!["D.D.T. Powerful Insecticide Safe To Humans" - Jones Beach, New York 1953 [828x784 - 75KB]](https://pic8.co/sh/6F4qSE.jpg){kind=link}
The science was settled on DDT long before the political climate of today. Not that it wasn't politicized at the time but nothing like what we're seeing today. For example the Canadian govt. in a fit of grandstanding proclaimed that zero amount of DDT was acceptable. But then because DDT was already in the environment they had to define Zero as as some non-zero figure.
Though you are obviously correct that science is never settled DDT has been so extensively studied that I am comfortable that it and its effects are well understood. Should new information come along that turns that understanding on its head then by all means, bring it on. But in the meanwhile "settled science" is not incorrect IMO.
The real point, however, is that people like to trot it out to use as a shining example of "where science done us wrong". They like to claim that DDT is bad for humans despite that to the best of our knowledge it is not. And they completely disregard the true danger of DDT, namely how bad it is for the environment. I mean it's like fucking napalm to certain species but there's never any mention of that.
There are many many good examples of where science did get it wrong, why not use one of those? It's because DDT is easy because everybody 'knows' it's bad for you, regardless of whether or not that's correct. And easy is not the same as correct.
That's fair; I've seen mask data falsified firsthand (the alternative would be to believe a statistical probability so remote as to be impossible). But I believe the endocrine disruptor claim since it's structurally similar enough to BPA it's certainly plausible.
The eggshell thinning thing is proven as well, and raptor populations have been recovering ever since its ban. I didn't even think bald eagles lived in IN, but by the time I was 30, seeing them wasn't super uncommon. They were simply not there when I was a kid because a.) so endangered, and b.) of course IN is a big agricultural state.
I'm really taking issue with your use of the word "incredibly" I think. Like... nah, I can believe the safety profile. It's not an acute poison - you wouldn't dream of using it for murder - but like most persistent pesticides, particularly lipid-soluble ones, there are some negative downstream effects.
I've worked alongside environmental chemists that studied glyphosate specifically, what environmental damage are you talking about? I mean that sincerely; I've not heard of any proven environmental impact (there's never any shortage of conjecture). Glyphosate itself is a plant-protein antagonist that essentially stops production of cell walls, so by itself it doesn't do much damage to animals or humans because we don't have that cellular pathway. However, because it's water soluble, in order to effectively coat plants for uptake, large amounts of surfactants are used in practical formulations, which can be harmful to humans and animals. DDT didn't need the surfactants because it's lipid-soluble. So acute effects of consumption glyphosate formulations might be worse, but it's because of the surfactants used, not the glyphosate. Those surfactants and glyphosate both decompose fairly quickly, within days-to-weeks in soil vs. years for DDT. So glyphosate is less prone to have a huge long-term environmental impact like DDT simply because it doesn't persist nearly as long, and its water solubility allows it to be diluted much more readily than DDT which bioaccumulates in the fats of fish and other prey animals for raptors (which is why they get the shell thinning - there's even a medical mechanism for the shell thinning from DDT; it's pretty well studied).
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