Re: Orange crush

[cubic-dog]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Ken Brown wrote:

> I suggest that the author of this insulting piece of nonsense go into
> any decent library and pick up a book on the 18th & 19th century
> agricultural revolution. Or read any standard account of the life of
> Louis Pasteur. Inorganic fungicides, pesticides and herbicides go way
> back, scientific study of them comes in in the second half of the 19th
> century.  
> 
> As for whether "so-called modern chlorinated herbicides have been around
> since the late 1800s." that sort of depends on how you define them.

Okay, busted. 
That stuff doesn't really fit the test of "modern".
That's what I get for overstating.

> Trust me, I'm a botanist :-) (or maybe even a microbiologist these days
> if I pull my fingers out & get started on that PhD project)
> 
> Ken Brown

Orange Crush

[mattd]

Perth has a heavily contaminated site as well as Derby in west au.The story 
is ongoing and the water table in perth is said to be affected.The WA 
agriculture minister is calling for more information on the alleged heat 
damaged batch believed imported between 69-71 disguised as another 
chemical.Said to be 200 times worse than the now banned 245T.The EPA has 
been called 
in.http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,3553659%255E2702,00.html

A lot of 'hot spots' in the bush are old sheep dips.No comment on Columbian 
round up? Your taxes at work could killya.

Re: Orange crush

[Ken Brown]

I suggest that the author of this insulting piece of nonsense go into
any decent library and pick up a book on the 18th & 19th century
agricultural revolution. Or read any standard account of the life of
Louis Pasteur. Inorganic fungicides, pesticides and herbicides go way
back, scientific study of them comes in in the second half of the 19th
century.  

As for whether "so-called modern chlorinated herbicides have been around
since the late 1800s." that sort of depends on how you define them.
Trust me, I'm a botanist :-) (or maybe even a microbiologist these days
if I pull my fingers out & get started on that PhD project)

Ken Brown

Anonymous wrote:
> 
> cubic-brain drooled:
> 
> > Herbicides have existed a hell of a lot longer than 50 years, even
> > so-called modern chlorinated herbicides have been around since the
> > late 1800s.
> 
> Total, absolute, unadulterated bullshit! You must work for the
> feds to be able to lie that baldfacedly. There were no agri-chemicals
> before WWII. They tried using asenic as an insecticide early on, but
> gave up on it rather quickly. At any rate, there were certainly no
> herbicides before WWII.
>   Sounds like the chem lab experiments you did in high school did
> a number on your forebrain.
>   Or maybe you can give us a cite?

Re: Orange crush

[Eugene Leitl]

On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, cubic-dog wrote:

> Dunno, maybe you're right, I couldn't get it to happen in the lab
> with phenols when I was a chem student without actually burning it. I

I wouldn't cook polyhalogenated phenol dry or in high-boiling point
solvents in presence of copper powder, and alcali.

http://www.ping.be/~ping5859/Eng/ChlorineDiChem.html

Re: Orange crush

[cubic-dog]

On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Anonymous wrote:

>   Total bullshit there crock dog. TCDD is also a breakdown product 
> of both poly-chlorinated phenols like 2,4,D and 2,4,5-T and poly-chlorinated
> bi-phenols (PCBs). It really doesn't matter what level tcdd (dioxin) is at 
> time of manufacture, even boiling coffee watere with 245T in it can give
> you a load of dioxin. 

Dunno, maybe you're right, I couldn't get it to happen in the lab
with phenols when I was a chem student without actually burning it. I
tried. (wasn't supposed to but I was curious). Biphenols, yes. Or
something close enough to TCDD that I didn't care. Actually burning
245T, and 24D for that matter will indeed produce TCDD. As to whether
or not overcooking these phenols produces it, well, I wouldn't 
doubt it. But overcooking would still be a faulty process. 

BTW, burning just about ANYTHING with chlorine in it will produce
dioxin.

I don't know there brother nobody, I just keep reading over and over
again, folks using 245T, 24D and TCDD practically interchangably. 
They are not the same chemicals, not at all. I read things like
"245T, a form of dioxin" and "Agent Orange, a strong dioxin".
You say TCDD is a breakdown product of 245T, others say it is a
manufacturing byproduct, others say it is the same thing.

>The agit/prop that we *need* herbicides to produce enough food is
> patently absurd. They didn't even exiest 50 years ago, and most farmers
> in the world still don't use them. 

Well, most farmers in the world still don't have nearly the output that
the "chemically dependant brainwashed, braindead amerikan farmer" does,
except perhaps those other hi output ag industries from Germany, the
netherlands and such. All of which are of course, heavily chem dependent. 

Herbicides have existed a hell of a lot longer than 50 years, even
so-called modern chlorinated herbicides have been around since the 
late 1800s. 

>Only the chemically dependant 
> brainwashed, braindead amerikan farmer does, which is why he's quickly
> becoming extinct.  

The reasons the "chemically dependant brainwashed, braindead amerikan 
farmer" is becomming exinct has a lot more to do with international 
corporate farming and economics of multinational monopolies like
Archer Daniels Midland, the darling of the NPR crowd, than it
does the use of herbicides, pesticides and fertilzers.   

