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> "Any poison strong enough to kill or damage honey bees is surely strong enough to affect people." This doesn't seem reasonable. For one thing, honey bees are

> "Any poison strong enough to kill or damage honey bees is surely strong enough to affect people." This doesn't seem reasonable. For one thing, honey bees are smaller and weaker than people, and a poison that affected both uniformly should be more damaging to the weaker species. For another, honey bees are very different from humans, and there may be poisons that attack the bees without attacking any part of humans. I agree and understand that ecological damage is bad, and that many real poisons do too much incidental damage to people to be considered "safe", but it seems foolish to base a persuasive argument like this on such faulty reasoning.

scardine 10y ago
I'm not a biologist, but DDT is very effective against larvae (including fish seed), with I think is a good reason to place strong controls on its use (because the DDT sprayed over crops will end up in the rivers). According to [an article in Gismodo][1], In 1971 two people in North Hollywood started eating DDT pills every day. That's right, they willingly swallowed 10mg of poison every single day for three months. In front of witnesses. From the Associated Press: > Robert Loibl and his wife, Louise, hold 10-milligram capsules of DDT which they took in front of witnesses for 93 days at lunch time, June 10, 1971. Loibl said their total dosage was more than the average person consumes in 83 years. He said his wife's dandruff disappeared, their appetites perked up and they feel better. Loibl said they just wanted to call attention to the public that DDT was safe. [1]: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/12/these-people-took-ddt-pills-in-the-1970s-to-prove-it-was-safe/#R7vW5olFepe1Toz5.99
- DrScump 10y ago
  This reminds me of CA Conservation Corps director B.T. Collins[0], who drank malathion to reassure those being exposed to spraying in 1981. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malathion#General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malathion#General
grabcocque 10y ago
The theobromine in chocolate is highly toxic to dogs, but is what makes humans feel good after eating it. It's an argument which is so demonstrably wrong that it beggars belief he would ever have thought he could get away with it.
xkcd-sucks 10y ago
Would you expect to find a chimpanzee poison that doesn't hurt people? What about a rat poison that doesn't hurt people? An insect poison? A fungus poison? A bacteria poison? Biological machinery is remarkably well-conserved, to the point where we can use fish, worms, etc. as reasonable approximations of human biology. Finding fungus poisons that don't have terrible side effects is in practice very difficult, and even antibiotics that don't hurt people are pretty tricky. So it's not terribly faulty reasoning.
- larsiusprime 10y ago
  > What about a rat poison that doesn't hurt people? You mean Coumadin (Warfarin), the popular blood thinner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin It is literally Rat Poison.
  - iak8god 10y ago
    Warfarin is also people poison if you take enough. An appropriate clinical dose is a few milligrams.
    - Banthum 10y ago
      Well, anything is people poison if you take enough. Forced consumption of sufficient water can kill someone. Toxicity isn't really yes/no, it's always a matter of dosage.
      - iak8god 10y ago
        > Well, anything is people poison if you take enough. Yes, but that's not interesting or really relevant. As someone else pointed out, Warfarin is people poison if you take the same amount that's normally used to poison rats.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    In fairness, I think if a man ingested the same proportion a rat ingests, he'd be poisoned too.
24gttghh 10y ago
She wasn't wrong. If the honey bees die, so do many of our crops which no longer get pollinated.
- joecool1029 10y ago
  Except because of her we replaced DDT with something far more harmful to bees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid#Bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid#Bees
  - 24gttghh 10y ago
    Hindsight.

scardine 10y ago

I'm not a biologist, but DDT is very effective against larvae (including fish seed), with I think is a good reason to place strong controls on its use (because the DDT sprayed over crops will end up in the rivers). According to [an article in Gismodo][1], In 1971 two people in North Hollywood started eating DDT pills every day. That's right, they willingly swallowed 10mg of poison every single day for three months. In front of witnesses. From the Associated Press: > Robert Loibl and his wife, Louise, hold 10-milligram capsules of DDT which they took in front of witnesses for 93 days at lunch time, June 10, 1971. Loibl said their total dosage was more than the average person consumes in 83 years. He said his wife's dandruff disappeared, their appetites perked up and they feel better. Loibl said they just wanted to call attention to the public that DDT was safe. [1]: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/12/these-people-took-ddt-pills-in-the-1970s-to-prove-it-was-safe/#R7vW5olFepe1Toz5.99

DrScump 10y ago
This reminds me of CA Conservation Corps director B.T. Collins[0], who drank malathion to reassure those being exposed to spraying in 1981. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malathion#General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malathion#General

grabcocque 10y ago

The theobromine in chocolate is highly toxic to dogs, but is what makes humans feel good after eating it. It's an argument which is so demonstrably wrong that it beggars belief he would ever have thought he could get away with it.

xkcd-sucks 10y ago

Would you expect to find a chimpanzee poison that doesn't hurt people? What about a rat poison that doesn't hurt people? An insect poison? A fungus poison? A bacteria poison? Biological machinery is remarkably well-conserved, to the point where we can use fish, worms, etc. as reasonable approximations of human biology. Finding fungus poisons that don't have terrible side effects is in practice very difficult, and even antibiotics that don't hurt people are pretty tricky. So it's not terribly faulty reasoning.

larsiusprime 10y ago
> What about a rat poison that doesn't hurt people? You mean Coumadin (Warfarin), the popular blood thinner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin It is literally Rat Poison.
- iak8god 10y ago
  Warfarin is also people poison if you take enough. An appropriate clinical dose is a few milligrams.
  - Banthum 10y ago
    Well, anything is people poison if you take enough. Forced consumption of sufficient water can kill someone. Toxicity isn't really yes/no, it's always a matter of dosage.
    - iak8god 10y ago
      > Well, anything is people poison if you take enough. Yes, but that's not interesting or really relevant. As someone else pointed out, Warfarin is people poison if you take the same amount that's normally used to poison rats.
- zeveb 10y ago
  In fairness, I think if a man ingested the same proportion a rat ingests, he'd be poisoned too.

24gttghh 10y ago

She wasn't wrong. If the honey bees die, so do many of our crops which no longer get pollinated.

joecool1029 10y ago
Except because of her we replaced DDT with something far more harmful to bees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid#Bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid#Bees
- 24gttghh 10y ago
  Hindsight.