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DDT is safe: just ask the professor who ate it for 40 years
Daily Telegraph ^ | originally: 07/19/2001 | Terence Kealey

Posted on 07/03/2002 4:09:24 AM PDT by backhoe


Culture/Society Editorial Editorial
Source: The Telegraph (U.K.)
Published: 07/19/2001 Author: Terence Kealey
Posted on 07/18/2001 16:55:32 PDT by Pokey78

THE World Health Organisation, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the UN environmental programme and its development programme, USAID, and almost all the other international representatives of the great and the good now campaign against DDT.

But, perversely, the Third World still uses it. To those who believe that America under George W Bush and his gas-guzzling, permafrost-drilling accomplices is the source of all global pollution, this Third World defection is disappointing. Where are the virtuous blacks when we need them?

DDT was introduced as an insecticide during the 1940s. In Churchill's words: "The excellent DDT powder has been found to yield astonishing results against insects of all kinds, from lice to mosquitoes."

And astonishing they were. DDT was particularly effective against the anopheles mosquito, which is the carrier of malaria, and people once hoped that DDT would eradicate malaria worldwide. Consider Sri Lanka. In 1946, it had three million cases, but the introduction of DDT reduced the numbers, by 1964, to only 29. In India, the numbers of malaria cases fell from 75 million to around 50,000.

But, in 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, the book that launched the environmental movement. In that book, Carson showed how DDT was imperilling wildlife, particularly predators at the top of the food chain that accumulated the chemical in their fat and in their thinning egg shells.

Within a decade, the developed countries had banned DDT, as did some developing countries, to the detriment of their health. In Sri Lanka, cases of malaria soon rose to 500,000. Worldwide, malaria has returned with a vengeance, accounting annually for 300 million cases and, sadly, one million deaths, mainly of children.

As the Third World now knows, there is no ready substitute for DDT. The spraying of houses with DDT prevents malaria because most people are infected after dusk as they sleep indoors. DDT permeates the walls of buildings, and a single spray will provide indoor protection for months.

Other chemicals are available, but they are generally less effective, shorter-acting and - most importantly for the Third World - more expensive. And DDT is extraordinarily safe for humans. Prof Kenneth Mellanby lectured on it for more than 40 years, and during each lecture he would eat a pinch.

Nor need DDT imperil wildlife. The destruction that Carson described was caused by the agricultural use of DDT as a mass insecticide in vast quantities on crops. But the discriminating application of DDT indoors involves only a tiny, contained, environmentally tolerable, reversible fraction of the dose. That is why some international health (as opposed to environmental) agencies, including Unicef, still support the judicious use of DTT. Even the WHO is now softening its stance.

Malaria was once endemic in Britain. Cromwell died of it and both Pepys and Shakespeare described it. Until the 1930s, it was still active in Essex. But we are lucky in our frosty climate, which kills anopheles, and we have eradicated the disease. Yet Greenpeace and other environmental agencies resist the appropriate use of DDT in the tropics.

Politics has long bedevilled malaria. Its first effective cure was quinine, which was discovered by Jesuit missionaries in South America during the 1630s, but for decades Protestants preferred to die rather than swallow "Jesuit's Powder". Today, Third World health is endangered by comfortable Western environmentalists, some of whom, discreetly, view black natives as threats to the local wildlife.

Supporting those black natives, however, are two researchers, Richard Tren and Roger Bate, whose Malaria and the DDT Story, recently published by the Institute for Economic Affairs in London, shows how to foster both a healthier and an environmentally friendlier Third World. Greenpeace, in its self-assurance, embodies a contemporary cultural imperialism as offensive as any Jesuit's.


1 Posted on 07/18/2001 16:55:32 PDT by Pokey78


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: ddt; deathcultivation; malaria; pesticides; un
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To: shigure
Do you actually believe that President Mugabe of Zimbawe cares about what environmentalist groups think? I don't think so.
81 posted on 07/03/2002 8:41:35 PM PDT by StolarStorm
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To: backhoe
I go to canada and buy Sugar Twin to bring back to the US. It uses Sodium Cyclamate as an artificial sweetener. Remember when researchers in Canada soaked rats in the stuff? They developed skin lesions. The US banned it.

