests damage one-third of our crops?nearly nine billion dollars? worth each year?and can carry death-dealing disease. But grim counterarguments emerge: pesticide- related illness and death, and warnings of dire ecological consequences. Grasshoppers ravage the West?s rangelands A 1979 grasshopper plague mowed down forage in 17 states. Ranchers counterattacked by joining with state and federal governments in a ten-million?dollar cooperative control program, delineated by areas of dark tan. moths damage northeastern forests moth caterpillars defoliate hardwood trees. The 1978 timber loss: perhaps 18 million dollars. Control cost: three million. The European import escaped the Massachusetts laboratory of a naturalist in 1869; succeeding generations fanned out over the Northeast. Hod mites ruin fruit across the country Bane of apple trees, the European red mite also maims peach, plum, and pear trees. Leaf-damaged trees produce lower yields and smaller, discolored fruit. Tree damage is cumulative and difficult to assess. Spraying aggravates the problem, unleashing infestations of the nearly pesticide-resistant mite by killing 015? its natural enemies. Pink bollworms and boil weevils destroy cotton in the South To finance the weevil wars, fanners enlist 50 to 75 million dollars a year in Fm insecticides against an adversary that has devastated 12 billion dollars? worth of cotton since jumping the Mexican border in i 892. Another cotton nemesis, the pink bollworrn, prefers the Southwest?s hot, dry fields, where it rains millions ofdollars? worth of crops annually. - a [Inasshoppel1 ENLARGED 2 TIMES DAKOTA SOUTH DAKOTA KANSAS Eumpedn nedmite ENLARGIED so TIMES i" . Pink bollwonm ENLARGED 4 TIMES Boll weevil ENLARGED 5 TIMES FESTS PAINTED BY PMJL M. BREEDEN HAPS DEAWN JANE WOLFE av Barmcu .1 HRRHISDN NATIONAL GEOGRIFNIC DIVISION Pesticide slashes out of a plane with a faulty valve. By law, the loader should wear long sleeves, goggles, gloves, and a respirator to escape contamination?an expensive inconvenience, the spray men respond. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 40,000 peOple were treated for pesticide poisoning in 1978, yet most cases go unreported or are misdiagnosed. 150 are applied by aircraft. Yet because oferror, wind drift, and evaporation, 15 to 55 per? cent of an aerial spray misses its target. 0 Harvest yields have almost doubled and use of insect poisons has grown tenfold since 1945. Even so. insects annually eat nearly twice as much of our crops now as then. Are pesticides safe? Chemical companies say yes, if used properly; federal regulators worry about them even then. Ponder: Chemical companies typically spend ten million dollars and a decade of effort to bring a new pesticide to market; a fourth of that time and money goes to satisfy a great number of federal environmental and toxi? cological testing requirements. 0 Accidental death by pesticide poisoning is declining, says the Environmental Protec- tion Agency: In 1961, 111 people died; in 1969, 87; in 1974, 52 deaths were reported. 0 Ninety percent of American household- ers use pesticides in house, yard, or garden, but it is doubtful if they know that even scrubbing with soapy water scarcely re- duces skin absorption of some insecticides. According to Dr. Frank H. Duffy ofthe Harvard Medical School, exposure to even tiny quantities of certain insect killers simi? lar to those found in the home can alter brain activity for more than a year, and cause irri- tability, insomnia. loss of libido, and re- duced powers of recall and concentration. Dr. Jack D. Early, president of the Na? tional Agricultural Chemicals Association: ?No pesticide can reach market without years of testing for safety and effectiveness when used properly. The agricultural chemical industry condemns any improper use of these products. Portraying occasional misuse as reflecting a widespread problem is a disservice to hardworking scientists, farm- ers, and government regulators?and, ulti- mately, to the American public, which benefits from these products. Douglas M. ostle, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: ?In the past we willingly accepted claims that pesti- cides have no long-term effect on humans. Neither EPA nor industry is in a position to make such reassurances honestly. As in debate on the hazards of food addi? tives or low-level radiation, a confused pub- lic wonders: How safe is ?safe,? and who shall decide? National Geographic. February [980 tions in 1962. Her Silent Spring urged a halt to the indiscriminate spraying of thousands of weed, fungus, and insect kill- ers created since the introduction of ic pesticides during World War II. Cheap, easy to use, and potent long after application, these chemicals were spectacu- lar successes at first. DDT, especially, was ?the atomic bomb of the insect world": In war it helped stem a typhus epidemic in lib- erated Naples, Italy, and protected soldiers on Paci?c atolls against malarial mosqui- toes. In the decade 1946-1956 it reduced malaria in Sri Lanka from nearly three mil- lion cases to 7,300. American farmers em- braced DDT and its kin as an unquali?ed benefit, like chemical fertilizers or labor- saving tractors, and pesticides eclipsed less effective lead arsenate, adeadly compound that had been the leading insecti? cide before the war. But pesticides soon showed a darker side. As early as 1946, DDT no lon- ger killed all houseflies. Red spider mites be- came destructive apple pests as unselective pesticides decimated predatory mites that once held them in check. Some insecticides, slow to degrade, accumulated to lethal lev? els in the food chain, killing fish and birds. Ominously, they began concentrating in hu- man fat and mother?s milk. Arrayed in Silent Spring, all these facts galvanized public fear that pesticides were unmanageable poisons. Federal pesticide regulation was toughened. In 1970 enforce- ment responsibility was taken from the De? partment of Agriculture, which promoted chemical pest control, and given to the new Environmental Protection Agency. DDT was banned in 1972, and 15 other pesticides formulated into hundreds of products have been suspended or banned since. Now EPA is slowly reviewing the remaining 1,400 ba? sic ingredients, looking for, and at times ?nding, subtle effects on human health. These reforms did more to intensify con? troversy than to settle it, as I learned in visits to southern cotton ?elds, where half our in- secticides are sprayed. Much of that goes to restrain the boll wee- vil, a quarter-inch pest from Mexico. The weevil drills into cotton bolls with its beak, seeking concealment for its eggs. Larvae RACHEL CARSON raised these ques- The Pesticide Dilemma mature, eat their way out of the nursery, and look for bolls to deposit their own eggs in. If conditions are right, six generations of weevils can ravage a field in a single season. In 1892 the weevil invaded the cotton belt near Brownsville, Texas, and quickly blan- keted half the state. Panicky legislators of- fered $50,000 for an effective remedy, but no one collected. By 1921 the weevil had crossed the Mississippi and marched like Sherman through