Statement On Clinical Intoxication - Arteriosclerosis and organochlorines
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Here to Add CommentARTERIOSCLEROSIS and organochlorines:
Circa 1950, the orthodox (but honest) Dr. Morton Biskind writes in an article (can't find it now!) about the famous autopsies (we all know about) of young American soldiers in Korea whom in were found severe arterioscleroses.
Biskind believed that DDT poisoning was causing the blockage. He wrote that before the theory of milk causation had been disseminated.
I did find this statement by Biskind, which describes organochlorines causing arterial blockage:
Kevin Dougherty Gazette Quebec Bureau.
"The compounds of the DDT group are all extremely active direct liver poisons. DDT and parathion both interfere with the function of the gastrointestinal tract and hence interfere with absorption of essential nutrients. This too causes impairment of liver function. For many years before the problem of DDT poisoning intruded in my life, my collaborators and I had been working on the function of the liver in relation to disturbances in nutrition and other disturbances of the ductless glands. We found that if the liver is deprived of essential vitamins it loses its ability to metabolize certain hormones and that this leads to a variety of more or less severe distrurbances of the endocrine (or glandular) system. Among these are serious disorders of the sexual function in both sexes, diabetes, thyroid disturbances and other changes. Poisoning the liver with a toxic substance has the same effect. The combination of a direct liver poison and a gastrointestinal distrubance which interferes with absorption of vitamins and other essential nutrients may lead to even more serious forms of these disorders. In addition a damaged liver loses its ability to metabolize choloesteral, a waxy substance similar in chemical structure to some of the hormones. As a result the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood increases beyond normal limits, it deposits in the inner lining of the blood vessels as well as elsewhere in the body. In an artery this gradually narrows the opening of the vessel so that it may stop up altogether. When this happens in one of the coronary arteries which feed the heart muscle, the effect is often sudden death." - Morton Biskind, M.D.,
-from Journal Of Insurance Medicine (May, 1951)
Statement On Clinical Intoxication
From DDT And
Other New Insecticides
Presented before the Select Committee
to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food Products,
United States House of Representatives, U.S.
December 12, 1950
Morton S. Biskind, M.D.
Westport, Conn.
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