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Policy

Controlling Explosives

September 3, 2007 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 85, Issue 36

As a chemist who spent some of his boyhood experimenting—without much success—with ways to blow things up, I understand that experiences with energetic materials may attract young people to careers in science. However, I suspect that for every Pauling, Edison, or Goddard that such experiences yield, there is a much more abundant harvest of scars, lost fingers, and blindness.

Regulatory attempts to control the sale of energetic materials to the general public hardly constitute a "war on science" (C&EN, July 9, page 31). We should not feel that we need to risk the safety of our youth in order to recruit future scientists.

Joseph P. Smith
Bellaire, Texas

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