Georgia to the sea. Every- where the weevil went, cotton yields plum- meted 30 to 50 percent. The cotton industry ailed until the arrival of chlorinated hydrocarbon insect killers, man-made chains of carbon, chlorine, and hydrogen atoms that affect the nervous sys? tem. Recovery was swift, as I heard from Perry Adkisson, vice president for Agricul- ture and Renewable Resources at Texas A 82 University. ?It was like magic. Farmers planted longer-fruiting cotton and made unheard-of yields under an umbrella of insecticides." pesticides killed beneficial insects?ants, spiders, assassin preyed on the tobacco budworm and the cotton boll- worm. Unleashed, the worms caused heavy damage in the early 19505 before DDT stopped them. Meanwhile, repeated spray? ing was making the weevil resistant. Even the most powerful chemical does not kill all the members of a generation of pests: Susceptible ones are culled out, but those with chance genes for resistance live to pass them on to Constant use of the same chemical favors more and more such individuals, until nearly the entire pest population is resistant. Insects evolve resis- tance rapidly because they breed quickly and by the hundreds. And even if spraying later ends, they never entirely lose their new ability to detoxify a pesticide (page 154). ?Resistant weevils gave farmers a hint of what was happening to the ecology," Perry said, ?but they only mixed chemicals and sprayed more often at higher dosages." In 1962 resistant budworms and boll- worms ate more cotton than did weevils. Farmers skirted bankruptcy while spraying every week, and many quit. In northeast Mexico, halfa (Continued on page 156) THE MAGIC didn't last. Besides weevils, 151 INC-TIP TORNADOES swirl ?rm a BS cloud of kerosene. smoke in a NASA 9 wind tunnel. During actual pesticide appli- cation. a spray plane's turbulent some droplets off target by propelling them aloft. where. they may drift for miles. NASA research is aimed at modifying wing design to counteract these e?'Jcts. For ground application. on electrical charge ca omhm drift. At the 'versity of Georgia. spray ?oats above a man's hand below}. Given a negative charge the- low}. it seeles a ground a mi races to the llaml. lilzei?lings to a magnet, as it would to a plant. Are we breeding ?supenbug?? LOWING THROUGH DDT. a tobacco budworm (above) remains unaffected by the white lethal to earlier generations of the pest. I a house?y (left, top) were a 200?pound human, the DDT drenching it would be equivalent to twenty pounds?a killing dose if ingested. To the ?y it might as well be sugar water. These masters of resistance are tested at the Uni- versity of California at Riverside under the National Geographic. February I 980 Surgery on a ?re ant at Texas A 8: (below) reveals the post-pharyngeal gland, important in absorbing oil-based pesticides. Such research, ahmg with behavioral studies empinying hair-thin copper bands (center), mayr'ead to e?ecthre controlstrategies. NAYIONIL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES P. BLAIR Drought followed by heavy snows, favorable conditions for a grasshopper, provoked an explosive infestation in 1979. This adult, feeding on corn, can consume its own weight in 16 hours. 160 himself who named the ant: Solenopsis in? victa. (Invicta means ?unconquered.") Brazil?s red fire ant probably hopped a freighter to reach Mobile, Alabama, before 1940. Despite a continuous effort by the USDA to control or eradicate what it calls a ?people pest,? the ant now infests 200 mil- lion acres from Texas to the arolinas. Red fire ant queens produce new queens year round, dotting an acre with as many as fifty colonies; mature mounds swarm with two hundred thousand ants that attack in- truders en masse and mat together to raft floodwaters. Experts disagree on what the insect costs farmers, but a dry ?re ant mound can be as tough as a tree stump on the blades of a hay mower or a soybean reaper. Near Tifton, Georgia, I excavated a fire ant mound in search of a queen. I hacked at rock-hard soil until two ants scrabbled up my shovel to clamp their jaws onto my thumb and pump abdominal stingers into me. Red ?re ant stings may raise only ugly pustules or red welts as they did on me, but they can also kill quail nestlings or shock a hypersensitive person into heart failure. USDA and southern states fought red fire ants with the insecticide mirex for 15 years, until EPA banned it in 1978. It had caused cancer and birth defects in laboratory mice?and had been detected in human tis- sue samples collected in the South. Dr. Buren grants the viciousness of red fire ants and the need to control them, but says the ban on mirex was all to the good, and not only for public health. Mirex did kill red fire ants, he points out, but destroyed predatory native ants as well, enabling the more prolific fire ants to reinfest a sprayed area and become predominant. As their population burgeons, they invade adjoining land to spread almost unchecked. Now nine states want to combat fire ants with Ferriamicide, which contains not only mirex but also additives to speed decomposi? tion. The EPA approved Ferriamicide in January 1979, but withdrew its approval two weeks later. Canadian studies. over- looked earlier, showed that a breakdown product of Ferriamicide was as much as a hundred times more toxic than mirex. Also belatedly, there is now some evi- dence that red fire ants can be effective pred- ators of boll weevils and cotton bollworms. National Geographic, February 1980 Bonn ?ea beetle Adufts nibble tiny holes in ieaves, opening the door to infection by wiit disease. . \l European corn bonerI Piows through the stern along length of ear and cob. Best defense: insect-resistant varieties of corn. Dhineh bug Punctures stems and sucks sap. reducing vitality of the plant. Gem motwenm Feeds on roots and underground ?warms Bv emu. BREEUEN comings 3v PAIRICIA DIWSION NO To outwit a fire ant, U. S. Department of Agriculture scientists in Gainesville. Florida. laced a corn pellet with insecticide (above), hopingfordelivery to the nest-dwelling queen. A stowaway from South America, Solenopsis invicta hopped offat Mobile before 1940. Its nasty. jabbing sting (le?)