Posted on 08/14/2002 10:51:15 PM PDT by kattracks
Usually, it is difficult to pin blame on a single source for the spread of a disease. No one is to blame for the worldwide growth of cancer. Many different people and organizations share the blame for the current AIDS situation.
But in the case of West Nile Virus, there is a single source that should be blamed. She's a heroine to leftists around the world, but it' s her fault that the dangerous virus is slowly reaching across the United States, leaving death in its wake.
The person who should be blamed is Rachel Carson.
In 1962, Carson's book "Silent Spring" appeared on the world scene. A hysterical attack on the pesticide DDT, the book caused a sensation in the United States, hitting the New York Times best-seller list. Carson claimed that DDT constituted a major risk to human health, as well as severely damaging the reproductive processes of certain animals. In 1970, largely in response to her fear mongering, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed. Almost immediately, the EPA restricted the production of DDT and banned its use on American soil.
The impact of the U.S. slowdown in DDT production reached far beyond our borders. People in the Third World felt it most. Before the U.S. crackdown on DDT, the "miracle pesticide" had been a cheap and effective way of killing mosquitoes in underdeveloped countries. Since mosquitoes transmit diseases like malaria and West Nile Virus, DDT use helped impede the outbreak of malaria, thereby reducing the death rate.
The American Council on Science and Health estimates that DDT saved 100 million lives in the two decades before it was banned in the United States. The World Health Organization says that 30 million to 60 million people have died of malaria since the 1970s. Most of those deaths would have been prevented if DDT had been available.
Until now, Third World deaths due to lack of DDT didn't affect us here at home. We could ban DDT and be fine -- our geography and affluence allowed us to easily use different pesticides. But with the outbreak of West Nile Virus on our shores, Rachel Carson's deadly work is finally beginning to hit home.
West Nile Virus is transmitted to humans from birds infected with the disease by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes bite the birds, become carriers of the virus and then bite humans and other birds, which are infected with the virus. If, as seems most likely, the spread of the virus is not a terrorist incident, then the virus was caused by natural processes -- the migration of birds infected with the disease.
And so, Rachel Carson's fight against DDT has come home to roost. If the United States had continued production of DDT on a global scale, West Nile Virus could have been stopped in the Third World, at least delaying its trek across the Atlantic.
The goal of the environmentalists was to decrease pesticide use in the United States. Now, Louisiana is calling for the Air Force to spray pesticides across the state. This will surely become common practice if West Nile Virus spreads. What now, environmentalists?
West Nile Virus is changing the American way of life. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that we stay indoors during dawn, dusk and early evening, and never leave the house without being covered in DEET, a bug repellent. And environmentalists are working against the use of DEET.
Perhaps the best label for Rachel Carson and her cohorts is one of unintentional bioterrorist. A bioterrorist is defined as one who uses biological weapons, such as diseases, to purposely murder civilians. Carson surely did not want people to die for lack of DDT, but that is the unalterable result. DDT could have saved millions of lives. Because of Carson, it did not. Neglect is tantamount to murder when human life is at stake.
Americans listened to the wild accusations of Rachel Carson. They took her advice at face value. And they will pay the price for "Silent Spring's" hysteria all through this long, hot summer.
Contact Ben Shapiro | Read his biography
©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Excerpt:
Environmentalists charge that DDT is dangerous to humans and animals, but the first study to find an elevated risk of breast cancer from exposure to DDT "has now failed to be replicated at least eight times," with some studies even finding "significantly" reduced risk Ð and there were similar findings for "multiple myeloma, hepatic cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma" (Attaran et al. 2000, 731, 730). Amir Attaran, who was one of the leaders in the successful effort to prevent the total banning of DDT for disease (malaria) vector control, added that although "hundreds of millions (and perhaps billions) of people have been exposed to elevated concentrations of DDT...the literature does not contain even one peer-reviewed, independently replicated study linking DDT exposure to any adverse health outcome" (Attaran and Maharaj 2000).
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It was in the early days of the modern anti-chemical hysteria that DDT became a target for activists, leading to the ban. In their zeal for what they imagined to be chemical-free purity, they ignored the real costs and benefits of the ban. It is interesting to note that the December 31, 1972 EPA press release titled "DDT Ban Takes Effect," which decreed that the "general use of the pesticide DDT will no longer be legal in the United States after today," also conceded the enormous benefit to human health from the use of DDT. DDT was developed as the first of the modern insecticides early in World War II. It was initially used with great effect to combat malaria, typhus, and the other insect-borne human diseases among both military and civilian populations.
Which ones? Has a link been proven?
That is the problem. The eco-weenies go all postal on these issue on assumptions. They get their ban, the issue dies for a while. In the meantime, it is not studied.
Then it might be made legal once people realize there is no real evidence against it. But what if there is a problem? The eco-weenies effectively shut down research, setting back the study of any potential problems by decades.
On the other hand, the eco-weenies push garbage like MTBE with no thought at all to the problems.
These people are simply not useful when it comes to these kinds of problems.
The problem is that "..birds, cows, pigs, snakes" were NOT getting sick from DDT. No such effects were ever shown. In fact, even the classic "egg-shell-thinning" effect has been shown to be bogus. Carlson's literary diatribe was as "accurate" as Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that launched the Civil War, and far more lethal.
She did an in-depth study and found that the active ingredients in most lice medications contained chemicals that are endocrine disrupters.
There should be a warning on the labels of these commonly used products that these chemicals can cause leukemia in rare cases. Head lice are not fatal, they are just a nuisance, and safer treatments -- though more troublesome -- are available.
As for DDT, perhaps it should be allowed back on the market, but only with strong warnings of the possible hazards to the health of those who are exposed. People in third world countries might consider the risk of eventually developing cancer preferable to the more immediate threat of malaria and other diseases.
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