effort of E D F is litigation, it also is interested in developing model legisla tion which may be adopted by states for the protection of the environment," says Prof. MacDonald. To that end, he developed a model act which E D F will make available to state legislators. In summary, the act would create a pesticide control board of 15 members to regulate pesticide use, require registration of pesticides with the board before pesticide use, sale, or manufacture, and would re quire detailed scientific data as to the pesticides' effect on the environment prior to registration. Currently, many states have little if any control of pesticide use. Meanwhile last week, south of the Wisconsin border in Illinois, the State Senate Agriculture Committee rejected a bill that would have banned use of DDT. However, the committee ap proved a bill which would give the state directors of agriculture and pub lic health power to issue and enforce regulations for the control of pesti cides. Michigan's Agriculture Commission voted last month to ban sales of DDT. However, this is not the first state to take such extreme action. Arizona banned agricultural use of D D T for one year last Jan. 13. There had been fear among dairy men and others that, with the lowering of allowable D D T residue levels by the Federal Govern ment last year, some products might be banned from the market because of increasing residue levels.
CANCER:
Hope From Platinum A new class of drugs that inhibit tumors has been discovered by Mich igan State University biophysicists Barnett Rosenberg and Loretta Van Camp. Certain platinum chemicals inhibit both leukemia and sarcoma malignancies in test mice, the bio physicists reported in Nature [Vol. 222, 385 (1969)]. Leukemia is can cer of the bone marrow that results
MSU's Rosenberg (left), Van Camp A startling innovation
in invasion of blood by abnormally large numbers of white blood cells; sarcoma is cancer of cartilage, cer tain bones, voluntary muscle, fatty tissue, and parts of nerves. "Platinum compounds for tumorinhibition are a rather startling in novation," Dr. Rosenberg says. "Pre vious to this, it was not believed that these kinds of inorganic chemicals could exert control over tumors. The new group of inorganic antitumor agents includes other metal com pounds of the platinum group such as rhodium and ruthenium compounds." Dr. Rosenberg estimates that about 1000 platinum compounds might be antitumor agents. Tumor inhibition rates as high as 100% are achieved with some of the drugs, he says. Of the few platinum compounds tested so far by Michigan State Uni versity and the National Cancer Insti tute, four have proved effective: ( I ) , cfe-Pt (IV) (NH 8 )oCl 4 ; ( I I ) , cis-Vt (II) (NH 3 )oCl 0 ; ( Ι Π ) , Pt (II) (NHoCHoCHoNk 2 )CU; and (IV), Pt (IV) (NH 2 CH 2 CH 2 NH 2 )C1 4 . The MSU drug discovery was ac cidental. The biophysicists were test ing the effects of an electrical field on bacterial growth. The bacteria grew very long, and cell division stopped. They found that the plati num contamination from the electrode was halting cell division and causing the unusual growth. "According to the literature, plati num yields no contamination from such experiments," Dr. Rosenberg says. "We learned differently." The scientists then tried to block cell di vision in animal cells with platinum compounds. They were successful. "We can now eliminate tumors of a certain type in mice without destroy ing the mice," Dr. Rosenberg says. The National Cancer Institute has found that compound II is a potent antileukemia agent. They are cur rently testing it to evaluate possible side-effects in normal animals. The next step will be testing on humans. Dr. James E. Trosko and Virginia H. Mansour, of MSU's natural science and human development department, are testing platinum compounds for cell division inhibition on human tis sue cultures. Thus far, the results are encouraging, they report.
ITALY:
Stockholder Protest Wild and woolly. That's about the only way to describe Montecatini Ed ison's annual stockholders meeting, held at the firm's Milan headquarters late last month. A record number of small shareholders in the Italian chemical giant turned out for the
MonteEd complex A wild and woolly session in Milan
meeting to protest government entry into MonteEd last fall (C&EN, Oct. 24, 1968, page 2 4 ) . The meeting came close to erupting into a free-forall on several occasions. More than 50% of the share capital of MonteEd was represented at the meeting which dragged on for some 17 hours. At one point or another dur ing the tempestuous session every thing from copies of the MonteEd annual report to coins were hurled by angry, shouting shareholders at pre siding MonteEd management officials. In spite of the dissension, the holding syndicate, formed by stateowned Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI) and Istituto Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) plus several privately owned firms to control MonteEd, se cured as planned the election of nine representatives to MonteEd's 26-member board. The syndicate plus private groups mustered a voting strength of some 300 million vs. about 72 million for the small shareholders' groups, of MonteEd's 749 million shares. Not secured by the syndicate, how ever, was a proposed amendment to MonteEd's statutes. The proposal was that the resignation of a third of the members of the board should au tomatically entail resignation of the entire board. In short, with this amendment, a minority grouping (such as the nine representatives of the government-owned companies now on the 26-member board), could bend the board to its bidding. The proposal was greeted by heated debate from the small shareholders and after some hours was withdrawn. MonteEd president Giorgio Valerio told the meeting the amendment will be considered at another extraordinary meeting to be held at a later date. In any event this victory of the small shareholders is probably a psy chological one at best. The fact re mains that the government-owned companies (ENI and IRI) have placed nine persons on the board and they are pretty firmly in the driver's seat. There is a strong belief that Mr. Valerio is on his way out. He will re main president this year. But chances are he will not be re-elected. MAY 5, 1969 C&EN
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