?delivered with mandibles clamped on ?esh?pesters farm workers in infested fields. Blade?bending ant mounds hamper farm machinenv. Afederal~ state program has futiler spent 150 million dollars on eradication or control since 195 7. ?An atom bombcouldn 'teradicate this [l1 ing." an entomologist observed. Yet?re ants have their good side: they attach pests like the to? bacco budworm (right). ?" Deadly ringer: Capsules of methyl parathiOn, magnified 450 times and dyed pink for identi?cation, dot a pollen??lled storage cell in a comb Bees that for- age blossoms sprayed with pesticide micro-capsules accidentally harvest them with pollen. Brushed into the hind-leg bas- kets?much as is this almond-blossom pol- len (above)?capsules are shuttled to the hive, pigeonholed in the comb. and fed to other bees . . . with fatal results. The pesti- cide?s longevity in the field, an asset to growers who can spray less often, increases its liability in the comb, where it can re- main lethal for more than a year. The Pesticide Dilemma Casualties of carelessness, bees were inadvertently killed when a grower sprayed on orange grove with dimethoate without informing nearby beeheeper Brian Ferguson of Visalia, Califomia (below). His bees gathered pesticide- laden pollen. returned to the colony, and died. Survivors remove a victim from the hive (bottom). Pesticides annually claim 10 percent of the nation?s bees. Some ento- mologists fear a coming shortage of the beneficial insects, which each year polli- nate about three billion dollars? worth of honeybee-dependent crops. My 'c G1: I Lats! a? - I . I. (Continued??om page 151) million acres of cotton dwindled to 1.200 in just four years. I asked Perry if the lesson had to be so harsh. He paused. ?Probably. Farmers can be hardheaded: entomologists. too. They recommended chemicals enthusiastically. and pesticides caught on before the consequences were fully considered." ton disaster. Dan Pustejovsky now grows cotton in the Texas ?blacklands? using IPM integrated pest management. IPM combines bene?cial insects. special plant breeds. restrained spraying, and what Dan calls ?commonsense farming.? The Texas blacklands slope from north of Dallas south past San Antonio in a crust of dark dirt. In 1900 they yielded more than a third ofthe state's cotton. much of which has since moved west to the arid High Plains, where weevils freeze to death in the dry win- ter wind. What stayed. worms and weevils got, and today blacklands farmers harvest scarcely 10 percent of the cotton in Texas. Dan farms 1.630 acres near Whitney, and two weeks before harvest he showed me cot- ton two feet high, loaded with fleecy lint. Dan?s plants fruit heavy and fast. so he can harvest early and escape late-season worms, weevils, and aphids. Dan strips his cotton in early September, SOME FARMERS learned from the cot- Bug birth control promises new, non- poisonous tactics in boll weevil control. In a trial program in North Carolina, weevil are nourished to the pupal stage by food coataining red dye. which stains their 1' nnards for field iden- tifica tion even after they have metamor- phosed into adults (left). Sterilized by radiation, they are released to mate in the ?elds with untreated adults. but no new generation is produced. In the same trials, sex lures called pheromones duplicate mating odors and attract weevils to traps and death in a halting sun. Dr. Herbert C. Brown (right) of Purdue University won a 1979 Nobel prise for his discovery of chemical transformations involving bo- ranes, which expedite the production of such pheromones. National Geographic. February 1980 direction of entomologist Dr. George P. Georghiou. He explains: ?Chance genes enable a few individuals to survive pesti- cides and multiply.? How the resistant survivors proliferate is shown in the illustration at left: The top leaf is infested with insect pests. Only one, shown yellow, has the genes to resist a given insecticide. When a chemical is sprayed, only the yellow insect survives, to The Pesticide Dilemma be joined later by susceptible, unsprayed specimens. When the two types mate, many o??spring are susceptible, but some are not. The leaf is resprayed, killing near- ly all the ordinary insects. But the resis- tant ones, now an overwhelming majority, can breed, multiply, and injure crops, un- disturbed by the pesticide. When new chemicals are formulated, the cycle begins anew, with the insects again the winners. The ants pry larvae out of infested bolls and gang up on young adult weevils. S. Bradleigh Vinson, an entomologist at Texas A 81 University, hopes biology will reveal better ways to control red fire ants. He tests ant proteins as an insecticide bait, trying to make poison so palatable that worker ants will carry it to their queen. ?Mirex,? Brad told me, ?used to be the ultimate answer. Now it isn?t, but once a pesticide is developed and used, we tend to neglect other pest-control methods. Unfor? tunately, the more effective a pesticide is at first, the more likely it will leave you with- out alternatives if it fails or is banned . Take Nosema locustae, a one?celled para- site that ate grasshoppers alive??from the inside out?during the western grasshopper plague of 1979. Last May and June, from Arizona to Montana, grasshoppers pushed out of egg pods and up from the earth in hungry bil- lions. In July they left the rangelands for the corn, and in September the corn for the wheat. Alfalfa turned to stubble, barley be- came chaff, and prairie grass bent and van- ished in a summer storm of grasshoppers. In northeast Wyoming I rode through the insects on a motorbike behind Jerry Onsager of the USDA Rangeland Insect Laboratory in Bozeman, Montana. Racked on the back of Jerry?s bike were aluminum rings like ma- gician?s hoops; he set them out at intervals in the sage so grasshoppers could settle in them and be counted. ?How many are out here?? ?About 15 hoppers to the square yard.? Parts of South Dakota were smothered by thirty times as many. What harm could 15 to the square yard do? Jerry prodded a ring with the toe of his boot, launching a shower of grasshoppers. ?Leave these hoppers out here, and at the end of summer it?ll look like someone went over the range with a lawn mower. To quell that appetite, scientists at the Rangeland Insect Laboratory cultured N0- sema lorustae in live grasshoppers, mashed the insects to a slurry, extracted the Nose-ma spores, and sprayed them on a wheat?bran bait. The microscopic spores resemble rice grains; each contains a filament cocked like ALTERNATIVES can be bizarre. The Pesticide Dilemma a spring to shoot into a grasshopper?s stom- ach wall, germinate, and multiply. In one month a single Nosema protozoan can trans- form a leaping grasshopper into a fragile shell bloated with billions of spores. Because Nosemo kills slowly, ranchers and farmers cannot use it like conventional pesticides to stem :1 grasshopper invasion al- ready under way; it can, however, forestall future damage. In the wild, Nosema out- breaks control grasshoppers for as long as four years as the insects cannibalize and in- oculate each other. Then, when grasshop? pers become too few to support a reservoir of the parasite, Nosema becomes dormant. Nosema and other biological pest-control organisms have special appeal for EPA, which has proposed to exempt them from certain of the safety tests required of new chemical pesticides. The high cost of testing new pesticides inadvertently discourages the development of viruses, protozoa, bac- teria, and molds: Because they attack only specific weeds or insects, they offer chemical companies no large markets from which to recoup expenses. in his future, and he says a Midwest fast? food chain of "beefalo barns. He is shrewd; he already builds and sells rustic log homes and raises buffalo?beef cattle. He grows crops too, organicallyres pesticides are banned. Columns of mist up from farm ponds as I drove onto Clarence?s land one fall morning. It was Sunday and he was at church in Pocahontas, Illinois, 50 I looked over the farmstead: three-story?tall grain bins; barns crammed with combines and tractors; pens