Documentary Exposes the Horrific Human Cost of the DDT Ban

The New American ^ | 06 June 2013 | Rebecca Terrell

[VitacoreVision]

California Dr. D. Rutledge Taylor treks around the world in 40 days to uncover the tragic consequences of banning DDT. His documentary "3 Billion and Counting" is reviewed by Rebecca Terrell

Documentary Exposes the Horrific Human Cost of the DDT Ban

The New American
06 June 2013

3 Billion and Counting, Produced/written/directed by D. Rutledge Taylor, Los Angeles, California: Frogbite Productions, 102 minutes (produced in 2010).

Most people will complain indignantly of government corruption and foreign atrocities and end by shaking their heads in discouragement. Not so with D. Rutledge Taylor. Known to his patients as “Dr. Rutledge,” this California physician learned that malaria claims the lives of one million people every year in poor countries because governments prevent them from using the only known antidote, and he took a different tack. Hoping to right the wrong, he hired a video production crew and traveled around the world to chronicle the devastation of a decades-old bureaucratic ban on the insecticide DDT.

Dr. Rutledge specializes in preventive medicine and was researching ways to ward off West Nile Virus in 2004, the year cases surged in California. He discovered that malaria, another infectious disease transmitted by insects, is far more prevalent in today’s world than any other communicable illness. In search for a solution, he asked some colleagues, and what he found horrified him.

“DDT is a preventive measure. It just turns malaria on and off like a switch,” said Dr. Art Robinson, biochemist and president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. “The number of children slaughtered by the ban of DDT is greater than any other genocide in world history.” Robinson challenged Dr. Rutledge to go find out for himself, inspiring what became a five-year project including a journey through Africa, India, and Indonesia to witness the carnage firsthand, and several trips to Washington, D.C., to answer the question, “Why did they ban that chemical?”

A compelling and controversial documentary, 3 Billion and Counting is named for the number of malaria victims worldwide throughout history. It exposes genocide in poor countries committed by bureaucrats in wealthy nations who kill with the “stroke of a pen.”

But even more compelling than the numbers of dead are the faces of individual children in hospitals of sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia suffering intensely as the disease escalates from uncontrollable shaking, extreme muscle pain, and high fever to anemia, cerebral meningitis, or renal failure. Those who survive are often left with chronic pain and fatigue and sometimes permanent brain damage.

Dr. Rutledge juxtaposes interviews of mothers and hospital workers weeping over these dying children with those of smug bureaucrats and environmentalists lamenting fabricated dead birds. With detailed research he exposes as counterfeit the many myths surrounding DDT as a supposed carcinogen, infertility agent, and ecological threat. Finally, he reaches the inevitable conclusion that policies stifling DDT are rooted in the lies of blind-faith environmentalists who fund a concerted, racist population control movement that believes the world would be a much better place with fewer people in it.

In the first 40 minutes of the DVD, Dr. Rutledge’s crew takes viewers on a 40-day trek through malaria-ravaged countries in Africa and Indonesia. Public health officials everywhere repeat the same story: Malaria is a more serious problem even than HIV. Thirty-five percent of all women in Sumba Island, Indonesia, have lost a child to malaria. Francois Maartens of the Medical Research Council in Durban, South Africa, likens the destructive effects of the disease to “loading Boeing 747 airbuses full of kids every day and crashing them.” In Nairobi, the UNICEF coordinator of the Roll Back Malaria Network (RBM), John Chimumba, says, “Every 10 seconds you get a child dying of malaria.”

Launched in 1998, RBM distributes insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) as one of its main malaria-prevention strategies. Dr. Rutledge exposes government-authorized racketeering as bureaucrats sell taxpayer-funded ITNs to impoverished, high-risk Africans, justifying their plunder with the excuse that people won’t use them unless they have to pay for them. The video paradoxically cuts to a poverty-stricken village where children play within inches of raw sewage draining through the alley at the entrance to their family’s hut, reminding viewers that the world’s poorest people can’t afford basic necessities let alone a bed net. Regardless, Tim Freeman, a UNICEF Malaria Project officer in Mozambique admits, “People who use nets alone will always get malaria.”

