A common introductory phrase in toxicology books is, "Toxicity is purely a matter of dosage." There are no toxins, no poisons, only dosages. Water and arsenic are the same, just dosage matters. This concept suits industry.
Industry would even prefer that toxic compounds were found to be good and valuable to life forms that ingest them.
Hayes and Laws, and other writers, have accomplished this, having provided the rationale as something noble, held by the educated. I interpret the essence as, "Toxicity can increase profits if applied to others."
I've included these interpretations from this analysis of statements (pages 59 and 232) in the Handbook of Pesticide Toxicology,1991 (bold characters are mine):
| Pg/S | Hayes and Laws | HARpub Comments |
| 59a | Beneficial Effects Of Small Dosages | Subtitle |
| 59a | ...bacteriologist Hueppe (1896) stated the rule that has come to bear his name. "Every substance that kills and destroys protoplasm in certain concentrations inhibits development in lower concentrations, but acts as a stimulus and increases the potential of life at even lower concentrations beyond a point of neutrality." | A
historical precedent is set. This phenomena observed
by Hueppe is also seen in the 1925 studies of Carrel,
et al. Low concentrations suppressed cell division,
while very low concentrations produced rapid growth
and/or cancer. In vivo and in vitro. These studies
(at least 30) became unknown to experts in subsequent
decades. It is difficult to remain neutral, when you're poisoned. |
| 59a | In stating this principle, Hueppe mentioned certain apparent exceptions. He also acknowledged the independent discovery of the rule by Arndt and Schultz. | Setting up the argument with the usual claims of selfless objectivity. |
| 59c1 | As reviewed by Townsend and Luckey (1960) and in a very different way by Smyth (1967), evidence has continued to accumulate that small dosages of many compounds are beneficial even though larger dosages of the same compounds are injurious. | Beneficial without consequences? Beneficial to whom? The poisoned subject or the subject's owner? |
| 59c2 | The phenomenon of benefit from small dosages may extend to cell cultures and involve pesticides such as dimethoate, disulfoton, and malathion (Gabiliks et al., 1967). | Pesticides can confer benefits -- for the poisoned or the poisoner? Is this why New York City was sprayed with malathion? |
| 59d1 | The term "hormoligosis" (from the Greek hormao, rouse or set in motion, and oligos, small) was proposed (Luckey, 1956) to indicate the more general process by which a small amount of anything, regardless of its toxicity, produces stimulation. | The above is repeated in an educated, elegant, Greek form. The reader will beg to be let into this club. |
| 59d1 | The same author used the term "hormoligant" to indicate something that stimulates when given in a small amount. | More repetition in Greek. |
| 59d | The term "sufficient challenge" introduced by Smyth (1967) refers to the entire range of phenomena and emphasizes the need of the organism for some measure of stress, whether it be a small amount of poison, a fact, he points out that he took the term from Toynbee's concept of "sufficient but not overpowering challenge" in connection with human history. | Repeating again, but now with a sense of the grand British intellect, with mass poisoning as analogous to Toynbee's sweeping historical reference to the whole of humanity. Is this where malathion has an elite significance? An economic benefit? A cold war, appearing as constant, regular, poisonings, which replace the disruptions of large-scale organized war. Have consultants such as Hayes and Laws offered toxic solutions to certain think-tanks for certain social dilemmas? |
| 59e | There is a tendency to take for granted the beneficial effects of small amounts of certain classes of compounds, which we call drugs, nutrients, or growth promoters and to ignore completely the beneficial effects of small amounts of other materials, some of which we call poisons. | A very strange sentence, which bears evidence of a conscious manipulation -- Hayes and Laws are quite aware that drugs (pharmaceuticals) are derived from pesticides and war-gas technology, that in general pharmaceuticals are poisons, and that they range from slightly toxic (aspirin) to highly toxic (AZT). Yet 'drugs' are polarized conceptually against "other materials, some of which we call poisons", thus creating a false thesis/antithesis, which can be used to create a false synthesis. |
| 59g | "There is little or no reason to think that the effectiveness of arsenilic acid and various antibiotic feed additives depends on any nutritive value. Their mode of action ... remains unknown , | The phrase "mode of action remains unknown" is incredible. This statement of mystery regarding rapid tissue growth, such as cancer, is one which most of us are familiar, hearing it from gynecologists, cancer surgeons ("cancer is a mystery, it only we knew!"). They seem not to have heard the basic principle, that when biological systems are threatened (poisoned) they engage in accelerated genetic recombination. They appear unaware of the works of Carrel, et al. |