for the beefalo; the farmhouse Clarence was born in, too small now for his wife and nine kids; and, going up, a spacious log ranch house. When Clarence arrived, I asked if he was really making so much money. He grinned. ?And saving it. I don?t have any costs for chemicals like my neighbors do. fertilize with fish emulsion and manure from my cattle. I rotate alfalfa with my wheat to smother weeds. In corn I keep them down by cultivating. Insects are no problem either. Alfalfa weevils may hit, but the bene? ficial bugs take care of them.? ASK CLARENCE KORTE what he sees 161 Clarence harvests as much per acre as his neighbors who spray, and his crops bring more money because they are grown with- out chemicals. Last year he sold corn for a dollar a bushel more than the going price. But money is not Clarence?s sole motive. few of my neighbors share my belief that 'as you sow, so shall you reap,? and if you sow pesticides, you reap poison. I gave up chemicals in 197'back to them, I?d quit farming.? A recent report from Congress?s Office of Technology Assessment estimates that if all farmers gave up pesticides. commercial pro- duction of apples, lettuce, and specialty crops, such as strawberries, would cease. Insects, weeds, and plant disease would ruin enough corn, wheat, and soybeans to boost prices 60 percent, but if farmers adopted integrated pest management, grain losses would decline again and pesticide use on major crops could be reduced by T5 percent. Dr. David Pimentel, an entomologist at Cornell University, agrees there would be losses. By his reckoning, retail food prices would rise 12 percent and food supplies fall 9 percent if farmers abandoned pesticides. ?Pests have taken about one-third of our food every year for more than thirty years,? he told me. ?Loss of 9 percent more would make our diet plainer, but not necessarily poorer. In any case, we could use less pesti- cide and do a better job of pest control, help the environment, and have greater confi- dence that we?re not doing something to our bodies for which we may be sorry later. We may be sorry. Aside from acute poi~ soning, the effects of pesticides on humans 162 Doom for the cabbage looper may come in the form of a virus. When the virus is in- jected (above), it hijachs a cell and forces the host nucleus to produce additional vi- ruses (right) that attack other cells. In six days the infected looper is reduced to a fragile shell (left, at right) that collapses into ooze. Just a quarter gram of this ex? perimental virus can control an infested acre. Viruses are now being marshaled against the pink bollworrn and moth. There are no panaceas, though: Such mi- crobes could pose human health problems, and some pests develop resistance to bio- logicalas well as chemical pesticides. National Geographic, February [980 Ihe testing controversy CIENTISTS often learn how pesticides and other chemicals may affect hu- man health by experimenting with mice, rats, and monkeys. Because all mammals share similar genetic and metabolic mechanisms, scientists can ob? serve a chemical?s effect in rats and reasonably expect a like ef? fect in humans. Rodent studies may span three years and cost $500,000, although they typically involve only 400 test animals and 200 untreated controls. Since ex- pense and time limit the num- ber of test animals, they are dosed with chemicals in amounts for larger than those humans normally encounter. If ?fty rodents are fed a cancer-causing chemical at levels humans meet with, the chance of even one developing cancer is scant; depending on the chemical, 10,000 rodents might have to be tested to note a single cancer. That incidence seems trivial, yet in the Ameri- can population of 220 million, that would mean 22,000 cancer cases. But testing 10,000 ro? dents to detect the dangeris im- practical. The alternative is to increase dosages, leading some of the public to think that any- thing in big enough doses will cause cancer. In fact, of 1,500 suspect chemicals, only a third have been evaluated; 60 per- cent of those produced cancer in test animals, and 26 are known to cause human cancer. Animal tests indicate haz- ards, but cannot measure risk or predict human sensitivity to 1. (. chemicals: Test animals, un- like humans, eat uniform diets, may be bred to have predictable rates of spontaneous disease, and usually are exposed to only one chemical. But tests using animals do correlate degrees of chemical exposure and resulting toxic ef- fects, a relationship classically shown as an curve (above). Industry scientists argue that since lower doses produce fewer in animals, there must be exposure levels below which even the most toxic chemical is harmless; thus a ban on a cancer agent may be unnecessary. Other experts caution that such thresholds? ifthey exist at all?are likely to be so low that animal tests can- not pinpoint them. Most ofthe 63,000 chemicals in commerce have not been .. .- i v.11; I u. l; a thoroughly tested in animals, butcheaperandfastermethods using microbes are helping sci- entists catch up. One test, con- ceived by Dr. Bruce N. Ames of the University of California at Berkeley, checks the ability of compounds to mutate Salmo- nella typhimurium, a food- poisoning bacterium. The Ames test indirectly measures a chemical?s poten- tial to cause cancer: 90 percent of known cancer?causing com- pounds also cause genetic mu- tations. Salmonella genetically incapable of producing the amino acid histidine are incu- bated for 48 hours with the test chemical and ground rat liver. Nutrients, but not histidine, are added. If the test chemical mutates the Salmonella, some of the mutant bacteria manu- facture histidine, multiply, and form colonies Though not infallible, the Ames test is a sensitive early- waming system. Testing of chemicals on one billion bacte- ria, rather than 400 rodents, re? duces the chance thata hazard will go unnoticed. In 1975 the Ames test implicated peroxide hair dyes as cancer agents; in 1977 it did the same for Tris, a ?ame retardant then used in children?s sleepwear. Later tests confirmed that both Tris and the dyes cause cancer in animals. 179 Bug-vs.