American Politics Journal -- The Political Gardener: I Almost Became Famous

Simply Gardening
by Doug Green

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Occasionally (but only occasionally!) it's a good idea to get your mind off politics. We suggest you try the rewarding hobby of gardening, whether in a pot or on ten acres. It's a blast -- just ask the British!

I Almost Became Famous

I almost became famous. Yes, for a brief shining moment, my future and fortune was made and I was about to get my 15 minutes in the spotlight. A few weeks ago, the advertising and public relations firm for Bayer-Pursell (one of the big producers of garden chemicals) emailed me and asked if I was interested in being a spokesman for the company. If selected as their spokesman, they would fly me to Chicago for training, and then next spring I’d be sent around North America with a travelling garden as the gardening spokesperson to answer media and gardener’s questions about these new products. Now here was an opportunity for yours truly to shine. Free travelling, expense account, publicity and a paycheque to boot for all my troubles.

The PR person and I talked on the phone and there was a small hitch in her voice when I asked about the products I would be representing. “Well,” she said, “we don’t have a lot of time to make this decision (about who was going to be the spokesperson) and if we take the time to send this data to you, it will take too much time.” Huh, I’m supposed to be a spokesperson and don’t get to see the product beforehand. Hmmm. I convinced her that if she faxed me the data on the product, and made sure the active ingredient was listed I would be able to get back to her that very afternoon. My fax started humming and here’s what I found.

The first product was labelled as a Lawn and Garden Multi-Insect Killer -- good for 14 days in the garden. I always shudder when I hear of something that will last for 14 days. I mean, what if the kids or pets get into the shrub or garden during that time? What effect does it have on them? In this case, the active ingredient was called cyfluthrin and it is a synthetic pyrethroid -- meaning it is a chemical version of the effects created by the pyrethrum daisy. So far so good. It has a moderate LD50 rating of 869-1271 (depending on the test). LD50 stands for Lethal Dose 50% -- the amount of product it takes to kill half of the test population. In comparison, the commonly used Diazanon is more dangerous than this product. It isn’t carcinogenic or mutagenic and breaks down very quickly in sunlight and on soil. I’m not sure how the company claims the chemical is going to last 14 days with this breakdown rate; perhaps there’s something else in it that wasn’t listed on the product sheet I received. Unless you happen to be a bee or fish (really, really deadly to both) this class of garden chemical is one of the safest around. I could represent them I suppose.

And then I read about the 2-in-1 Systemic Rose and Flower Care product. The active ingredient in this is disulfoton. The Extonet toxicology report from Oregon State University starts off by saying, “Disulfoton is very highly toxic to all mammals by all routes of exposure.” Uh-oh! People are mammals. The LD50 rating is 6.2 to 12.5. No misprint here -- while the first product was rated at 869, this one rated 6.2. We’re talking "don’t let the kids near this product, this one is dangerous." The company suggests that you sprinkle granules of this product around your roses or flowers and allow the chemical to work its magic. I guess whoever makes or wants to sell this one doesn’t have kids playing around the garden nor cats or pets wandering around. Let’s be clear here. If a pet walks through or under the plant and gets this stuff on its feet, it will bring that dust residue into the house and it will also lick itself clean. I surely don’t want the dust residue in my house (particularly if I had pint-sized rug rats crawling around) and I’m not sure you want a pet ingesting this stuff. If your kids live anywhere near your flower garden, why would you ever even consider giving them a dose of this stuff?

So, I had to call the PR firm back and say that I was sorry, but I couldn’t recommend their products as first choices in the garden. I explained I could recommend them as the very last thing I would ever do, but the agent quite gently explained that they were hoping to find a spokesman that would feel comfortable recommending the product as their first choice in pest control. They’d keep me on the list but I wasn’t likely to be called.

And that was fine with me. I can’t imagine anyone actually recommending a product like this for home gardeners. Given that there are all manner of safe and effective ways to deal with plant problems without having to resort to chemicals like disulfoton, it strikes me as morally criminal to consider using the product and even worse to recommend it.

It sure would have been nice to go to Los Angeles though.

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