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Posted by Murrisk on September 17, 2002 at 00:33:03:
DDT was a very popular insecticide in the 1950's and early 1960's. It was a God-send for gardeners and people whose animals might have fleas. I have often wondered how much DDT I and others ingested while spraying copious amounts on aphids etc. Asbestos too was a common item especially for roofing. I remember working one summer in an asbestos factory in Uxbridge, London. Temperatures were extreme when the asbestos came out of the ovens. Everyone was issued masks but because of the heat not everyone wore their mask. I still remember the fellows who were swiming with me in the lake near the old diving board, on a summer's afternoon in the early 1960's, when the Inland Fisheries Trust poisoned the lake. I never knew what chemical(s) they used but they didn't have masks and we were not asked/told to get out of the water. Indeed, I'd bet were were sprayed too. Over the years the old incenerator chimney at the county hospital spread a brown-black smoke plume over some or all the town. We were always told as children that amputated legs arms etc. were being burned when the smoke was particularly black. In hindsight, I wonder if something more toxic was being discharged. And all the time the danger of brucellosis, bovine TB, flu, measels etc. How TB infected milk smelled !! Then there was the tea brewed from radioactive water. But thats another story. And then the additional dangers created by exposure to driving, flying, eating, drinking, heart disease, cancer ............
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