Posted on 04/11/2005 3:42:49 PM PDT by MikeEdwards
This month, the New Jersey Pest Management Association issued a news release to warn against the prospect of billions of mosquitoes and threat of West Nile Fever they pose. West Nile Fever arrived in New York City in 1999 and, within three years, it had spread to California.
In Washington, an executive order was signed recently to insure that avian flu does not reach these shores and, when a single case of Mad Cow Disease was discovered, the border was shut to Canadian beef. When SARS broke out in Red China a few years ago, it too was quickly quarantined. Like the Black Death that originated in inner Asia, many of the plagues that threaten us today begin there as well. We, however, live in an era of global communication in which these forms of pestilence can be identified and steps taken to thwart their spread.
That wasn’t the case in 1347 when Yersina pestis, the Black Death, arrived in Europe, having made its way there from trading outposts in the Crimea. In a fascinating new book, The Great Mortality by John Kelly ($25.95, HarperCollins), the story of how this plague bacillus would transform history is told as it moved from nation to nation. It is estimated to have killed a third of the entire population of Europe.
"The medieval plague is the second greatest catastrophe in the human record," writes Kelly. "Only World War II produced more death." Though distant in time from us, such massive death is not unusual in our times. Every year, millions die of Malaria in Africa simply because the environmental movement, sparked by a book written by Rachel Carson in the 1950s, has done everything in its power to eliminate the use of DDT and every other pesticide . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
But of course,....we don't want to use DDT to kill mosquitos and save human lives,....it might kill a few birds.
Me, I hate mosquitos because they LOVE ME! They head right for me. Kill em all and let mother nature sort em out.
I'm suspecting that the "long slow grind" of millions-a-year dead of malaria in Africa due to lack of DDT may have already killed more than WWII.
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