Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 4. 22 March 1972
U.S. Government Responses:
U.S. Government Responses:
In April 1970, during the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearings on 2,4,5-T, the U.S. Government cancelled use of 2,4,5-Ton crops, near water, and around the home. Also the aerial spraying of Vietnam with 2,4,5-T was stopped, because of the danger of causing malformed babies.
The bans on home and water use of 2,4,5-T were not appealed against by the manufacturers of 2,4,5-T but the crop-use ban was : two manufacturers (Dow and Hercules) asked for a scientific advisory committee to review the decision. This committee reported to the Environmental Protection Agency in mid-1971, recommending that some of the restrictions on 2,4,5-T be lifted. However, this report was virtually demolished by prominent scientists. They pointed out that the report assumed a low dose of dioxin would have no effect, whereas scientific tests had been unable to discover a "no-effect dosage"; that the report had wrongly dismissed the possibility of dioxin's accumulation in body tissues; and that the benefits had not been weighed against the risks. The report was in fact rejected by the administrator of the EPA, Mr Ruckelshaus.
Another investigation of 2,4,5-T was made by the President's Science Advisory Committee, whose 68-page report (March 1971) did not recommend lifting the restrictions on use of 2,4,5-T It did however, recommend that the dioxin content be strictly limited to O.5ppm and preferably 0.1ppm.
The state of Massachusetts (population over 5,000,000) has a special Pesticide Board, which voted on April 28 1971 to ban all spraying of 2,4,5-T because of the potential hazards to health.
In short, then, considerable progress has been made in the U.S.A. toward protecting people from this danger.