Canadians were smart enough to know that soaking rats for months wasn't the same as eating minute quantities.
82 posted on 07/03/2002 8:49:50 PM PDT by Poser
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To: Sabertooth
You are wrong, the others are right.
83 posted on 07/03/2002 8:50:38 PM PDT by Old Professer
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To: Lurker
so it's perfectly alright for some African villagers kids to suffer from malaria, or west nile fever, or some other mosquito borne disease.

That's exactly what many of the anti-pesticide mob want.

Banning DDT to control the population

Population control advocates blamed DDT for increasing third world population. In the 1960s, World Health Organization authorities believed there was no alternative to the overpopulation problem but to assure that up to 40 percent of the children in poor nations would die of malaria. As an official of the Agency for International Development stated, "Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing."

84 posted on 07/03/2002 8:50:40 PM PDT by Squawk 8888
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To: Squawk 8888
It is really tempting to agree with WHO when you live so close by.
85 posted on 07/03/2002 8:53:59 PM PDT by Old Professer
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Comment #86 Removed by Moderator

To: StolarStorm
In my experience radical greenies are uniformly white. Most of the black and brown folks I know are too busy busting their humps to make a living to worry about whether or not DDT thins eggshells or not.

I've had a few of them admit to me privately that Africa and South America would be better off from an 'environmental' standpoint without any people at all.

You took me to task for being to harsh on a poster. Well, I'm glad I shut him up. It's about time these radical greenies started tasting a bit of their own medicine. These people don't give a rats ass about whos kids get sick and die as a result of their policies so why should I care one whit about their feelings?

It's perfectly ok with them if Mustafa Mbekis kids are shriveling away in some third world s*** hole from malaria as long as he or she thinks they are 'doing something' to protect eagles or something.

Well f*** them. People are dying out there SS. DDT could save millions of lives and billions of dollars if properly used. Envirowhackos have been calling people like me racists, bigots, and whatever they can think of for decades and I for one have had it. If they want to live with Anopholes I say lets move a few millions of them into their neighborhood for a while and then see what they say about it.

Lets let their kids 'whack a few bugs' for a while. Maybe they'll change their tune when their kids come down with a nice case of Break Bone Fever.

Regards,

L

87 posted on 07/03/2002 8:59:19 PM PDT by Lurker
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To: StolarStorm
Oh by the way, third world countries are forbidden to manufacture their own DDT.

L

88 posted on 07/03/2002 9:00:15 PM PDT by Lurker
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To: Old Professer
You are wrong, the others are right.

You know, you're about the 4th poster to make this mistake.

I'm not wrong, because I haven't put forth any proposition... I've only asked questions.

In fact, that post of mine you were responding to already made this point.

See the little Sabertooth's all over this thread? They're all posts by me. Go look at them and tell me where I've taken a position one way or the other on the efficacy of banning DDT.




89 posted on 07/03/2002 9:07:13 PM PDT by Sabertooth
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To: *Death Cultivation; shigure; backhoe; medved; StolarStorm; Sabertooth; Lurker
While it is true that third world human populations are most under attack (frequently by their own rulers, but aided by the blind eyes of the U.N. in general and the western powers in particular), the Malthusian Megolamaniacs who like to see this kind of thing will not stop there.

The racist part is in how earnestly the west can distance itself from its own traditions by seeing to it that American style freedom isn't offered to the third world. People will thrive under such freedom -- and that is the last thing these new paradigmers wish to see.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, the envirowackos have made no secret they think the planet should bear no more than one half billion people. As there are more than 500 million white people on the planet, and nobody who knows of the value of a wider gene pool is going to wipe out all the diversity anyway, you do the math. Musical chairs anyone?

Since you can see that more than a few whites have been targetted as well, it's not strictly racist. Through programs such as homosexual promotion in the schools, abortion and bastardization made chic, and euthanasia/utilitarianism on the rise, whites are volunteering wholesale to snuff it.

So, in short, the biggest difference that I can see is that the strategies to carry out the culling of the human herd are race based. While the western-based plantet-managing geniuses have convinced affluent but stupid whites, lemming-like, to volunteer to end their posterity, they have given non-whites little choice -- by letting them at each other and depriving them of protection from nature such as DDT (being one of many) would provide.

