West Nile Virus- Bring Back DDT?

various links | 8-05-02 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

[backhoe]

If you follow the links within the links, you will find my own collections of links regarding DDT.

Is it time to reconsider bringing DDT back for public safety?

[Sungirl]

Yeah..lets's polute the water systems some more.
I just read an article this weekend about how the medicines we have become such a great amount that they have accumulated in the sewers and the all filtering system processes (even underground) are not filtering out the medicines and hormones from our drinking water. They said they can't do it.

[backhoe]

I'm not going to argue with you, but I suggest you read the links more carefully and ask- are one to two million preventable deaths ( in mostly poor, third-world countries ) really worth a avoiding a theoretical risk?

DDT is one of the safest insecticides known. Most of the newer ones are analogs of nerve gas agents, and correspondingly more poisonous to humans. I've seen people literally plastered with powdered DDT without ill effects.

[sistergoldenhair]

DDT is one of the safest insecticides known.

It has been suggested that flawed studies resulted in the ban.
Even if the studies were accurate, additional consideration should be afforded public health concerns.
Most certainly, bring it back!

[Old Professer]

Someone desperately needs a parasol.

[goodnesswins]

Do you eat fruit and veggies from other countries....??? They are likely using DDT.....

[Don Joe]

"Do you eat fruit and veggies from other countries....???"

You mean you can still buy American fruit? Last year they let the fruit rot in the orchards because the chinese, south american, and mexican imports came in for less than it cost to produce here.

This year an early heat wave followed by a late frost killed the fruit crop, but I expect that next year millions of pounds of fruit will again be left to rot.

Someone has been slipping stupidjuice into the water supply. There's no other reason I can think of for a country to welcome an increasing dependence on its avowed enemy for its food supply.

[goodnesswins]

My husband's family owns apple/pear/cherry orchards.....I ALWAYS by US fruit only....I just buy in season fruit ONLY - as far as the "stupid juice"......I'm wondering, too...We just planted ourself a fruit tree on our suburban small city lot.....I will NOT buy Chinese (or another country's) fruit, I won't, I won't, I won't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Balding_Eagle]

I first heard of West Nile about a year ago. However, I've NEVER heard even a mention of DDT as a possible solution anywhere but here at FreeRepublic. It's been gone so long that many people have no idea what DDT is anymore.

Thanks backhoe, there are a lot of American lives at stake, not to mention the 2 million around the world.

[MeekOneGOP]

Good job ! It seems the DDT banning 30 years ago was based
on Liberal "Junk" "Science". In other words, baseless.

[bok]

Yeah let's go ahead and contintue to let these third world mosquitoes from hell kill more people, don't bother to find a solution!

[backhoe]

Appreciate the comments- when I was a little boy- 1950's- we ran through the "skeeter spray" the county fogger truck put out, because, childlike, we figured if it was bad for the bugs, it must be "good for us..."

While I certainly would not do or recommend that now, no harm came from breathing the stuff. The diseases carried by the bugs are a far more immediate threat to health.

[Lucky]

In the 50's, our out-door movie theaters were sprayed with DDT and nobody got sick from it. Also other businesses used it with no problems.

[backhoe]

While I'm not positive, I'd swear I've heard talk radio hosts metion DDT recently. That's how you win the info wars- dripping out data one drop at a time, until the public wakes up from its stupor...

[backhoe]

It was a precursor to The Decade of Fraud(s)-- the 1990's. Like the Corvair, which GM fixed, but "Unsafe at any Speed" killed off anyway...

[backhoe]

I can recall spraying the stuff around from Flit guns, and people walking through, and even smoking in, the cloud of insecticide without ill effects. By contrast, the "EPA Approved" pyrethrin-based fogging oil I use around here makes me feel sick as a dog- I can taste the stuff for days- if I get one whiff of it.

And it doesn't kill the bugs, either...

[Sungirl]

What's the matter? Why do you call yourself a professor when you don't know anything? What are you a professor of? If I remember right, you never answered my last few posts to you....remember???

[Sungirl]

Do you eat fruit and veggies from other countries....??? They are likely using DDT.....

No doubt...it goes along with all the fecal material.

[Sungirl]

In the 50's, our out-door movie theaters were sprayed with DDT and nobody got sick from it

What year was DEET developed? How long does it take to see all symptoms?