Dupont desperation and mould
R Britt (britt@indigo.ucdavis.edu)
Thu, 7 Jul 1994 14:13:04 -0700 (PDT)
I just talked last week to a Dupont scientist about the Benlate
situation. The whole episode started with a contamination.
A large batch of Benlate was contaminated by atrazine, which
kills plants by blocking electron transfer out of photosystem II.
This batch did a lot of damage as you might expect. Meantime,
Dupont reformulated their manufacture of the benomyl. There
has never been any clear evidence that there was any problem with
the reformulated material. However they have lost suits, and
jsut made a big settlement in FL. Politically it is very difficult
for a huge "deep pockets" company to defend their "evil chemicals"
in the current US climate. So they decided to cut their losses and
get out. At least they didn't make breast implants.
-rdb