rifles and pesticides

Hayo van der Werf (vdwerf@colmar.inra.fr)
Mon, 4 Nov 96 13:58:13 GMT

Bill Duesing writes:
>I believe the point of the zuchinni ad is that pesticides kill more poeple than
>assult rifles, and yet there is all this commotion about rifles and little
about
>pesticides.
>

I do think the risks posed by pesticide use are often underestimated, but
there is not much use in exagerating by making this kind of comparisons.
WHO-UNEP (1989) estimates pesticides kill 20 000 people yearly, 220 000
people when suicides are included. I do not have the data for people killed
by rifles but I would be very much surprised if Bill Duesing were right on
this account.

Hayo van der Werf