The Life and Deaths of DDT

Wall Street Journal (paid subscribers only) ^ | June 14, 2002 | Review & Outlook

[snopercod]

Thirty years ago today, the Environmental Protection Agency drastically restricted the production and use of DDT, an inexpensive pesticide once widely used to repel mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects.

Count us out of any celebration. Instead, we should mourn for the 30 million to 60 million people the World Health Organization reckons have died from malaria, lives that might have been saved by DDT. The American Council on Science and Health points out that in the two decades before it was restricted this "miracle pesticide" saved as many as 100 million lives in Africa, Asia and South America.

[snopercod]

Actually, the evidence that DDT harms birds (or anything besides mosquitoes) is thin.

[snopercod]

bump

[avg_freeper]

Rachel Carson is the biggest mass murderer throughout known history.

She sentenced to death ten's of millions just to promote her pathetic "Selent Spring".

The book was poor fiction at best.

[madfly]

ping

[ClearCase_guy]

Actually, the evidence that DDT harms birds (or anything besides mosquitoes) is thin.

I agree. Carson seemed confused that the song birds were becoming scarce (Silent Spring) and assumed that pesticides were killing birds. I think it's more logical to assume that the bugs were killed (as desired), and the birds just went elsewhere to find food.

The scientific data I've seen (on egg-shell thinning for example) is very ambiguous. I am not aware of any good data that says birds or humans were directly effected by these chemicals.

[countrydummy]

It does not surprise me at all that this international ban was introduced by none other than the traitor Jim Jeffords! This is to insure that millions do indeed die, after all the world is over-populated! I think he should be tried in an international criminal court for his part in geneocide! :-)

[fuente]

In fact, the EPA scientific panel looking into DDT recommended that it NOT be banned, but the EPA head (an activist) went AGAINST the EPA's own SCIENTIFIC advisors.

[Carry_Okie]

The Audubon Society bird counts during the production of DDT show that bird populations INCREASED as a result of DDT. It killed mites that spread pathogens and induce pneumonia in birds.

[Mo1]

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[lsee]

Fact versus fiction

[sphinx]

I understand that DDT is harmless to humans but I had the notion that the bioaccumulation threat to birds was well established. Anyone have a link to a current review of the issue?

When I was growing up, the DDT spraying was a service club project. (I forget whether Kiwanis, Rotary, or Jaycees did the honors. As these were mostly the same people anyhow, I don't suppose it matters.) It was a big event for us kids. We were always playing one or another variation of our universal game ("war"), so when the fogger trucks came through, it was naturally time to play "WWI gas attack." We had a convenient ditch along the road which made a good trench for 7, 8, and 9 year olds. The truck rumbled by and we'd charge through the cloud, only to be machinegunned when we emerged on the other side. (WWI was never a very good game, except when we had gas ....)

Don't suppose kids get to play that game much anymore. The world has definitely gone downhill.

[sphinx]

One of the nice things about FR is how you so often get the answer to your question before you post it. Thanks.

[TigersEye]

Carson seemed confused that the song birds were becoming scarce (Silent Spring) and assumed that pesticides were killing birds.

Another (and far more logical) theory for the drastic decline in songbirds was the end of massive cultivation of Cannabis sativa (hemp). It was outlawed in 1937 but reinstituted temporarily during WWII to provide hemp for all the rigging on Navy vessels (yes even steel vessels employed a lot of hemp rope for various things) as well as canvas for sailors shoes and the stitching in those shoes and all the packs, straps and webbing used in military equipment. When the war was over the ban was on again. Hemp seed is arguably the most nutritious seed in nature. It contains as much protein per pound as beef does and has all but one or two essential amino acids in near perfect proportion for the human diet. When crushed for its oil the mash makes a highprotein feed for hogs. Now the only hemp in the midwest are isolated little pockets that escaped cultivation over fifty years ago.

[Brian Allen]

Rachel Carson is the biggest mass murderer throughout known history.

She sentenced to death tens of millions just to promote her pathetic silent springboard to unearned celebrity.

The book was poor fiction at best.

The book was too bloody obscene for use as toilet paper in a country outhose.

What a low-life mass-murdering scumbag bitch she was!

DDT is one of the most efficacious agricultural chemicals ever invented and probably the safest-ever insecticide. There has never been a single Human death attributed to its normal use -- and the estimate directly attributed to its use of lives saved goes to over one billion!

[TigersEye]

Don't suppose kids get to play that game much anymore.

If they try to they get suspended from school, quizzed about firearms their parents own and sent to reprogramming camps.

Did you go to the Army Surplus store and get helmets, mess kits and empty pineapple grenades? I even had a WWII gas mask at one point. Sighhhhhhhhhh!

[sphinx]

We didn't have a convenient army surplus store so we had to make do with the stuff floating around our basements and garages. We were still pretty lethal looking, though.:)

[AdA$tra]

Be hero. Save a whale.
Save a baby. Go to jail.

[killroy]

The trivia question is what does DDT stand for. If my memory is correct diphynal dichloral trichloralethane.

[VOA]

In fact, the EPA scientific panel looking into DDT recommended that it NOT be banned,
but the EPA head (an activist) went AGAINST the EPA's own SCIENTIFIC advisors.

I have two college chums who are career chemists with the EPA.
I remember being suprised when one of them volunteered that he thought DDT was
a really good pesticide.
But he did mention the caveat that he thought any problems with DDT was in
the application/dispersion phase.
He thought that as long as DDT was applied in restricted areas, e.g., along an ant
trail in a house,it was very safe because it was relatively non-volatile (would stay
in place and kill any insects that came into contact with it.

We never discussed the thin-eggshell evidence, but I feel that he thought what
should have been done is that DDT application, especially in third-world areas
just needed much closer monitoring.

[stylin_geek]

Two months later EPA head William Ruckelshaus—who had never attended a single day’s session in the seven months of EPA hearings, and who admittedly had not even read the transcript of the hearings— overturned Judge Sweeney’s decision. Ruckelshaus declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.

This type of thing is one of my biggest problems with the EPA. (along with other government agencies) Again, we have an agency ruling by fiat, creating policy, when agencies such as the EPA are supposed to enforce policy and law, not create and write policy which is then enforced like it is law.