-bug tactics of biological control pit Trichogramma wasps (below) against boll? wonns. The dust?mote-size wasps lay their eggs in those of the bollwonn (right). The wasp larvae hatch and consume the bollwomt eggs before emerging as adultsjaclz Bleltm of Rincon-Vltova in Ventura, Call- fornia, releases another bene?cial wasp, Aphytis melinis (bottom), which controls cit- rus red scalefor twenty dollars an acre. com- pared to two hundred dollars an acre for spraying. Biological control does not pollute the environment but laclzs the. swift punch of chemical pesticides. An alternative: integrat- ed pest management, a combination of bio- loglcal control. pest-resistant plants. and restrainedspraying. are seldom distinct, and few farmers and chemical companies are alarmed. After all. goes the argument, if the people most ex- posed to pesticides are healthy. it is unlikely that anyone who absorbs only minute doses will be hurt. as she moved down ranks of almond trees near Madera. California, waving a white flag and showing a crop duster which row to spray next. ?I?ve been sprayed with everything you can think of for ten years.? Frances said. "and never been sick. Looking past her tanned face and her sunglasses flecked with whitish chemical, I could see a biplane skim a power line and head straight for us. ?You should see me when we spray with FRANCES SOTELO concurs. We talked copper sulfate: I turn green." Frances hand- ed me her straw hat. A week ago it had been new and white?now it was the color of blue cheese. The plane raced over a grainfield. Frances waved her flag. "It?s better than being a housewife. and I get $3.75 an hour?not bad for Madera." Frances moved upwind to the next row: I followed. Crossing an irrigation ditch be- tween the grain and the almond orchard. the plane suddenly spurted a sheet of spray. ?My 18-year-old loves to ?ag. She comes out in shorts and a tank top to tan herself while the planes spray.? Frances scarcely flinched when the plane roared by thirty feet away, drenching the trees with fungicide. It drifted in all directions. It stank like rotting mushrooms and it stung my eyes. The plane veered our way after its final Reaping bene?ts of organic farming, Cart and Chris Korte bale alfalfa on their father?s farm in Pocahontas, Illinois (top). Tawny fields of wheat (facing page) and green rectangles of soybeans and corn checker the 520 acres. Clarence Korte re- nounced pesticides ten years ago. Instead, he relies on bene?cial insects, such as the assassin bug?here killing a tobacco bud- worm (above)?and mail-order ladybugs. 168 federal indemnities for part of his losses, but need not trace the pesticide at fault. In beekeeper?s netting, I went with Brian to judge the damage in one of his beeyards near Visalia. An orange grove nearby had been sprayed without notice the day before. and now the grass in front of 170 hives was matted with honeybees. At each hive ?housekeeper? bees dragged out dead ??eld workers? that had been foraging among or- ange blossoms. Others stung drones to death to husband their colony?s stored nectar; with no field force to gather more, there were too many mouths to feed. ?If killer bees ever reach California,? Brian says, ?they won?t survive the pesticides. Conscientious growers spray in the eve- ning or at night. when bees do not forage. Yet even this cannot protect bees against methyl parathion sealed in microscopic hulls that leach their contents slowly, like timed?release cold capsules. This packaging prolongs the effectiveness of methyl parathion and thus reduces spray? ing, but to pass through sprayer ?lters, the capsules are only the size of pollen grains. Bees unwittingly mix them with pollen to feed their brood, and packed in the comb, they can kill bees from one year to the next. Though less toxic to spray men than ordi- nary methyl parathion, the capsules have weakened or destroyed twenty thousand bee colonies since 1974 (pages 172-3). The honeybee's plight does not move Amon Fonville, an orange grower I met hardly a dozen miles from Brian?s decimated beeyard. Amon was towing his speed spray- er, a ground rig that blasts out pesticide with enough force to whip tree limbs like a hurri- cane. Because of honeybees, Amon groused, he was spraying his trees for thrips an extra time, at extra expense. To protect bees, California limits use of some pesticides on blooming crops. ?Bees were on my bloom earlier this month,? Amon said, ?so I couldn?t use parathion to kill thrips that scar my oranges; I used an- other insecticide that cost more and gave me less thrip control.? Amon markets his or? anges fresh, under the Sunkist label, and perfect skin?no thrip scars?is vital. Back home after spraying, he poured me juice and said that peeple demand attractive produce. But as Amon sees (Continued on page 175) National Geographic. February 1980 me. ?And sometimes pilots get careless. We accidentally sprayed the municipal water plant once; the city had to drain and refill the reservoir. Pause. ?Cost us :54 .000." On busy days company pilots and tractor drivers will spray 3 .000 acres. drawing on a warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with pes- ticides in sacks. cans. drums. and plastic jugs labeled Pounce. Ambush. Lasso. Pounce costs $204 a gallon. and the firm?s pest-control adviser receives a commission on the pesticides he prescribes for farmers. In one agriculture magazine a chemical company urges him to sell more and win ?air fare to anywhere.? "We're regulated like you wouldn't be? lieve," the dispatcher said later, as we watched a tractor spray herbicide on a field shimmering with heat. ?People make regu- The 9010?? that kills: Jeannine lations with no idea what they?re talking adds di'etomqsquiwlun?ae ?tMiSSiSSl-Ppl about. Squintingin the glare, he explained, State Unwersm,? (?Povet Ingestedd?'e ?Bylaw! we?re sometimes supposed to wear sorbs solar radiation, causmg m'olecula-r coveralls, rubber boots. a hat. gloves. and a face shield. You try that In this 105? heat." with tiny amo'unm ofinfecn-OUS pathogens Other Compromlses have aChleVEd? (below) resist diseases that claim untreat- law says we have to notify [hi3 county ed plants, lower right agricultural commissioner each time we use insecticidal dusts Monday through Friday. We do it. but it?s a nuisance. On weekends we dust like hell and notify him Monday. We?re 100 percent behind regulations. but not when they interfere with business. would like the right to spray anytime. without liability. As it is, that?s just about the way things are." Brian Ferguson?s words carry bitterness. In 1978 careless pes? ticide spraying cost him 2.500 colonies of honeybees. Brian is big; his hands can scoop up hun- dreds ofpoisoned honeybees atatime. Bigin another sense as well: With 15 .000 colonies. Huston-Ferguson Apiaries is the largest bee operation in California. Honeybees pollinate fruits, vegetables, and other crops that make up one-third of our diet; even dairy cattle eat alfalfa polli- nated by bees. Pesticides annually destroy or damage more than 400,000 colonies, however, and some bee experts worry about a future ?pollination crisis. While Brian is less alarmed, the carnage rankles. USDA inspectors can recommend LOT OF FARMERS and applicators The Pesticide Dilemma if)? pass. Suddenly Frances started yelling. ?You slob! You?re going to drown us!? The pilot leaned out of his cockpit, all smiles, as the spray slapped us. Frances threw down her flagstaff. Pesticide coated it, except where her fingers were outlined like ancient Indian handprints stenciled on rock. protection in the country.? Clearly the best is not always good enough, adds Dr. Ephraim Kahn of California?s Depart- ment of Health Services. He tracks pesticide illness among the state?s farm laborers. ?Our safety regulations are more effective than they were a decade ago," Dr. Kahn told me in his Berkeley office, ?but farm workers in this state are still exposed to space-age chemicals and protected only by Model-T standards and enforcement. Dr. Kahn pointed out that farm workers are not covered by pesticide-exposure limits comparable to those that protect chemical- plant workers. Other critics cite low ?nes that make stringent environmental rules toothless. And they charge con?ict of in- terest to the enforcers: California?s 54 agri? cultural commissioners are appointed by county supervisors, some of them growers. Sensitive to such criticisms, state officials are revising pesticide regulations. More than 300,000 farm workers toil in California. A third work full time, like Frances Sotelo and, once, Andres Murillo. Housewives and students join them in sum- mer, and an unknown number of illegal aliens supplement them year round. No one, Dr. Kahn said, knows for sure how many farm workers suffer pesticide poisoning, or to what degree, for the symp- toms?nausea, headaches, diarrhea??can mimic those of other illnesses. Few doctors are trained to link a farm laborer?s rash. vomiting, or blurred vision to pesticides. Dr. Kahn pushed a sheet of numbers at me: 1,518 cases of reported pesticide illness in California during 1977. Nearly half in- volved farm workers. "Work-in jury reports provide us a lot of information about job hazards, except in ?eld labor. Officially we hear of only a small fraction?possibly as little as one percent? of the pesticide illness in ?eld workers, mostly pickers.? ?How can anyone say that seriously?? has the best farm?worker 166 The query, half derisive, half defensive, came from Jake Mackenzie, assistant chief for pesticide regulation in California?s Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento. Jake?s Scottish burr sharpened in anger as he spoke. ?Sure, not all poisonings are re? ported. Social and economic pressures are against it. Machismo for one: Some farm workers will not admit pesticides affect them. Many speak no English, and workers? compensation is a mystery. Unregistered aliens risk deportation if they see a doctor. With these caveats,? Jake asserted, ?our re- porting system is effective.? Yet farm workers can get into trouble just for mentioning safety hazards. They may be fired or blackballed as potential agitators for the United Farm Workers union, which negotiates pesticide-protection clauses in its labor contracts. What about the courts? I consulted Dr. James Dahlgren, a specialist who diagnosed Andres Murillo?s illness and who teaches oc- cupational medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. He had a ques- tion for me. ?Can Andres?s lawyers prove he was hurt by pesticides?? Seldom, if ever, Dr. Dahlgren said, have California growers admitted in court that pesticides injured a farm worker. ?They know that the more awards there are for pesticide injuries, the higher production costs and insurance premiums will skyrock- et. A judge hearing a pesticide-poisoning case balances a farm worker?s right to justice against the economic health of a corporation or of society. in the Imperial Valley have other wor- ries. At one of the valley?s larger pest- control companies, a field dispatcher?who prefers anonymity? complained vehement- 1y of overregulation. I found him at five one morning in his of?ce. Just back from a night mission? dusting mites with sulfur?he was un- shaved and planning new raids. Like a squadron leader, he tapped a wall map, briefing his pilots and warning that their pesticides had better hit the right target. ?Our big problem is spray drift,? he told MEN AND OUTFITS like those I found National Geographic, February 1980 TODD: the penilous by-pnoduct EADLIEST of all man-made poisons, according to most sci- entists, TCDD?shorthand for oxin, frequently called simply dioxin?is the inevitable by- product of the manufacture of the herbicides and silvex. TCDD by Dow Chemical U.S.A., ?ech a vial cradled in protective gloves (left). These 25 milligrams equal the amount in a ton Some of the here magni?ed 45 times (lower right), were given to the government for toxicological study. At Dow?s Midland, Michi- gan, plant, samples drawn to assay TCDD levels (right) regis- ter between .02 and .03 parts per million?well below recom- mended limit ofa tenth of a part permillion. Is the TCDD in a true menace to human health? ?There?s good scientific basis for that con- cern; it?s not something you can shrug off,? says biochemist Dr. Matthew Meselson, who has de- tected traces in beef fat. As little as five parts per trillion (ppt) of TCDD in the dietcaused tumors in rats. Five hundred caused fe- male monheys to abortanddie. Though no one denies its toxicity to laboratm'y animals, effect on human beings is hotly de- bated. Avows James H. Hones, a vice president of Dow U.S.A., ?There is not a single Dow scientist I know of who doesn?t think that is one of the safest products we make.? The Pesticide Dilemma 181 Vietnamese farmers, American veterans. and families near Seveso. Italy, where in 1976 an exploding chemical plant broadcast TCDD bythe pound. Theyinterpretlimited American and Italian studies and anecdotal reports from Vietnam as evidence that mal- formed fingers and toes are unusually com- mon among these children, a conclusion not shared by most other experts. The Air Force plans to investigate the health of airmen who ?ew spray missions in Vietnam: other researchers are studying men who worked in now defunct plants in West Virginia and Arkansas. Dr. Lewis Shadoff doubts they Will find much. He is senior research specialist at Dow's analytical laboratory and showed me TCDD for research. ?fearing disposable plastic gloves, Dr. Shadoff gingerly held up a vial containing one one?thousandth of an ounce of line TCDD (page 180}. It lookedlike baking soda. It could probably kill 500 people. may be one of only 15 people in the world." Dr. Shadoff said, ?who have han- dleci pure TCDD. It makes me nervous ev- ery time. After he had put away the vial, he peeled off his gloves, packed them in a car- ton, and sent it by courier to an incinerator to be burned at Dr. Wilbur Tulty of the Oregon Re- gional Primate Research Center in Beaver- ton also respects TCDD. He knows what tiny doses can do to rhesus monkeys. The effects are striking. Production of sperm cells. red and white blood cells, and thymocytes cells that combat infection? stops. Pregnant monkeys abort; important, Dr. McNulty says, because monkeys and humans share the same ovulation cycle and hormonal phases. And at first their embryos develop at about the same rate. From his monkey studies, Dr. McNulty concludes that a teaspoonuor even less??0f Suspicion dawned in the mind ofBonnie Hill, here with daughter Cedra, when she and seven other women suffered 11 miscar- riages following spraying of forests around Alsea, Oregon. Animal tests and the unusual miscarriage rate led EPA to suspend the herbicide in March 1979; a permanent ban awaits further study . . . and debate. 