It is not my purpose to minimize the real and potential significance of insecticide 
hazards. The importance of producing high-quality foods free of hazardous residues 
cannot be over-emphasized. However, I do wish to urge sane and objective consideration 
of all factors relating to the use of insecticides. It is necessdry that this be done if this 
Nation is to take full advantage of scientific advances that have been made in the develop- 
ment and use of insecticides and those that can be expected in the future. Growing public 
apprehension over pesticide use is based in large measure on inaccurate and misleading 
reporting by uninformed writers. This leads to stringentlaws and rigid interpretations of 
laws regulating the use of insecticides or other pesticides. As a result, we are facing a 
growing critical problem in our efforts to maintain satisfactory insect control methods 
and to develop new ones. Under existing law, use of a particular insecticide must not only 
be nonhazardous but must also meet other requirements of law. 
It should be emphasized that hazards associated with the use of insecticides is not a 
new problem to entomologists and associated scientists. They have always been con- 
scious of the needto reconsider this important aspect of research on the control of insects 
with chemicals. The hazard problems created by arsenical insecticides to plants and 
soils, to livestock in dips or as feed contaminants, to bees in orchards, to parasites of 
destructive insects, and to man directly as residues on foods or as poisons in homes, 
emphasized the necessity to consider potential hazards in connection with research and 
subsequent recommendations for the use of the newer chemicals. 
However, no one could have predicted the many complex problems that would arise 
in connection with the use of the newer type insecticides. When the newer chemicals came 
into extensive use 15 years ago, we could not even approximate a fair estimate of the 
time, effort, and cost that would be involved in a full investigation of all aspects that are 
now regarded necessary or desirable before a new chemical can be recommended for 
widescale use in insect control. The growing complexity of this problem soon became 
apparent, however, and the need to give it due attention was urged repeatedly by en- 
tomologists and insecticide chemists. The public in general and many public officials 
just did not grasp the significance of the insecticide residue problem or the important 
role that insecticides would play in modern agriculture and public welfare. 
The public is entitled to both high standards of insect control and high standards of 
safety in the use of insect control procedures. If the public is convinced that the many 
highly effective and proved methods of insect control do not provide the standards of 
safety desired, it must be prepared to support research to develop more acceptable 
methods or to accept short supplies, inferior quality, and higher prices for many foods. 
With the exception of insect problems of forestsand stored products, the Entomology 
Research Division has been assigned primary responsibility for the Department's re- 
search program on insects. The available resources in terms of number of scientists 
and supporting personnel in this Division are lower today than they were in 1945, the 
beginning of the era of new insect control chemicals in agriculture. Let’s analyze this 
situation in relation to the following developments all of which have placed new demands 
on the Division. During these 15 years, we have been faced with (1) public interest in and 
requests for information on the many new chemicals developed by industry, (2) an un- 
precedented expansion of the use of insect control chemicals by farmers, (3) the appear- 
ance or spread of several major introduced pests, (4) new farm practices and great 
diversification of agriculture in new areas which influence pest abundance, (5) the pas- 
sage of stringent laws, such as the Miller Amendment, which necessitated reevaluation 
of every insecticide recommendation, including many that had been followed by growers 
for 25 to 50 years, and which prescribed requirements that greatly increased the re- 
search effort needed to develop new recommendations, (6) a general expansion of regu- 
latory programs designed to control or eliminate insect pests, (7) a general expansion 
of agricultural research in most other areas except entomology, (8) public demands for 
new and safer approaches to insect control, such as by biological means, and (9) the 
appearance of a hundred or more kinds of insects that developed strains resistant to the 
newer insecticides for which substitute chemicals were necessary. 
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