PADGAES versus
1v1(1sut1on Drug therapy is inevitably toxic
Village energy
Public expectation is too high; drug therapy is inevitably toxic, drugs are no different from surgery in this respect and merely offer a lesser risk for a greater one. Why is an 0 .1 per cent mortality acceptable for gastric surgery but not for a drug which achieves the same therapeutic effect? . . . new unpredicted and unpredictable toxic effects of drugs are inevitable. In the last analysis man has to be his own experimental animal : after the essential animal testing to establish general properties and toxicity, drugs have to be tested in man and death a'ld illness are the inevitable consequence. The, public must be made to understand that if it wants its drugs it will have to take the risk that goes with it just as it does with surgery . Sam Shuster, Professor of Dermatology, New Scientist
In India today there is a crying need for nitrogen fertiliser. A large coal-fueled fertilizer factory will produce 230,000 tons per year. 26,000 biogas plants are needed to produce the same amount. But the biogas plants would cost $15 million less to build, and all this money would be spent inside India, saving $70 million in foreign exchange. The biogas plants would provide 130 times as many jobs, and these jobs would be ocated in rural villages, where most people
.... ,..__~ live and where employment is most des
perately needed. Biogas plants would also produce the fertilizer where it is needed, eliminating the transportation requirements from the centralized coal plant. Finally, the biogas plants would produce enough fuel each year to meet most of the energy needs of 26,000 Indian villages, while the coal fired plant would consume enough fuel every year to meet the energy needs of 550 villages . Denis Hayes, The Guardian Weekly
WHO OWNS THE LAND?
A government inquiry has been briefed to f ind out. A committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Northfield, was set up by Agriculture Minister John Sil kin to probe "the growth in the purchase of land by institutions and overseas buyers, farm structure and the difficulties facing young people who w ish to enter farming as a career ."
Northfield is said to be concerned at the loss of smalholdings and was quoted as saying : "Small is beautiful and it works." The committee is taking 'evidence' from interested groups. However, there has been little pub I icity. Many people in the ecological movement are unaware of it, though the inquiry has been in progress several months.
Brighton-based Whole Earth Magazine is to make a statement calling for wider land access for the young and poor . Representations should be made to : Committee of Inquiry into the Acquisition and Occupancy of Agricultural Land, Romney House, Marsham Street, London SW1 P 3DY.
NUCLEAR PROPONENTS Opponents of nuclear power are frequently criticized by 'experts' for being ill-informed or for distorting the facts in presenting their opinions. But increasingly, this same criticism must be levelled at the experts themselves . Sir John Hill, head of the UK's Atomic Energy Authority, still maintains that the major nuclear accident in the Soviet Union in 1958 could not have been caused by nuclear wastes, despite a wide and diverse range of evidence and expert opinion that suggests nuclear wastes were the cause. This accident contaminated hundreds of square miles with radioactive material and, according to some sources, killed or seriously injured thousands of people. But Sir John Hill , on 'World In Action' actually questioned whether such an acci-
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dent really mattered. Fred Hoyle's book Energy or Extinction received most of its publicity from its linking anti-nuclear power lobbies with Soviet management, a remark that has necessitated sticking an apology from the author to Friends of the Earth in each copy of the book. But the book contains other ill-considered statements. It quotes an article on solar cells in Encyclopaedia Britannica which said that "little use has been made of (solar) cells in terrestial operation, owing ... to the poor efficiency of the cells and their high cost". The article's most up-to-date reference was 1970. Using this quote as the basis for arguing against possible uses of solar cells is like dismissing flying as anything but a sport for the rich in 1910. The unit cost of solar cells has fallen by a factor of 20 in the last two decades - and is likely to fall by a factor of 20 again in the next few years . By the early 80s, we may well be able to purchase a cheap, simple solar cell assembly from a hardware store and use it to boost the hotwater tank, install ing it ourselves, and getting the capital cost back in 2-5 years in reduced fuel/electricity bills. But the final word must go to the Society for the Advancement of Nuclear Power in the US which produces tee-shirts with 'nukes are safer than sex' written across them.
SINGING IN THE SUBWAYS Those who have visited Paris recently should have enjoyed travelling on their underground system 'the Metro'. Most main stations have buskers with the authorities happy to tolerate or even to encourage their presence. Many stations now have exhibitions to look at while you wait for the train - the Louvre Station for example has well lighted display cabinets with various articles from the Louvre's collection and feels as if it is part of the great museum and art gallery . Last year, the Metro Authorities even organized a music festival in the tunnels with a programme of rock, folk, jazz and classical music and they are considering other activities such as an artisans fair. London Transport please note .
TASTY TOMATOES Among the many benefits of 'industrial food production' must now be numbered the indestructible tomato. For some years, the tomato industry in the US have been looking forward to a time when fresh tomatoes can be harvested by machines. Now the 'Florida MH-1' tomato has been engineered to fit the machine and can be dropped onto the floor from a height of six feet without breaking the skin. This means it can survive an impact speed more than twice that demanded by US Government automobile bumper safety standards . This should be noted by entrepreneurs who organize 'Medieval Banquets' where paying guests can feast and even th row food at each other. Providing these paying guests with 'Florida MH-1' tomatoes might well result in sizeable law-suits through damage to life and limb. Old fashioned tomatoes are safer - and after all do taste a lot nicer.
THE AFFLUENT DIET Up to a third of the British population may be above the recommended weight. 80 million Americans are said to be overweight . A Soviet journal claimed that 50% of all women and 30% of all men are overweight. Diet-related ill health costs West Germany $7 thousand million a year, according to one estimate. And East Germany has stated that obesity costs the country the equivalent of 1 % of its Gross National Product every year. Perhaps even more worrying is the high proportion of fat children - for they stand little chance of losing excess weight in later life . Parents should note that four out of five obese children become obese adults . Wh ile appreciating that eating less will not necessarily mean the poor get more - to have so many of the affluent overweight with 700 million human beings seriously malnourished can only be described as obscene.
LOSING GROUND The book Losing Ground Environmental Stress and World Food Prospects by Erik Eckholm has yet to be published in Britain, despite its impact worldwide and the fact that it has been out for nearly two years in North America. Losing Ground outlines how deforestation, over-exploitation of soil and ill-managed irrigation systems are causing irreversible degradation of soil in many parts of the Third World. Usually it is the resu It of desperate need out· weighing sensible and sustainable resource use. Trees and shrubs essential for retaining the top-soil on hill-sides are removed because people need fuel for cooking and have no other sources. Watersheds are denuded for the same reason so floods become increasingly severe. And it is usually the adult women who have to walk further and further each week to find the fuel they need - since all land close to their settlement '1as been deforested. Marginal lands around deserts are overgrazed and so the deserts grow. Ambitious irrigation projects in many nations now have yields declining as a build up of salt and silt inhibits crop growth and the effective operation of the whole system .
Only with far more emphasis by nations in the Third World on feeding themselves and on helping the small and usually highly productive farmer, on re-afforestation and on rural development can the erosion of so much of their agri cultural land be halted. But to do this, the governments have to 'unlearn' much of the expert economic advice we gave them all th rough the Fifties and Sixties .
The American Edition is published by W.W . Norton and Co. at S3.95 and can be ordered through Compendium's mail order department, 240 Camden High St. London NW1 .