182 may be hazardous to women during some critical period in early pregnancy. Dr. Matthew Meselson and colleagues at the Harvard Biological Laboratories are biochemists who have found TCDD in beef fat and Vietnamese fish. Mother?s milk is also suspect. He believes TCDD may con- centrate to dangerous levels in the body. "Dow's Dr. Shadoff says it's excreted,? Dr. Meselson told me. ?But more impor- tant, is the damage it does cumulative? Can it be repaired? rays pass through a person with the speed of light, but it?s ridiculous to say that therefore there are no aftereffects. Each exposure works injury, and if TCDD acts similarly. it's cumulative. Genes don't Despite chemicals, '70 majcn insect pests plague attacks corn from roots to silk tassels (facing page). The corn earworm (right, above), most often seen by the consumer, annually robs farmers of millions of dollars. The western corn rootwonn has spread from a small area in southern Nebraska to infest 18 states (map). Now resistant to once potent poisons like heptachlor, the rootworm profits from the predilection for monoculture, the practice of growing contiguous acres of a single crop. It has fanned out through the endless ?elds of corn that blanket mid-America? recently at a I40?mile-a-year clip. Control? Crop rotation? interspersing corn with a legume like soybeans?might work. Otherwise, ?it may well continue to spread wherever corn grows,? predicts entomologist Georghiou, who compiled this map. "It is dif?cult to tell when an . I . . ecological cam-er Wm stop it? The pesticide-peeistant westecn has the upper1 hacdm the com hslt~ and keeps moving on. HOG GALLERY of pests 0 500 0 STATUTE MILES 500 before the year?s last weevils can dig into leaf litter to overwinter. Then, as an added pre- caution. he shreds the bare stalks and plows them into the earth. ?If those overwintering weevils get by you, you?ll be spraying all season.? Dan told me. did spray once this year, but early, to give beneficial insects time to recover and catch July bollworms. Four years ago Dan joined a statewide IPM program organized by Texas A5: University. Scouts sweep his ?elds each week with billowing nets and report their catch to BUGNET, a computer that alerts Dan when worms and weevils are about to reach damaging levels; only then does he spray. In 1976 Texas cotton farmers sprayed only a tenth as much insecticide as in 1964, partly because of integrated pest manage- ment and BUGNET. As I left his farm, Dan handed me a branch of ?uffy cotton bolls. still need chemicals. But I don?t spray anymore to kill every last insect?I live with a lot more bugs than I used to. So does Jim Brazzel, but still he wants to wipe out the boll weevil. We met for the first time in a dusty cotton field outside Eliz- abeth City, North Carolina. As director of the United States Department of Agricul- ture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Boll Weevil Eradication Trial, Jim had come to gauge the enemy?s strength. The battlefield covers 21,000 acres, and in total war, all is fair. Traps baited with sex lures capture adult weevils, and strategic spraying of a chemical growth reg- ulator?also used against moths in ?ve states?leaves young insects half- formed. Sterilized males dropped by air divert female weevils from other, fertile partners. The experiment ends in 1981; if it succeeds, USDA may expand it nationwide. Estimated time and cost to the last, lonely weevil: ten years and perhaps seven hun- dred million dollars. ?If we get rid of the weevil and use inte? grated pest management, argues Jim Braz- zel. ?we can cut pesticides on cotton by 50 to 75 percent.? The prospect tantalizes: Each year cotton receives 26 million pounds of toxaphene alone, an insecticide that in labo- ratory tests causes tumors in mice and ?broken?back in cat?sh. Jim concedes it is an expensive gamble against long odds to try eradicating the wee- vil. ?But,? he warns, ?insecticides are fail- ing, and we have to eliminate the boll weevil while we still can. Or learn to live with it. William F. Buren, an entomologist at the University of Florida. ?Just look at the red imported ?re ant. It was Dr. Buren ERADICATION is unrealistic,? says Dr. The Pesticide Dilemma 157 vegetables shield pesticides from sunlight that breaks them down. Rain washes away some of the pesticide but flushes the rest deeper among the leaves. where it stays un- less a consumer thinks to scrub it off. "Then people are eating pesticides?" Jack was only somewhat reassuring. ?De?nitely, but not in harmful amounts. Most produce that we check either has no pesticides or negligible amounts within state tolerances. Of course. things are bound to slip by. We?re like traffic cops?we can't catch all the speeders." In California five inspectors gather about 7 .000 fruit and vegetable samples annually; about one percent contain more pesticide than the law allows. When analyzed, each of the vegetables I saw Jack collect at the wholesale market was shown to carry tiny residues ofpesticides. seven kinds in all. and well within legal limits. Noteveryone is satisfied that what is legal is necessarily safe. The federal govern- ment?s General Accounting Office repeated- ly criticizes EPA for setting pesticide residue tolerances without adequate safety testing. Some imported food may legally contain pesticides banned in this country. GAO also questions the Food and Drug Administra- tion?s performance of its several monitoring programs aimed at enforcing safe levels of 268 pesticides on domestic food, charging that FDA monitors only 30 percent of them. And skeptics point out that food may carry pesticides in unpredictable combinations that can affect our bodies in ways individual ?safe? doses cannot. Yet another complication: pesticides in drinking water. Last year in California, state health officials discovered surprising levels of the soil fumigant DBCP (dibromo? chloropropanel in some wells of water sys- tems serving 420,000 people from Sacra- mento to the Mexican border. Banned in California in 1977 after it sterilized men at a pesticide-formulation. plant. DBCP had percolated down to groundwater. DBC destroys rootworms, and farmers injected it into soil in vineyards, orchards, and citrus groves. After it was found in wells, including some in Arizona and one in Hawaii, EPA suspended its use. A subse? quent temporary ban has been imposed in all states except Hawaii. The Pesticide. Dilemma Dr. Keith T. Maddy, staff toxicologist of the California Department of Food and Ag- riculture, is concerned about DBCP's car? cinogenicity, or power to cause cancer. EPA considers lifetime use of water carrying as little as one part per billion (equiv- alent to one drop in 12,000 gallons) to be un? safe. Not because DBCP is significantly more potent than other carcinogens. but because we consume more water than food. One of but ?ve inspectors in alifornia? producer ofone-third of the nation's vege- t'ablesttis Rashe (left) collects grapes, peaches. plums, and other produce for pes- ticide testing. Of the 7,000 samples ana? lyzed by the state each year, about one percent exceed legal limits. Thorough washing can reduce contamination. Dangerous levels of DBCP, an suspended pesticide that has been shown to cause male sterility in humans, taint a well near Fresno used by farm worker Lupe Arredondo (above). ?You have to drink water,? he shrugs. 