A Few Questions About Frostban

Thomas Jukes' article "The Nonsense About Frostban" (The Scientist, May 18, 1987, p. 13) brings to mind many of the arguments that were used to promote pesticides and nuclear power. Indeed, it would not surprise me if Jukes was a supporter of those technologies. I would like to ask a few questions, and ask Jukes to reply. 1) Can one be anti-technology and not anti-science? 2) If Frostban is perfectly safe, why the test? 3)Why is the guy in the picture wearing the funny suit? Frostban is perfectly safe, isn't it? 4) If Frostban is nothing new, then it can't be patented, can it? 5) Since cholera and smallpox organisms are nothing new, then surely no one should be worried if they are turned loose in the environment, should they? 6) Finally, is Jukes working for the garment industry? I would like to trade my loincloth for a leisure suit. Ah, skip it. Jukes says "we must deplore and expose nonsense that is calculated to frighten." We must likewise deplore and expose nonsense that is calculated to pull wool over the public's eyes. Russell D. Fritzinger School of Business Administration 350 Barrows Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 Jukes replies: There is no "arrogance and deception" in my May 18 article. However, Lorna Salzman should be familiar with the arrogance and deception practiced by the Greens and by their fellow travelers, Earth First. Arrogance is in their seif-annoited, self-appointed role as saviors of the world, and in their interfering with scientific methods for increasing the food supply needed by hungry people. Arrogance is shown by uprooting strawberry and potato plants that were undergoing approved tests, and in driving spikes into trees so as to maim workers in lumber mills. Deception is in circulating wildly inaccurate statements about Pseudomonas so as to persuade the public to sign petitions. Deception is alleging that removing a bacterial gene by laboratory procedures is mystically different from deletions of the same gene that occur spontaneously so as to manufacture "ethical and political issues." Salzman claims that "the Greens are struggling against the modern-day scientific priesthood's defending … its own particular dogma," when actually the Greens are reciting dogma in an attempt to stifle new scientific findings that hold great promise for human betterment. Dogma is inimical to science, but is the stock-in-trade of its opponents. Salzman alleges, incorrectly, that DDT is a "new, untested technology" For information on the exhaustive testing and on the unique lifesaving effects of DDT, see WHO publications and other references in my article in Naturwissenschaften vol. 61, p. 6, 1974, and textbooks and reviews by Way-land Hayes, such as Toxicology of Pesticides (Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, 1975). Fritzinger asks six questions. Answers: 1) Not and make sense, 2)To obtain needed facts, 3) Bureaucratic silliness, 4) Patents can be granted on novel applications of old knowledge, 5) Yes, 6) No. The sentence about the loincloth was a quotation from a newspaper. Last sentence: Agreed; this is what I was doing. Suggestions to Fritzinger: reread the statements by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Young. Enroll in some University of California extension courses in science. Thomas Jukes Dept. of Biophysics and Medical Physics University of California, Berkeley 6701 San Pablo Ave. Oakland, CA 94608

A Few Questions About Frostban

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