Interviewing public health officials in these countries, Dr. Rutledge discovered that most of them want DDT but can’t use it because of political pressures. Dr. Abdul Hamid Mussa, health provincial director in Mozambique, told him, “Because we have [government] funding we are not using DDT.” Mussa’s colleague Elizabeth Streat warned, “It’s difficult to talk about DDT here. It’s quite a sensitive issue.”

Yet officials in Swaziland reject foreign aid so that they can use DDT, effecting a decline in malaria cases in children under five from 65 percent to about five percent within 10 years. “No one can come and tell me that we don’t want DDT, because I’m not asking for that money from any donors,” said Simon Kunene, Swaziland’s malaria program manager.

India also benefits from DDT; malaria is practically eradicated from that country. The Indian government operates the world’s only major DDT production facility, Hindustani Chemical Ltd. In 50 years of production, workers have had no negative health effects. During Dr. Rutledge’s visit Rajendra Mohan, former chairman of Hindustani Chemical, told him, “The problem with DDT is persistence of perception.”

Indeed, for more than 50 years the perception has persisted that DDT is a threat to all living things. Environmentalist and author Rachel Carson cemented that attitude in public opinion with her 1962 best-seller Silent Spring, a book described by contemporaries in the scientific community as emotional, deceitful, and alarmist.

On his return to the United States, Dr. Rutledge uncovers the damage done by Silent Spring and the EPA’s subsequent DDT ban in a series of candid interviews with key players of the time, including former EPA Special Deputy Assistant Richard Fairbanks, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, and former Navy Surgeon General Harold Koenig. They and others explain that despite meticulous and comprehensive EPA hearings held in 1971 and 1972 that completely exonerated DDT as safe and effective, agency Administrator William Ruckelshaus single-handedly banned this lifesaving chemical, calling it an environmental risk and human carcinogen.

Dr. Rutledge also attempted interviews with the EPA, the Pesticide Action Network, the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, other activist groups, and Ruckelshaus himself. Their doors were slammed in his face. Viewers see Dr. Rutledge’s frustration mounting on repeated trips to Washington, D.C., for scheduled interviews cancelled at the last minute.

But when he and his crew uncover the original EPA hearing transcripts — 9,312 pages sealed in 49 boxes and buried in the National Archives — they cut the original string bindings and expose testimony ignored for most of the past four decades. Malaria is virtually preventable, and it is brutal government-sanctioned population control rather than environmental concern that keeps the only known preventive blacklisted. The evidence Dr. Rutledge reveals indicts high-level political leaders and prominent scientists with premeditated genocide against the “black, brown and yellow babies” of the world. He interviews numerous doctors, scientists, authors, and activists who confirm these findings.

Dr. Rutledge stakes his life on his research by drinking three grams of DDT during the video, more than 100,000 times the amount people encountered daily in the 1960s when Carson cried wolf. He ends his fascinating exposé snacking on the white powder and asking, “With vector-borne disease on the rise, should we bring back DDT?” Millions of mothers who have lost children to malaria would say it is past time.

Dr. Rutledge plans to release 3 Billion and Counting to theaters and for sale to the public in the coming months. In the meantime, he invites visitors to the website, 3billionandcounting.com, to join his mailing list and stay informed.


Related article:

DDT Ban Breeds Death

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Can someone examine why eagle and other large birds eggs became too thin to support nesting when DDT was in wide use, and now have recovered since DDT was banned ?

[beebuster2000]

its well known that eagles have learned to eat mosquitoes and that accounts for the rise in the eagle population since DDT was banned.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Liberals don’t care a whit about the deaths of 3 billion humans. To them humans are destroying the earth.

[jespasinthru]

Years ago I read an article about mosquitoes in an old National Geographic magazine. According to that article, 90% of all the humans who ever lived on planet Earth died of Malaria. That’s more than all the other plagues, wars and famines combined. And most of them died as infants and children, long before they could reproduce. Perhaps mosquitoes and the deadly virus they carry are God’s way of culling the human herd. Can you think of any other reason for mosquitoes to exist, except as spider food?

[Blood of Tyrants]

“The number of children slaughtered by the ban of DDT is greater than any other genocide in world history.”

Not more than abortion.

[shibumi]

“Is there an echo in here?” - Ping

[T. P. Pole]

I think you will find the egg-thinning evidence to be of the same type as the man-caused global warming evidence.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that egg-thinning started decades before DDT use, and continues today in some populations, decades after DDT banning. It is worthwhile to be skeptical.

