[pct-l] Bugs

[brick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (brick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)]

At 08:02 AM 2/9/03, Tony DiLorenzo wrote:
>I miss quoted the info on liver damamge. But here is
>some info on the toxicity of DEET on adults, children
>and animals.  Whatever the numbers may be I still
>won't use the stuff.  It melts plastic for goodness
>sakes.
>
>Toxixity of DEET
>
>Dermal application of insect repellents containing
>DEET can produce a variety of skin reactions in humans
>(see Table 1).

No one will dispute that DEET dissolves plastic. That doesn't have bearing
on whether there are adverse health affects.

Chocolate will kill dogs, and aspirin will kill cats. Does that mean that
they are bad for humans?

I would be interested to have the URL of the reference you quoted. I'd like
to see who was writing it...

DEET is one of the things that is popular to be scared of, and there is a
lot of blatant misinformation about it. Sort of like Nutra Sweet and DHMO
(please see http://www.dhmo.org/ ).

Once again DEET has been used for 50 years with surprisingly few reactions.
And if you DO read the actual reports (available at the CDC) you will find
that most of the reactions are in children, and that their parents just
about drowned them in DEET.

DEET is **WAY** safer than peanut butter, or being outside in a lightning
store, two other things common to PCT hikers.

--
Brick Robbins

  The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and
   the intelligent are full of doubt.
------- Bertrand Russell