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> I was reading Fran's account of Rotenone and other > pesticides, while she handled fish, when I remembered > that my father used to spray TONS of white "rose dust" > to kill Japanese beetles on mom and dad's roses, wiht > me following him around the back yard, awestruck > by his moon explorers' gear, to protect his face and hands. > When we lived in North Carolina our organic garden was infested with aphids. It didn't take long for the resident lady bugs to understand their opportunity to participate in a movable feast - thus allowing us to enjoy one of the most spectacular, delicious and safe crops of vegetables (particularly peas) imaginable. A friend of ours in N.C. loved his roses and sprayed them in an effort to save them from voracious Japanese beetles. He dutifully baptized them with a spray before he left on vacation one year. We never saw him alive again. He developed an 'idiopathic encephalopathy' that killed him within two weeks. The cause was attributed to the spray he had used - but because the case was difficult to prove his wife received no compensation. Since no infectious organism was identified and other people using the spray had suffered a variety of neurological insults, the spray was the probable cause of his affliction. He was only 32 years old. ------ God bless Mary Ann