Taking the Law for the Alteration and Supplementation of the Foodstuffs Law of 1936 which was promulgated on the 21. 12. 1958 as a point of departure, first of all the development of the chemical media for the pro­ tection of plant life is dealt with along broad lines, for which de Bary's investigations concerning rust manifestations, published in 1853, created the necessary pre-requisite conditions. Serious doubts regarding secondary effects injurious to health were first caused by the development and bulk manufacture of media produced on an organic-synthetical basis. They found their most alarming expression, as evidenced up to now, in the American bestseller "The Silent Spring", by Rachel Carson, which induced President Kennedy to instruct his scientific advisory committee to establish areport on the subject, this being published on the 15th May 1963. The book and the report, as well as the resultant discussions thereof, are characterized in short form and the demand made, that the said discussions should no longer in the future concern the book, but should take as their point of departure the factual situation as shown in the report. The report was commented upon two years later by the Whitten report, whidt based its arguments upon in­ formation obtained from 213 scientists and medical practitioners, whilst a census of opinion in Washington concerning pesticides came to the conclu­ sion at the beginning of this year that the chemical residues in the foodstuffs did not represent any threat to human health.

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