Perhaps you are right on all cases, that agent orange
and all phenoxyl herbicides are the devils spawn and the 
true root of all evil. My imagination balks at it, perhaps because
I don't share your clarity of vision. However, I do know some
of the chemists at Dow Midland who were directly involved in
Dows work with 245T, and to follow your line of thinking is
to say that these folks are the fine agents of the great
satan himself, heirs to those nice folks who stirred the pot
so vigorously in europe back in the 40s.

My imagination balks at it, perhaps because these
folks simply are not like that, and I have read a lot of
the papers, I have done some of the chemistry and have learned
in an empirical way that these questions are all 
a great deal more complicated than these flat statements
like "Agent Orange is the blame for all the ''bad
things''" suggest. 

This is all real touchy stuff, I have been around
pretty much half a century and have been litterally
up to my neck in this stuff. (Yes, this *STUFF*). 
I don't take it lightly, and I don't buy into any
corporate line, as a corporation is almost by
definition incapable of telling any truth when there is
any bad news. But little snippits that say ag/chem
is evil, and we are good because we say it is evil
are pretty much a waste of everyones time. 

Re: Orange crush

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 1:12 PM -0500 on 1/6/02, cubic-dog wrote:


> the only real use of dioxin is
> in bleaching paper pulp.

In particular, *recycled* paper pulp.

An irony is a terrible thing to waste, whether one believes that dioxin is
as bad stuff as ostensibly "environmental" socialist fearmongers are wont
to say, or not...

Cheers,
RAH


-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Re: Orange crush

[cubic-dog]

On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, mattd wrote:

> Agent orange news in Nam... 
> http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=01/12/31/3456415
> 
> Scientists investigating the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam have found 
> that people living in a so-called hotspot have the highest blood levels of 
> its poisonous chemical dioxin ever recorded in the country.
> Agent Orange, which has the dioxin (TCDD - short for 
> 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) as one of its constituents, was last 
> used in 1973.

Agent Orange is a 1-124-1 mixture of n-butyl esters,
245T 2-4-5-trichlorophenoxacetic acid (C8,H5,Cl3,O3), and 24D
2-4-dichloro-phenoxacetic acid (C8,H6,Cl2,O3).

TCDD or, 2-3-7-8-tetrachlorodibenzo-P-dioxin (C12,H4,Cl4,O2), is a
CONTAMINATE artifact of the heat exchangers used in the reaction process 
not a constituent as so often stated. 

None of this stuff is what any of us want in our dinner salad, however
the differences between 245T,24D the most researched herbicides in the
world and TCDD are huge. 

Currently, aside from dioxin like pcbs (which are no longer
manufactured in the US, and wouldn't be around at all hardly
if it weren't for the americans and computer users love
of electricity and plastic lawn furniture) the only real use of dioxin is
in bleaching paper pulp. The understanding of dioxin is still incomplete
and with all the new studies in gene research on, folks are learning
some pretty interesting stuff about some theoretical benificial
capabilities of dioxin. In the short term, it's abilities to bind
up lipophilic chemicals so they can be pissed out as urine, and in the
long run, as a vector for non intrusive reprogramming of cells.

Chlorinated herbicides have been around since the late 1800s, and have
litterally made all the difference in the abilities to produce food
in the last century. While the ability to produce food in the 20th 
century has produced all kinds of new global problems, and food
is still used as a political tool, the problems of world wide
starvation are problems of politics, not agriculture. The techology
exists, and chemicals like 24D and 245T are among the reasons why.

Bad shit happened in the land of bad things to a lot of people. 
I've lost friends, close friends, to health proplems resulting from
exposure to agent orange, so I don't take this lightly. If the herbicide
had been manufactured with a priority on quality instead of the usual 
gov focus on low bid and quantity, it is at least conceivable
that this horror wouldn't be facing those folks now. 

As far as I know the only controlled studies done on agent orange were
done by the principle contractor Dow chemical, and the studies
were done in Midland Michigan. Those studies pointed heavily at 
TCDD contamination. As far as I know, those studies have not
been refuted. 

I am not a biochemist, and I don't even play one on TV, but I do
know how to read, and I wish that if folks wanted to report on this
stuff, they would get their facts straight. 
 
> But today, some residents of Binh-Hoa, near Ho Chi Minh City, have 200 
> times the normal amount of dioxin in their bloodstreams.
> Agent Orange was widely used by the US military during the Vietnam War as a 
> defoliant so that Vietnam's dense jungle could not provide cover for Viet 
> Cong forces.
> 'Startling' results
> It was when US veterans started to become ill with a variety of health 
> problems that investigations suggested that Agent Orange could be involved.
> The most dangerous ingredient was the dioxin, a pollutant that stays in the 
> environment for decades.
> There are still about 12 dioxin hotspots in Vietnam, in areas where very 
> heavy spraying took place. (cont)
> 
> Page 1 breaking news is apparent discovery of highly toxic batch in WA.(ex 
> vietnam)Deaths suspected.