11 Comments

The wallpaper in my room growing up smelled funny. This explains a lot.

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I worked for a major international airline in 1972. The crew was responsible for spraying the inside cabins with DDT after the pax left.

We did that in many countries and on our return to the United States.

We started to hear how bad it was for us so some started spraying the bottle into the toilets.

We also smoked cigarettes entire flights as the pax were allowed. I never smoked but I inhaled thousands of cigs without a choice.

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Likely my memory is a bit faulty, but I recollect the effect on bird eggs, especially the Bald Eagle, as being the tipping point on use of DDT.

Can’t kill America’s bird!

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The worst thing about DDT poisoning is the memory loss. Worse yet, the memory loss

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Great piece George and sadly even today we read of similar more recent stories - PFAS for example the ‘forever chemicals’ used in a whole host of things from Teflon pans to cosmetics. I think 3M has recently paid billions because of pollution to the water supply in the USA and of course there’s been the ‘Dark Waters’ film.

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Those old ads are worth the price of admission!

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Mmmm... That's good DDT!

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