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A STERILITY DRUG IN FOOD IS HINTED
Biologist Stresses Need to Curb Population Growth
By GLADWIN HILL
Special to The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 24 – A possibility that the government might have to put sterility drugs in reservoirs and in food shipped to foreign countries to limit human multiplication was envisioned today by a leading crusader on the population problem.
The crusader, Dr. Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, among a number of commentators who called attention to the “population crisis” as the United States Commission for Unesco opened it 13th national conference here today.
Unesco is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The 100-member commission, appointed by the Secretary of State, included representatives of Government, outside organizations, and the public. Some 500 conservationists and others are attending the two-day meeting at the St. Francis Hotel, devoted this year to environmental problems.
President Nixon’s chief science adviser, Dr. Lee DuBridge, brought up the population question in his keynote speech last night, calling the reduction of the earth’s population growth rate to zero “the first great challenge of our time.”
Godfrey a Speaker
His comments went beyond recent statements of President Nixon, who in a message to Congress stressed the provision of birth control information to underprivileged women.
But the Federal Government’s willingness to come to grips with population limitation was questioned by another speaker, Arthur Godfrey, radio-television star and a conservation campaigner.
“Dr. DuBridge rightly said that population control should be the prime task of every government,” he said. “But is there anyone here – anyone – who thinks that this Administration, or the next of the next, will act with the kind of force that’s necessary?”
Dr. Erlich, who is a biologist said:
“Our first move must be to convince all those we can that the planet Earth must be viewed as a spaceship of limited carrying capacity.”
“I think that 150 million people (50 million fewer that there are now) would be an optimum number to live comfortably in the United States.
‘Alternative to Armageddon’
“Some biologists feel that compulsory family regulation will be necessary to retard population growth. It is a dismal prospect – except when viewed as an alternative to Armageddon.”
He urged establishing a Federal Population Commission “with a large budget for propaganda,” changing tax laws to discourage reproduction and instituting mandatory birth control instruction in public schools.
He also urged “changing the pattern of Federal support of biomedical research so that the majority of it goes into the broad areas of population regulation, environment sciences, behavior sciences and related areas rather than into short-sighted programs on death control.”
If such steps are unavailing, he continued, the nation might resort to “the addition of a temporary sterilant to staple food, or to the water supply,” with limited distribution of antidote chemicals, perhaps by lottery.
Although it might seem that such a program could be started by doctoring foods sent to underdeveloped countries, he said, “the solution does not lie in that direction” because “other people already are suspicious of our motives.”
Economic Pressure Urged
Rather, he suggested, the United States should stop economic aid to countries that do not try to limit their populations.
Dr. Barry Commoner of St. Louis, Washington University ecologist, in an ensuing discussion period differed with Dr. Ehrlich.
He said that he thought the urge to multiply was rooted in the sense of insecurity. And that the better way to reduce reproduction was by “increasing the well-being of peoples.”
He also opposed chemical strategems on the ground that “every technological trick like that we’ve tried has caused disaster.”
Recapitulating the environmental problems stemming from population, Dr. Dubridge said: “Do we need more people on the earth? We all know the answer to that is no. Do we have to have more people? Also no.
“Can we reverse the urges of a billion years of evolving life? We can. We know techniques for reducing fertility. We are not fully utilizing them.”
Citing a widespread attitude, he said: ‘We have the right to have as many children as we can afford,’ we say. Do we, today? No.
“Can we not invent a way to reduce our population growth rate to zero? Every human institution – school, university, church, family, government and international agencies such as Unesco – should set this as its prime task.”
Source: The New York Times
Published: November 25, 1969