There's also some infatuation going on between these death cultivators and militant Islam. That goes a long way to help explain the Leftists' cheering for Al Qaeda, doesn't it?

I like this thread. It definitely adds something to the Death Cultivation bump list catalog.

90 posted on 07/03/2002 11:57:32 PM PDT by Avoiding_Sulla
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To: Avoiding_Sulla; All
Appreciate your indexing this- I wasn't aware of that category! It does square with the writings I've seen from various groups "who want to use the might & force of government to impose their ideals on everybody else."

The "rest of you?"
I'll try to go back & answer as time and the "usual insanity" of running a family allows- the bloody dog has had me out twice since 3:30 to hunt rats...

91 posted on 07/04/2002 2:02:27 AM PDT by backhoe
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To: SamAdams76
I agree- I resurrected this because last week's heavy rains have brought clouds- literally- of biting vermin out. The city & county foggers seem to antagonize them, the bug zapper kills 'em after they bite, and there's no effective poison you can legally buy to kill them.

It's absurd!

92 posted on 07/04/2002 2:10:59 AM PDT by backhoe
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To: Old Professer
I know that Dr. Gordon Edwards (Emeritus U.C. Berkeley) testified to Congress and advocated against the ban and for its continued use and drank the chemical during many subsequent lectures.

Appreciate the testimony. All I know is that, given its widespread and somewhat indiscriminate use, it can't be that harmful to humans.

And the harm from disease-carrying insects is well-know and well documented. It seems like a simple risk/benefits calculation to me.

93 posted on 07/04/2002 2:16:14 AM PDT by backhoe
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To: backhoe
Gee, Rachel did you stop to think that it could be the decreased number of bugs to eat, rather than the DDT, that hurt the birds?

One concern: what does DDT do to pollinating insects such as bees? Is there such a thing as too much of it?

94 posted on 07/04/2002 2:21:19 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: shigure
Today, Third World health is endangered by comfortable Western environmentalists, some of whom, discreetly, view black natives as threats to the local wildlife

That is what hit me too. What total scumbags for these safe and comfortable people to make other peoples lives miserable or 6 feet under. We need to flush these people down the toilet.
95 posted on 07/04/2002 2:32:24 AM PDT by jwh_Denver
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To: jwh_Denver
safe and comfortable people

That's what gets me, too. It's like "child labor laws," which are very much an "issue" with people in comfortable, protected societies.

But if you are extremely poor, and have a lot of mouths to feed, every child needs to contribute something to the family's welfare, as soon as they can.

96 posted on 07/04/2002 2:44:24 AM PDT by backhoe
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To: HiTech RedNeck
One concern: what does DDT do to pollinating insects such as bees? Is there such a thing as too much of it?

Not good for them, which is why proper pest management know-how is vital to farmers. Indiscriminate spraying of DDT or any other pesticide can do more harm than good on a farm, which is why most farmers spray at specific times of the year and use products that break down quickly. The problem with DDT in agriculture is that it lingers, the same characteristic that makes it ideal for use in homes to eradicate disease-carrying insects.

97 posted on 07/04/2002 6:20:54 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
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To: Squawk 8888
A few years ago I was in an area which was truck sprayed with permethrins for mosquitoes. The literature from the company that did the spraying claimed that the droplet size of the spray was such that it would target mosquitoes but leave bigger insects virtually unharmed. According to this literature, permethrins don't directly kill mosquitoes, but they cause the mosquitoes' legs to come off so they can't land and suck blood, and so they starve to death. Permethrins are also supposedly harmless to mammals in the amounts used for mosquito control.
98 posted on 07/04/2002 6:31:41 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: HiTech RedNeck
permethrins don't directly kill mosquitoes, but they cause the mosquitoes' legs to come off so they can't land and suck blood

Sonoffagun! Do you reckon this stuff could be adapted to use on the Left?

99 posted on 07/04/2002 6:45:40 AM PDT by backhoe
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To: backhoe
roflol
100 posted on 07/04/2002 6:58:11 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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