[dalereed]

They never did, that was total BS put out by the center for Democratic Institutions, and namly their communist member Eddie Albert!

[dalereed]

I hope they bring it back!!!

When I was a kid I used to spray the backyard every day before we barbecued dinner and I love the smell of it!!!

It’s totally harmless, I know people that sprayed their orchards with it and wore a rain coat when spraying the trees on both sides of the tractor and one farmer that was so pissed when the banned it he drank a glass of DDT to show it was harmless.

[VitacoreVision]

Bald Eagle-DDT Myth Still Flying High
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/07/06/bald-eagle-ddt-myth-still-flying-high/

Bald eagles still not saved by DDT ban no matter how many times the myth is repeated
http://junkscience.com/2012/01/02/bald-eagles-still-not-saved-by-ddt-ban/

100 Things You Should Know About DDT
http://junkscience.com/1999/07/26/100-things-you-should-know-about-ddt

66. Bald eagles were reportedly threatened with extinction in 1921 — 25 years before widespread use of DDT. [Van Name, WG. 1921. Ecology 2:76]

67. Alaska paid over $100,000 in bounties for 115,000 bald eagles between 1917 and 1942. [Anon. Science News Letter, July 3, 1943]

68. The bald eagle had vanished from New England by 1937. [Bent, AC. 1937. Raptorial Birds of America. US National Museum Bull 167:321-349]

69. After 15 years of heavy and widespread usage of DDT, Audubon Society ornithologists counted 25 percent more eagles per observer in 1960 than during the pre-DDT 1941 bird census. [Marvin, PH. 1964 Birds on the rise. Bull Entomol Soc Amer 10(3):184-186; Wurster, CF. 1969 Congressional Record S4599, May 5, 1969; Anon. 1942. The 42nd Annual Christmas Bird Census. Audubon Magazine 44:1-75 (Jan/Feb 1942; Cruickshank, AD (Editor). 1961. The 61st Annual Christmas Bird Census. Audubon Field Notes 15(2):84-300; White-Stevens, R.. 1972. Statistical analyses of Audubon Christmas Bird censuses. Letter to New York Times, August 15, 1972]

70. No significant correlation between DDE residues and shell thickness was reported in a large series of bald eagle eggs. [Postupalsky, S. 1971. (DDE residues and shell thickness). Canadian Wildlife Service manuscript, April 8, 1971]

71. Thickness of eggshells from Florida, Maine and Wisconsin was found to not be correlated with DDT residues.

72. U.S. Forest Service studies reported an increase in nesting bald eagle productivity (51 in 1964 to 107 in 1970). [U.S. Forest Service (Milwaukee, WI). 1970. Annual Report on Bald Eagle Status]

73. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists fed large doses of DDT to captive bald eagles for 112 days and concluded that “DDT residues encountered by eagles in the environment would not adversely affect eagles or their eggs.” [Stickel, L. 1966. Bald eagle-pesticide relationships. Trans 31st N Amer Wildlife Conference, pp.190-200]

74. Wildlife authorities attributed bald eagle population reductions to a “widespread loss of suitable habitat”, but noted that “illegal shooting continues to be the leading cause of direct mortality in both adult and immature bald eagles.” [Anon.. 1978. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Endangered Species Tech Bull 3:8-9]

75. Every bald eagle found dead in the U.S., between 1961-1977 (266 birds) was analyzed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists who reported no adverse effects caused by DDT or its residues. [Reichel, WL. 1969. (Pesticide residues in 45 bald eagles found dad in the U.S. 1964-1965). Pesticides Monitoring J 3(3)142-144; Belisle, AA. 1972. (Pesticide residues and PCBs and mercury, in bald eagles found dead in the U.S. 1969-1970). Pesticides Monitoring J 6(3): 133-138; Cromartie, E. 1974. (Organochlorine pesticides and PCBs in 37 bald eagles found dead in the U.S. 1971-1972). Pesticides Monitoring J 9:11-14; Coon, NC. 1970. (Causes of bald eagle mortality in the US 1960-1065). Journal of Wildlife Diseases 6:72-76]

76. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists linked high intake of mercury from contaminated fish with eagle reproductive problems. [Spann, JW, RG Heath, JF Kreitzer, LN Locke. 1972. (Lethal and reproductive effects of mercury on birds) Science 175:328- 331]

