The Diatoms
RESPONSIBILITIES AND SOLUTIONS

#3

by Wallace Tharp

Bugs and man have lived together a long time and I expect if one species dies off first, it will not be the bug. It will be here to dispose of the remains. I expect the first attempt to control bugs was with the flat of the hand, and since nothing else was available it had to do, but nature seemed to have a way of not letting things get out of control. Things have greatly changed, but it seems that regardless of what man comes up with, the bugs manage to stay ahead. I understand that the insect problem is forty times worse than it was in 1940.

At the end of World War II, the chemical people, having built a lot of factories for chemical warfare were desperate to do something with the high priced factories that were not needed any more. They hit on the idea of Scientific Bug Control. These people gave grants to Universities to help them develop a business selling deadly poisons.

The professors, appreciating the grants began to teach ag students that in order to raise enough food to feed the world that they would have to use chemical insecticides and chemical weed killers and chemical fertilizers. The results are that we have super bugs that can hardly be killed by any chemical and we are almost reduced back to the “flat of the hand” or, at least a form of physical action rather than chemical action. No bug has ever developed immunity to a fly swatter, but they have developed immunity to every chemical, regardless of how toxic.

The big chemical people have lots of money. The grants to the Universities gave them the backing of Ph D’s, who turned out students who were taught that Chemicals was the way to go and since some of them became professors, teaching the next generation, it soon became the expected belief. Of course, the Chemical giants also had money for the politicians who needed money to get re-elected. EPA like other regulatory agencies, became the captives of the industries they were supposed to protect the public from. The politicians created the Regulatory agencies and gave them the power to make regulations that had the force of law, and then the politician could say, hey! it is not my fault. For myself, I cannot imagine giving anyone, especially a Ph D getting grant money from a chemical company, permission to say how much deadly poison was OK to be put in my kids breakfast cereal.

No one wanted to mention that the bug problem was getting worse, and that Chemical fertilizers destroyed the land, and that prior to the chemical era that all crops were grown organically, and that native populations around the world had found solutions that got them by without poisoning anyone or giving anyone cancer. Most of the people making these decisions had never been on a farm or left the farm because he wanted an easier and better paying job, and we have noticed that when you tamper with the income of a Ph D, that you tamper with his integrity. To show how serious this is, there is a constant exchange of employees between EPA, FDA and University professors. In a recent case, a Ph D Chemist for a Chemical Company wrote up a plan, then transferred to the government agency and was given the job of approving the plan that had been written by that professor.

Senator Edward Kennedy, after a congressional committee made a study of the agency, made the statement that it was so bad that the only way to correct things was to completely eliminate the agency and re-organize it. I totally agree. Our elected representatives have made this possible, the government agents have become captives of the industries they were to protect us from. The College professors have been hired to help the industries sell their products. All of these people bear considerable responsibility for the adding of these terrible chemicals to our environment, our food, air and water.

There is another group of people who bear a great deal of the responsibility land that is the people who use the products. Most everyone wants to place most of the blame on the farmers, how ever, there is another group that spreads more poisons on our good earth than the farmers, AND THAT IS US - THE HOME OWNERS!

It is my understanding that over 50 percent of all insecticides are used by ordinary citizens who can’t stand the sight of a bug, and generally feel like, "if a little is good, more should be better", so they saturate the area with enough poison to sterilize an acre of land. This is a very serious matter. We cannot allow our elected officials make the decisions. They have already betrayed us. We certainly cannot allow the Governmental agencies to continue to poison us. Our college professors, to protect their own income cannot be trusted, and we are pretty well left with "WE, THE PEOPLE."

This writer quit using toxic material in 1954. He not only refuses to put Poison in our environment, but has influenced hundreds of other people to do the same. Each person needs to think who he would choose to make the decision of how much poison should be allowed in the cereal that your children are going to eat.

There are many answers. PERMA-GUARD, INC. HAS A GOOD ONE! The information is free for the asking. About 5 % of farming is now done by Organic methods. They have proven that these horrible poisons are not essential. It is your choice!

Wallace Tharp CEO
PERMA-GUARD, INC.