UK scientist Kenneth Mellanby ate DDT on a regular basis for more than 40 years. He suffered no ill effects and lived to the ripe old age of 85.
Australian doctor Barry Marshall drank a petri dish of H. pylori and then biopsied his own gut. His resulting research on stomach ulcers earned him a Nobel Prize.
Today news comes that Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who supports fracking, has conducted a similar experiment. According to the Washington Times, he told a US Senate committee that he drank fracking fluid supplied to him by Halliburton:
While some laughed at the governor’s statement, he brought up the incident to make a serious point: that oil and gas companies have taken major steps forward in fracking technology.
The practice uses water, sand and chemicals injected into the ground at tremendous pressure to break apart rock formations and release fuel. Environmental groups and many other critics long have been concerned about the chemicals used in the practice and their potential effect on groundwater.
Mr. Hickenlooper stressed that the Halliburton food additive mixture is so safe, one can literally drink it. He also cautioned against state and federal lawmakers going too far with laws to force companies such as Halliburton to disclose the formulas for such products.
Conservatives are giving Hickenlooper props:
Better to sip fracking fluids http://t.co/23HaZ1NE than gulp anti-everything green Kool-aid. #copolitics #energy #tcot #tlot.
— MonkeyWrenched (@XtremeGreens) February 12, 2013
Thanks, Gov. @hickforco, for being a welcome voice of reason on energy issues: http://t.co/VMNVBsc3 #copolitics #coleg #energy #tcot
— AFP Colorado (@AFPColorado) February 12, 2013
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