| 59g | but their ability to make chickens, pigs, and calves grow faster is inescapable. In this case understanding is in terms of commercial success. | Poisoning pigs, chickens, calves, and race horses yields a profit. Does poisoning humans yield a profit? I believe this is to be inferred. |
| 232 | There is even less recognition of the need to test in humans the safety of other chemicals to which people will be exposed. | Another creation of category of poisons, without using the word poison. This sentence could be translated as follows: The ignorant public and policy makers do not realize the benefits of poisons in small doses and they realize even less the need for themselves to be used as guinea pigs for new poisons ("beneficial" and non-beneficial poisons). |
| 232 | In fact, little thought seems to have been given to the question of whether it is ethical to release a new chemical for general use before it has been tested under controlled conditions in a limited population. | Another well lubricated spitball, sliding by -- an ingenious hypocrisy in the form of another false thesis. Hayes and Laws are quite aware that the releasing of untested toxins and dosages for general consumption happens every day. |
| 232 | However, there is some evidence -- including circumstances surrounding the case of Hyman vs. Jewish Hospital -- suggesting that not only investigators but many other educated people consider that, as long as the subjects of research are uninjured, it is ethically more important to gather knowledge leading to human welfare than to observe legalistic limitations of informed consent. | A
hospital gets paid a fortune to "help" a
patient and then is allowed to secretly engage
him/her in toxin experiments. If it is a test, how can it be known beforehand that people would be unharmed? Educated people believe in disregarding legalities of informed consent when poisoning others, for whatever "beneficial" purpose they have rationalized for humanity. This obviously includes malathion spray programs over dense city populations. See paragraph 59c2, above left. |
Hayes and Laws are typical of ongoing claims that cancer and tumour growth are "mysteries." So, I'll provide what I see as a realistic view of the approximate relation between poisons and their various effects.
Huge tracts of U.S. forestland are being sprayed with malathion, ostensibly to kill medflies. Cities in Florida and the New York City region have been aerially sprayed with malathion to kill medflies or mosquitoes. However, expert testimony has called these events "scientifically corrupt."
The entire cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and recently (1999) New York and surrounding regions have been blanketed (approximately 35 tons of malathion on NYC region) with malathion by helicopters, to supposedly ward off viral epidemics.
Is the spraying of cities a way of stimulating human activity and production, as a chicken farmer may poison his animals to stimulate tissue growth in the form of increased poundage of tumour-laden chicken flesh and salmonella-laden eggs? Is this a mere trick to make a profit off of a public that has been convinced that these products are of quality? Obviously such products, such a way of life, have a bearing on the cancer and disease that has become prevalent worldwide.
The farmer is playing a trick to gain a profit. But he poisons himself and his family. However, the corporate owners of large farms do not live near the farms, and may be convinced that their profit makes it worthwhile. Maybe they have deceived themselves, as successful people do, into believing the world was made for them, until the day arrives, as it does so often in contemporary times, when they and their intimates die of cancer and they are then contacted by the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute (which regularly investigates the biographical profiles of wealthy individuals) to donate for "cancer research", an industry which is intimately tied to the toxin industry. I have interviewed several persons who worked in Sloan-Kettering's fund-raising department.
Toynbee (quoted by Hayes and Laws) is not the only educated Brit to advocate a "sufficient challenge" to humanity. Bertrand Russell wrote in Power (1938):
"Mankind need government, but in regions where anarchy has prevailed they will, at first, submit only to despotism. We must therefore seek first to secure government, even though despotic, and only when government has become habitual can we hope successfully to make it democratic."
"Anarchy" is a relative term, and "government" might consider any adversariality or lethargy as anarchy, and thus feel rationally justified to use despotic means.
Russell continues with,
"[For] a sense of solidarity sufficient to make government... outside pressure is all but indispensable... A common peril is much the easiest way of producing homogenity."
Related concepts from Sun Tzo, The Art Of War
"The Way means inducing the people to have the same aim as the leadership, so that they will share death and share life, without fear of danger." [Wang Xi, p43]
and,
"A military operation has no standard form - it goes by way of deception." [Cao Cao, p49]
Russell, however, feels that government is secure:
"Most people feel that politics is difficult, and that they had better follow a leader - they feel this just as instinctively and unconsciously as do dogs with their masters."
U.S. Federal Law
Mass poisoning has been legalized in the U.S.