Go back and read the posts, I'm not clinging to anything. I'm simply asking, if not the ban on DDT, then what? Your explanation is plausible, as have been some others.
Posted on 07/03/2002 4:09:24 AM PDT by backhoe
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.
Go back and read the posts, I'm not clinging to anything. I'm simply asking, if not the ban on DDT, then what? Your explanation is plausible, as have been some others.
You're aware that organic produce comes with an increased risk of e. coli and other infections?
In spite of what people might "think."
If anyone is interested, read Trashing the Planet by Dixie Lee Ray. It is probably one of the most footnoted books ever written.
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan wrote a great book about all the hokum and bullhockey "science" used to make DDT appear to be similar to high-level nuclear waste.
She also reports on the Congressional testimony surrounding the ban, when some pro-ban type (with a lot of credentials) was testifying. Some Congressman asked whether a ban would not increase the amount of malaria in the Far East. And the 'expert' said "So what? They're just brown people."
Let me show you another: after women got the vote, we had the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Thus we can conclude that women are the cause of American involvement in wars of the 20th Century.
Better try another, and better, proof.
Let me show you another: after women got the vote, we had the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Thus we can conclude that women are the cause of American involvement in wars of the 20th Century.Geez, try and read more carefully, my posts aren't hard to miss. I've nowhere claimed that DDT banning was responsible for the increase in the raptor populations.
Better try another, and better, proof.Kind of a pathetic analogy. Here's why...
Prior to the ban on DDT, the specific claim was made that by banning it, the populations of Peregrine Falcons and Bald Eagles would rebound.
DDT was banned and the populations rebounded. That would appear, on it's face, to confirm the predictions of those who proposed the ban. May or may not be true, but it lends some credibility to their position.
Therefore, this is not a simple matter of a post hoc fallacy even being in play. If the ban didn't lead to the population rebounds, something else did at preciesly the time of the ban. That's a nice coincidence, isn't it? So, I'm not ready to leap to any conclusions just yet.
OTH, were there specific warnings by opponents of women's suffrage that women's vote would lead to would lead to the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam?
No, so your analogy fails.
Perhaps you've gleaned by now that you've stepped in it... I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm asking questions.
Some have raised doubts that DDT caused eggshell thinning. Fair enough. There is still the question of what caused the rebound in the populations of the specific birds of prey in question.
Radical environmentalist are racists.
Regards,
L
Thus one cannot claim that DDT in and of itself DECREASED raptor population.
Following this, it would be just as dangerous to maintain that the post-1960 DECREASE in raptor population was caused by DDT usage.
I am perfectly willing to admit that abuse of any substance will have serious effects--even the abuse of accounting has had serious effects.
At the same time, the loss of lives (and in the USA the expense of replacement chemicals along with the still-unknown effects of some of them) is worth consideration.
Radical enironmentalists are anti-PEOPLE, not against a certain race. They don't like ANYONE. Some feel that the Earth would be better off with far less people in general.
Disturbing viewpoint.... but not representative of the average hippy type environmentalists and certainly not representative of the converative tilted ones... like your average hunter who wants to preserve nature (ducks unlimited).
Thus one cannot claim that DDT in and of itself DECREASED raptor population.
Following this, it would be just as dangerous to maintain that the post-1960 DECREASE in raptor population was caused by DDT usage.
I am perfectly willing to admit that abuse of any substance will have serious effects--even the abuse of accounting has had serious effects.Perhaps not (if the poster's info is correct), but keep in mind that DDT wasn't banned until the early 1970s. Also, the explanation was given that DDT was moving up the food chain to strike at the top, where the raptors are. How long would that process take? I don't know.
Here's where I'm coming from... a few of the einvironmental measures undertaken in the early 70s seem to have borne fruit... unleaded gas and catalytic converters, the DDT ban, etc. I say "seem to" because after the measures were taken, the desired results materialized.
I'm highly critical of much of "Big Green" and "Deep Ecology," but I want to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I've got no fetish for the ban on DDT, if it turns out to have been baseless.
At the same time, the loss of lives (and in the USA the expense of replacement chemicals along with the still-unknown effects of some of them) is worth consideration.
Agreed on both points.
Bring back DDT!
I never heard of Kenneth Mellanby, but 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. However, ignorance is always embraced by the arrogant.
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