77. Shooting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot were ranked by the National Wildlife Federation as late as 1984 as the leading causes of eagle deaths. [Anon. 1984. National Wildlife Federation publication. (Eagle deaths)]

[Kansas58]

If DDT is used as directed, it does not harm the environment at all.
Its best use is as a repellent, a small amount on the walls of mud huts, or tents, will keep mosquitoes away for days.
Yes, some people dumped the stuff from buckets or did not have the proper equipment, but this is tree hugger over kill.
Banning DDT was a tragic mistake by the Nixon Administration.
Actually, it was not banned, it was simply removed from the “approved” lists for retail sale.
There have been a few times when our government has granted an “exception” for the use of DDT.

[blueunicorn6]

Eric: one million people, mostly children, dead a year. The DDT studies were done with chickens, not eagles. They fed the chickens more DDT then any eagle would ingest in 100 lifetimes. Then, they quit feeding the chickens calcium. Chickens, without calcium in their diet, will lay thin-shelled eggs. Ask anyone who raises chickens. The resurgence of eagles wasn’t because their eggs became stronger. It’s in the story that you can eat DDT by the spoonful.

[samkatz]

Good question. I answer not as a scientist, but as an avid birder/conservationist who also believes that the environmental movement is often co-opted by absolutists who have no common sense.

My understanding is that even critics of Rachel Carson and the DDT ban will admit that evidence exists that DDT did contribute to the problems with eagles and other raptors.(egg shell thinning)

However, many of Carson’s claims about DDT causing cancer and posing a direct threat to humans have been debunked. In fact, DDT relatively safe(compared to other pesticides) and was very cheap to manufacture.

I think the DDT proponents/Carson debunkers are not advocating indiscriminant spraying of land and crops with it, especially in the US. What they are saying is that the costs and benefits of such chemicals must be weighed. DDT was never formally banned worldwide, but the EPA’s banning it in the USA pretty much ended its availability. Its sudden withdrawal from 3rd world areas like Africa, led to huge increases in malaria. Perhaps DDT could have been used in other ways... selective spraying, even indoors, where malaria born mosquitoes are breeding or attacking humans.

No one in the USA died because of the DDT ban... In a rich country, even if we get hit with malaria, we have very affordable quick treatments. Not so in the third world. So we get to enjoy our eagles all over the US and pay no price. Sadly, many many children died in Africa because of our policy. The documentary cited in the post(which I have not seen) has been reviewed as a one sided, agenda driven polemic. However, if you google the subject you’ll find many articles(even in the NYT) by scientists and humanitarians which have explained the devastation caused by the DDT ban and have called for resumption of it’s use, subject to limitations.

[logi_cal869]

Just being devil’s advocate here:

So WITH DDT today’s population would be +3 billion?

I don’t think so; it would just be ‘something else’ (if it’s not already happening).

[VitacoreVision]

From the article:

“3 Billion and Counting is named for the number of malaria victims worldwide throughout history.”

[microgood]

I think this boils down to a quote from the movie Sahara when speaking of the poisoning of the aquifers :

General Zateb Kazim: Don't worry. It's Africa. Nobody cares about Africa.

[Drawsing]

Can you think of any other reason for mosquitoes to exist, except as spider food?

As a Christian I believe this world has been cursed by sin. After man's disobedience in the Garden of Eden the world was changed and we suffer the consequences today...including blood sucking mosquitoes and every other manmade and natural disaster.

As you mentioned, God is in control. He has a plan of redemption and as Jesus said, He will "make all things new" for those who believe.

[jespasinthru]

Why would something as large as an eagle bother to eat something as small as a mosquito? Eagles are predators, and they have beaks and talons. Eagles eat plump, juicy things that bleed. Like rabbits, prairie dogs, field rats, small birds, snakes and, occasionally, somebody’s expensive little yappy dog. I can’t even envision an eagle wasting its time eating mosquitoes.

[New Jersey Realist]

You are right. The energy an eagle would have to spend to eat enough mosquitoes would run in negative numbers and weaken it. Bats on the other hand have no problem eating them. Doing a poor job of it though. I always questioned why the mosquito existed in the first place. The cruelty of it is way beyond my comprehension.