Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Just dropping in from a crazy stretch at work to agree with our resident Chemistry PhD: 50 years ago, we were awash with all kinds of nasty chemicals that have subsequently been banned, or at least substantially limited in their use. I've litigated a decent amount of mass tort stuff as it relates to one of them (well, not a chemical, a substance)--a very useful substance, with a nasty habit of killing a lot of people in a really grueling and horrible way.

And to agree with ELA re pretty much everything he's said in the last couple of pages of this. I, too, have an autistic kid, who falls into what used to be called Aspergers Syndrome. My brother, too. And I would bet, dollars to donuts, at least one, if not both of my parents. All brilliant in their own way. And ELA nailed it--50 (and 40 and 30) years ago, everyone just thought of my brother as weird. Now his nuerologist has no trouble saying he's autistic. He's coped fine, but it would have been a lot better if he had received additional supports--and understanding from those around him--when he was a kid.

I feel very comfortable in saying that if a Democratic President had nominated Kennedy to be our HHS, the Republican freak out would be as big, if not bigger. Deep down, almost all of you know that.

I feel very comfortable in saying that if a Democratic President had nominated Kennedy to be our HHS, the Republican freak out would be as big, if not bigger. Deep down, almost all of you know that.

They invented pesticides in 1975?

I lroll my eyes at that fella. The rallying around someone who would’ve been mocked endlessly if he’d not joined up with some folks’ team is a reminder of an unfortunate trend in our national dialogue. But everyone falls in line.

Fifty years ago was 1975, right?  Math check.  I was in college, most folks got food from grocery stores as they do today.  Quite a few "additives" used at that time have been banned since, and replaced largely with chemicals thought to be "safer", along with modified farming practices in some cases.  We also have "organic" today, which never existed back when outside special outlets.

Cancer rates overall have declined despite better detection methods.  It's facile to blame "chemicals" broadly without being specific and showing hard data.

My wife used to pay a service to "spray" stuff around her house for bugs.  I asked one of them what he was spraying and he didn't know beyond the term "big killer".  It probably was malathion, but I never knew for sure.  I also was dubious what they were doing had any real impact on bugs in her home.

I had a fairly brief project at one point to deal with fleas on pets, it was quite interesting, I read up a bit on how pesticides work.  A lot of the "old" pesticides were perchlorinated like DDT and were banned in part because they are biopersistent.  Folks used a lot of that type, think chlordane et al., back in the day.  They were replaced in part with the pyrethrin/permethrin types which biodegrade and are found in chrysanthemums. 

I think most of our "food issues" relate to obesity.