177 ?An orange,? Dr. Maddy said, ?may carry DBCP but be only 2 percent of your daily diet. But you drink two quarts of. water a day, makingyour DBCP dose much greater. It?s like contaminating all your food?not just the orange?twice over.? TURNED A WATER TAP more than once in California after I had learned about DBCP, and many times thought of contamination. But I heard the word itself most often in Oregon?s Coast Range, where women wonder if the herbicide has cost them unborn children. The herbicide is 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy? acetic acid but simply to fo'resters, util- ity work crews, rice growers, and ranchers. In 1978 they sprayed more than nine million pounds of it on trees, weeds, and brush in forests, along power lines, in paddies, and on rangeland. Homeowners sprayed silvex, a similar herbicide, on their lawns. Last February EPA suspended use of 2,4,5 -T and silvex on forests, pastures, and rights-of-way, saying that animal studies suggested the herbicides threatened four million people with cancer, birth defects, ge- netic mutations, and miscarriages. Com- pared with their neighbors, said EPA, women near Alsea, Oregon, had miscarried unusually often after had been sprayed on forests surrounding their homes. Bonnie Hill noticed first (pages 182-3). She lives atop the backbone of the Coast Range, among the tall Douglas fir that for- esters prize and the scrubby thimbleberry, salmonberry, and alder thatslow the growth of conifer seedlings if left unsprayed. Bonnie miscarried in 1975, but a daughter, Cedra, was born the nextyear. The little girl slipped behind the hem of her mother?s mater- nity smock when I visited. Cedra?s sister Katalin was born four days after sus- pension of Between 1973 and 1977 Bonnie and seven other women had 11 miscarriages. All but one happened after spring spraying; the ex- ception followed a September spraying. At other times of the year the women had nor- mal pregnancies. Family doctors had no ex- planation, and in April 1978 the women asked EPA to investigate. Citing the animal studies and comparing six years of births and miscarriages in the 178 heavily sprayed Alsea Basin with those of a control group, EPA declared and silvex ?an imminent hazard. Foresters call them irreplaceable, cheaper and more effec- tive than other herbicides. A wide range of critics assailed the EPA miscarriage study as ?seriously ?awed?; the timber industry and Dow Chemical U.S.A., which makes more than any other manufacturer, ap- pealed the suspensiOn in federal court, but lost. Legal sparring for two more years is likely before the question Of a permanent EPA ban on 2 is resolved. Possible links between spraying and miscarriages around Alsea, birth de- fects in a northern California county, and ailments elsewhere in the country are star- tling, but circumstantial. Yet as Bonnie told me, ?The more we look into this, the more unanswered questions we see. The biggest question turns on the hazards of ?dioxin,? speci?cally TCDD (even chem- ists find 2 3 7,S-tetrachlorodibenzopara? dioxin unwieldy). The chemical reactions that produce silvex and unavoida- bly contaminate them with trace amounts of TCDD, the deadliest man-made molecule ever assembled. Minute doses of TCDD have injured or killed test animals, and some scientists believe that even a fraction. of a part per trillion in the diet may, over time, harm humans. An academic possibility, say defenders of TCDD, they note, adheres to soil, does not move readily into plants, is all but insoluble in water, and breaks down in sun- light. For all that, TCDD has been detected in the fat of cattle grazing sprayed pastures and in fish from Vietnam, Where jungles were defoliated with Agent Orange, a mix- ture of the herbicides and that contained extraordinary amounts of TCDD. Dow Chemical disputes these f'md- ings, but has itself discovered TCDD in ?sh from its plant in Mid- land, Michigan. absorbed TCDD from the exhaust of lo- cal incinerators, and that all combus- tion produces assertion other scientists sharply reject. Some scientists perceive 'a pattern in the? kinds of birth defects among the children of DOW CONTENDS that the Michigan fish Maw? (Contimredfrom page 168) it, ?Thrips make no difference in the taste of fruit.? Nonetheless, packers downgrade blemished oranges, and growers must spray or risk lower profits. Even cannery crops must look good. Flor- ida growers spray to kill mites whose major fault is coloring oranges russet, though the fruit is intended only forjuice. In California, a principal reason tomato farmers spray is to ensure that whole shipments have no more than one percent cosmetic damage. or can- ners may refuse to process their crop into paste or catsup. ESTICIDES ON FOOD, whether pro? cessed or fresh, give many people pause, and some a shudder: Are we poisoning ourselves? Isought an answer at the Los An? geles Santa Fe Terminal Market, a four- block?long emporium where wholesalers job nearly half a billion dollars" worth of fruit and vegetables every year. With Otis Rashe and Jack Musselman I dodged ?housemen? hustling hand trucks of crated lettuce, cabbage, and melons. Otis and Jack are inspectors for the state of Cali- fornia, and police growers, wholesalers, and supermarket warehouses in eight counties, checking produce for pesticide residues that exceed state and federal safety limits, or tolerances. Jack pried Open crates of romaine lettuce, mustard greens, beets, and kohlrabi to col- lectsamples for analysis. Once Otis sniffed a handful of grapes dusted with sulfur, then, mindfulthatthe state budgets only$7,600 to pay for sampled crates and cartons, decided not to spend $.25 for a full crate of the fruit, hoping to purchase a smaller amount later. Jack paid for the crates of romaine lettuce and mustard greens not only because they were cheaper. but also because the leafy Fungicide Spotters a ?agger gar-bed in protective clothing, as prescribed by law. Though federal and state regulations pro- vide some measure of protection to those who work with and around pesticides, crit- ics charge enforcement is tax, prosecution difficult. Relativelyfew cases thealth and safety violations involving pesticide use reach the courts each year. 175 forget, though the chemical may be gone." Dr. Meselson also believes TCDD may cause miscarriages among women in forests sprayed with ?There may never be rigorous proof," he told me, ?but it?s entirely plausible. What it comes down to is whether society demands that scientists prove it causes miscarriages,or simply show that it might cause them.? carries the burden of proofin the pesti- cide dilemma? Must damage be done before a pesticide is indicted? Or must a company prove beyond all reasonable doubt that its products will not make the public WHAT IT COMES DOWN T0 is, who unknowing guinea pigs, and the environ- ment a laboratory? Definite answers will be long in coming. Our ability to detect infinitesimal traces of pesticides in food. air, and water surpasses our understanding of how they may affect our bodies. A farm worker may develop can- cer decades after exposure to a pesticide. Is the chemical at fault? Could the cancer have been prevented? At what cost? I put my questions to Dr. Meselson, who told me, ?It won't be like this forever; in fifty years, if we use our heads, our understand- ing will be greater and we?ll be able to act more intelligently. But right now we have to do it. the hard way. [j