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Authors: E. G. Vallianatos
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into a doctor’s office, and we found that she had this condition.
“How does this happen?” Yates asked his colleagues in Congress. “How can it happen? Where does cancer come from? It seems to come out of the blue—but we know better than that. We are being subjected to so many cancer-producing influences in our society today—like toxaphene.”
Toxaphene is used widely in the South as insecticide sprayed on cotton crops, Yates said. “That in itself sounds entirely harmless, but it does not stay in place.” Like DDT, toxaphene has “a very strong life,” Yates said.
The toxaphene that is sprayed on crops in the Southern States is lifted by the winds and carried for distances of over a thousand miles, to the city of Chicago. Then it is dropped by rainfall onto the city of Chicago, it is dropped on all the communities surrounding the Great Lakes, and it is dropped into the Great Lakes themselves.
In Lake Michigan, in Lake Superior, whitefish and lake trout have been found to have toxaphene in quantities, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under official surveys, of 10 parts per million. The accepted maximum level of FDA for this kind of a carcinogenic material is 5 parts per million. So that in the fish that swim in the Great Lakes, a thousand miles away from where this chemical is used, we find this cancer-producing material in the fish. It is in the food chain that is being used by people all over the country.
This is the reason that I offer this amendment, to stop this chemical warfare. The House took a position against chemical warfare some time ago. This is a chemical that can harm men, women, and children. 12
Yates’s efforts resulted in a congressional action banning toxaphene, a rare moment of regulatory sanity. I never thanked Sid Yates for his courage, but I knew that what Yates did was one of those rare political events unlikely to happen again in my lifetime. He was right that cancer is not a curse of the gods, but a variety of different diseases that can be triggered by toxic substances in the environment, notably those employed in the chemical warfare of agribusiness. And he correctly characterized the sprays of the farmers as agents of chemical warfare.
It is not as if congressmen and senators do not have access to reliable information about pesticides. They, more than anyone else, have access to thousands of experts working for them in the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office. The National Academy of Sciences is also at their disposal. Moreover, members of Congress have command of appropriations and the agendas of committees with the power of investigation and oversight of every branch of activity inside and outside the government. Over the last forty years or so, after lengthy investigations, hearings, and research, the serious ecological risks and health hazards of farm sprays—including the deficient system of regulating these poisons—have caught the attention of elected officials including Senators Abraham Ribicoff, Walter Mondale, Philip Hart, Edward Kennedy, Paul Sarbanes, and Al Gore, and Representatives L. H. Fountain, John Moss, Bob Eckhardt, George E. Brown Jr., Sid Yates, Ted Weiss, Mike Synar, and Henry Waxman. Sadly, and repeatedly, their voices have been drowned out by those of politicians doing the work of corporate America.
Indeed, powerful politicians seldom challenge the chemical corporations that give birth to these toxic sprays. It is as if these companies have a license, granted by EPA, to decide what is going to live and what is going to die.
A case in point: On September 15, 1983, representatives of Ciba-Geigy, a Swiss corporation and one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and pesticide manufacturers, told EPA scientists they had a new cotton insecticide, dubbed CGA-112913, that was almost ready for registration. Like the ghastly pesticide Dimilin, this new concoction worked by preventing young insects
“How does this happen?” Yates asked his colleagues in Congress. “How can it happen? Where does cancer come from? It seems to come out of the blue—but we know better than that. We are being subjected to so many cancer-producing influences in our society today—like toxaphene.”
Toxaphene is used widely in the South as insecticide sprayed on cotton crops, Yates said. “That in itself sounds entirely harmless, but it does not stay in place.” Like DDT, toxaphene has “a very strong life,” Yates said.
The toxaphene that is sprayed on crops in the Southern States is lifted by the winds and carried for distances of over a thousand miles, to the city of Chicago. Then it is dropped by rainfall onto the city of Chicago, it is dropped on all the communities surrounding the Great Lakes, and it is dropped into the Great Lakes themselves.
In Lake Michigan, in Lake Superior, whitefish and lake trout have been found to have toxaphene in quantities, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under official surveys, of 10 parts per million. The accepted maximum level of FDA for this kind of a carcinogenic material is 5 parts per million. So that in the fish that swim in the Great Lakes, a thousand miles away from where this chemical is used, we find this cancer-producing material in the fish. It is in the food chain that is being used by people all over the country.
This is the reason that I offer this amendment, to stop this chemical warfare. The House took a position against chemical warfare some time ago. This is a chemical that can harm men, women, and children. 12
Yates’s efforts resulted in a congressional action banning toxaphene, a rare moment of regulatory sanity. I never thanked Sid Yates for his courage, but I knew that what Yates did was one of those rare political events unlikely to happen again in my lifetime. He was right that cancer is not a curse of the gods, but a variety of different diseases that can be triggered by toxic substances in the environment, notably those employed in the chemical warfare of agribusiness. And he correctly characterized the sprays of the farmers as agents of chemical warfare.
It is not as if congressmen and senators do not have access to reliable information about pesticides. They, more than anyone else, have access to thousands of experts working for them in the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office. The National Academy of Sciences is also at their disposal. Moreover, members of Congress have command of appropriations and the agendas of committees with the power of investigation and oversight of every branch of activity inside and outside the government. Over the last forty years or so, after lengthy investigations, hearings, and research, the serious ecological risks and health hazards of farm sprays—including the deficient system of regulating these poisons—have caught the attention of elected officials including Senators Abraham Ribicoff, Walter Mondale, Philip Hart, Edward Kennedy, Paul Sarbanes, and Al Gore, and Representatives L. H. Fountain, John Moss, Bob Eckhardt, George E. Brown Jr., Sid Yates, Ted Weiss, Mike Synar, and Henry Waxman. Sadly, and repeatedly, their voices have been drowned out by those of politicians doing the work of corporate America.
Indeed, powerful politicians seldom challenge the chemical corporations that give birth to these toxic sprays. It is as if these companies have a license, granted by EPA, to decide what is going to live and what is going to die.
A case in point: On September 15, 1983, representatives of Ciba-Geigy, a Swiss corporation and one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and pesticide manufacturers, told EPA scientists they had a new cotton insecticide, dubbed CGA-112913, that was almost ready for registration. Like the ghastly pesticide Dimilin, this new concoction worked by preventing young insects
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