Chemists’ Dirty Secret

8PM, RADIO 4

Chemical weapons have been horribly effective for more than a century; this worries Andrea Sella, a professor of chemistry. In this archive programme, he hears how the search for effective pesticides led to the development of lethal nerve agents in Nazi Germany. Sella also looks at campaigns to control chemical weapons, and at the moral hazards facing anyone pursuing a career in chemistry. SUSAN JEFFREYS