More DDT myths
Even thought the United States banned DDT more than 30 years ago, the "brownlash" keeps recycling the same myths about the chemical in an effort to descerdit the environmental movement.
Myth: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was all about DDT.
Reality: Reading the modern "brownlash" literature you would think that DDT was the only pesticide Carson was worried about. But there was a whole list of chemicals addressed in the book, including much worse ones like aldrin and dieldren.
Myth: We have to decide between birds and children.
Reality: DDT is used inside houses in modern anti-malaria campaigns, where it poses no significant risk to wildlife.
From John Stossel's Myths, Liess and Downright Stupidity
Stossel: Cancer death rates are actually declining in America.
Reality: Note that this is the death rate, not the number of cases. How much of this decrease is from better treatment?
Stossel: Health Minister Jim Muhwezi of Uganda points out that as many as two million to three million people may die annually because of DDT. But not because DDT is bad, but because Americans' fear of it has deprived much of the world of the DDT that could have saved them.
Reality: This would mean that there would be no malaria deaths if DDT was still in widespread use. But this ignores the buildup of resistance to DDT in mosquito populations, and the buildup of resistance to anti-malaria drugs by the parasites.
From THE DDT BAN TURNS 30 by Todd Seavey from the ACSH
ACSH: Today, the Senate is poised to enact an international treaty (the so-called POPs treaty) banning all use of DDT, despite the millions of people who have already died as a result of the U.S. EPA's ban on the chemical.
Reality: The POP treaty does not ban all uses of DDT. It phases out the chemical, but only after an alternative is available. The US ban only applied to the US, where millions of people have not died of malaria.
ACSH: This was done despite the fact that DDT had earlier been hailed as a "miracle" chemical that repelled and killed mosquitoes that carry malaria, a disease that can be fatal to humans.
Reality: As there was no malaria in the US, except for isolated cases resulting from sick people entering the country, why is the relevant? And if malaria did come back, there were exceptions to the ban for health emergencies and where no viable alternatives were available. This is simply a red herring.
ACSH: This is especially tragic since there was hope of eradicating the disease altogether when DDT was first introduced and its potential was recognized.
Reality: Yes, there were hopes when it was first introduced. But these were quickly dashed when it was realized that insects could quickly developed resistance to the chemical. See Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague.
ACSH: Some governments are at least able to use old stockpiles of the chemical or make a case for carefully controlled outdoor use of the chemical in emergency circumstances (though spraying homes would be more effective).
Reality: It is being used in homes. Where did the author get the idea that it was not?
ACSH: In what is now Sri Lanka, malaria cases went from 2,800,000 in 1948, before the introduction of DDT, down to 17 in 1964 — then, tragically, back up to 2,500,000 by 1969, five years after DDT use was discontinued there.
Andrew Spielman, who investigated the resurgence, found that things were not that simple. Many people lived in temporary shelters that were not being treated with DDT. The US government's funding stopped in 1963, not for environmental concerns but because it was felt that after five years insect resistance would build up. Anti-malaria drugs were overused, and the parasites built up resistance to them. And in spite of all the care, the mosquitos did develop resistance to DDT, the evidence was that halfway through the program the test for effectiveness was changed from one hour exposure to two hours of exposure. (Spielman and D'Antonio, Mosquito, pages 172-178, see also The DDT ban myth)
ACSH: Claims that DDT was responsible for declines in populations of eagles and other birds of prey were popularized by Rachel Carson's polemic Silent Spring (1962). This hypothesis, like many others blaming DDT for adverse environmental effects, has not been borne out by subsequent studies, but it helped amplify a drumbeat of anti-chemical sentiment at a time when the modern environmental movement was beginning.
There is very good evidence to support this claim. See DDT, Eggshells, and Me and also Effects of DDT on Birds: Does Dixy Know Something the Experts Do Not?
ACSH: Around the time of the DDT ban, Dr. Charles Wurster, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, may have revealed how some environmentalists really feel about human beings when he was asked if people might die as a result of the DDT ban: "Probably...so what? People are the causes of all the problems; we have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this is as good a way as any."
Reality: Wurster denied ever making this statement; it was apparently made up by a disgruntled ex-employee. See Unquote and also Edward Flattau's Tracking the Charlatans: An Environmental Columnist's Refutational Handbook for the Propaganda Wars.
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Written by Jim Norton
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