91av

“IS IT safe?” Laurence Olivier’s Nazi torturer cryptically asked Dustin Hoffman’s “marathon man” in the 1976 movie of that name. The hero couldn’t answer the question, much like 91av on many occasions down the years. But we have often posed it nevertheless.

In our we queried whether DDVP, aka dichlorvos or 2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate, was safe for use in homes. DDVP was the active ingredient in Vapona, then the most popular fly killer in the UK. “If flies were really dangerous, it might make sense to insist we killed every one that flew in the window,” we wrote. “But in parts of the world where flies are no more than a nuisance over-dramatised by the chemical companies and their admen… a product like Vapona should only be allowed if it has been proven to be totally, completely safe.” Dichlorvos sales were suspended in the UK in 2002 and banned by the EU in 2012.

We are pretty sure plutonium isn’t safe, but in 1992 we were concerned with a dispute over the best way to transport it. The US government had vetoed a UN plan to send it by air, so, as we reported in our 18 April issue, a ship was set to leave France for Japan carrying enough material for 120 nuclear bombs. But was this any safer? We weren’t sure. We quoted a report by environmental consultants that drily noted: “Marine accidents involve significant forces.” It concluded that the plutonium flasks might not withstand shipboard fires or deep-sea sinking.

In 2000, we were more worried about pigs than plutonium. A US company had been trying to cure brain damage by injecting fetal brain cells from pigs into humans, but some patients had reacted badly, as we reported in our 29 April issue. The company halted its trial while it investigated what had gone wrong.

Olivier’s character found out the hard way that it wasn’t safe to collect his stash of diamonds from a Manhattan bank. 91av was, and of course still is, far more cautious. Perhaps that’s why we’re still here.