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If you or your kids contract malaria or yellow fever as a result of an encounter with
mosquitos, or if there is a West Nile Virus outbreak in your neighborhood, I predict you
will no longer care how Canada's bald eagle and peregrine falcon populations
might be affected by
DDT.1
Mosquitos also carry equine encephalitis, canine and feline heartworms, and other diseases,
so they are also a threat to your pets and livestock. The extremists in the environmental movement (and many vegetarians) consider people to be no more important than animals and plants.2 And "activists" are the people most likely to appear on television, because television thrives on controversy more than truth. However, God intended man to "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth."3 That doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about the welfare of plants and animals, but it does mean, in my humble opinion, that people are more important than animals, especially disease-carrying parasites. Rachel Carson has her own little subsection at the bottom of this page. NYT Article Admits DDT Ban as a Cause of Bedbug Outbreak. Unfortunately for residents of many urban areas such as New York and Philadelphia, the bedbugs are not only biting but spreading at an alarming rate. Despite this outbreak, the mainstream media has until recently kept insisting that bedbugs developed a resistance to DDT so any emergency lifting of the EPA ban on that pesticide is unnecessary. Is the EPA to blame for the bed bug 'epidemic'? Eradication [of bed bugs] can take months and cost thousands of dollars. There's also the stigma -- many high-end New York residences, for instance, keep their bed bug infestations secret to avoid embarrassment. But why are bed bugs back? Though they've been sucking humans' blood since at least ancient Greece, bed bugs became virtually extinct in America following the invention of pesticide DDT. There were almost no bed bugs in the United States between World War II and the mid-1990s. US Grapples With Bedbugs as EPA Limits Options. A resurgence of bedbugs across the U.S. has homeowners and apartment dwellers taking desperate measures to eradicate the tenacious bloodsuckers, with some relying on dangerous outdoor pesticides and fly-by-night exterminators. If Bill Gates wants to beat malaria he should back DDT. Mircosoft co-founder Bill Gates is fascinating. So is the 19-page annual letter that describes the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropic institute. But some of the foundation's strategies are baffling. Wheat, Yes, Wheat! Dr. David Bragg, Ph.D., an extension entomologist, recently enumerated the insect pests that can be depended upon to attack wheat. They include the Russian Wheat Aphid, the Ladybird Beetle, the English Grain Aphid and Rosy Grass Aphid. Then there's the Haanchen Barley Mealybug and Wireworm Beetle Larvae, as well as the False Wireworm, the Cereal Leaf Beetle, Cutworms and Armyworms. By no means should we leave out the Wheat Stem Maggot, the Wheat Stem Saw Fly, and the Wheat Joint Worm. I want you to think about this army of insect predators the next time some environmental group is demanding that all pesticides be banned and that all grains and vegetables be grown "organically." The U.N. bows to the anti-insecticide lobby. Malaria, Politics and DDT. In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result. The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. 100 things you should know about DDT: "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT… In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable." (National Academy of Sciences, 1970.) Eco-Oppression. Environmentalists in the West congratulate themselves for nearly ridding the Earth of DDT, but the people of South America, Asia and Africa are not celebrating. They need DDT to ward off malaria, a mosquito-borne infection that thrives in tropical climates and is often lethal. Thanks to Westerners' fear of all things inorganic — and Rachel Carson's scare-mongering book "Silent Spring" — one million inhabitants of third-world countries die of malaria every year. Liberty and Tyranny II. Those of us who lived in the 1970s recall the establishment of the EPA during the first year of that decade. Needing something to justify it existence, the EPA banned DDT in 1972. ... With each passing year it is becoming more and more obvious that the ban on DDT has killed millions of children — especially in Africa — by crippling our ability to fight malaria. The environmentalists' epidemic. World Malaria Day was observed yesterday, and finally real progress is being made on eradicating this killer disease — no thanks to environmentalists. Exaggerated fears about the pesticide DDT spread by Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," prevented this solution from being used for many years. For decades, a million or more people died from malaria annually in Africa, with children accounting for 80 percent to 90 percent of those deaths. ... In this era of climate-change scaremongering, this is a cautionary tale about acquiescing to the extreme measures environmentalists insist are necessary. Green ideas can kill people. DDT: A Case Study In Scientific Fraud. The chemical compound that has saved more human lives than any other in history, DDT, was banned by order of one man, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Public pressure was generated by one popular book and sustained by faulty or fraudulent research. Widely believed claims of carcinogenicity, toxicity to birds, anti-androgenic properties, and prolonged environmental persistence are false or grossly exaggerated. The worldwide effect of the U.S. ban has been millions of preventable deaths. Apparently there are people who take mosquitos seriously enough to sleep in a mosquito net. Nine Worst Business Stories of the Last 50 Years -- [#1] DDT. "When a malaria-endemic country stops using DDT, there is a cessation or great reduction in the numbers of houses sprayed with insecticides, and this is accompanied by rapid growth of malaria burden within the country," according to the Malaria Foundation International, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting malaria. The group notes that "without DDT, malaria rates are returning to those seen in the 1940s, affecting additional millions of infants, children, and adults." Omission Speaks Volumes on Malaria Relief. DDT cannot be ignored in discussions about reforming anti-malaria efforts. Dying to be politically correct. Each year, the U.S. government spends $200 million to help prevent malaria in the rest of the world, primarily in Africa and Asia. That's mighty nice of us. But none of the money goes for the inside residential spraying of DDT that allowed Americans to get a handle on the spread of the disease. This summer President Bush announced a new five-year $1.2 billion effort to prevent malaria abroad. But, again, no money for DDT. What Is the Real Scientific Consensus on Pesticides?. Most of the false alarms come from one or more of five interest groups that have learned how to profit from anti-pesticide alarmism. DDT Is the Only Real Weapon for Combating Malaria. U.S. taxpayers spend about $200 million annually on malaria control efforts. Ironically, almost none of this money is spent to kill or repel the mosquitoes that spread disease. The money is instead spent on anti-malarial drugs and insecticide-treated bed nets that aren't very effective. DDT to Return as Weapon Against Malaria, Experts Say. DDT, a notorious symbol of environmental degradation, is poised to make a comeback. International experts are touting the widely banned pesticide as a best bet to save millions of human lives threatened by malaria. DDT Did Not Harm Eagles. In 1941, before any DDT was used, 197 bald eagles were counted. In 1960, after 15 years of heavy DDT use, the count had risen to 891. Sacrifices to the Climate Gods: Our environmental protection practices have already caused the deaths of millions of people, mainly in poor African countries. By far the most humans — mostly women and children — have been sacrificed in the mistaken belief that the use of any amount of the pesticide DDT would harm the environment. As a result, the preventable disease malaria has continued to decimate Africa. Going green means having green to spend. The dirty secret of the environmental movement is how indifferent it can be to the poor. Consider the widespread ban on DDT. As environmental groups celebrated the recovery of bald eagles, parents in poor countries buried 20 million children who died from the ensuing malaria outbreak. An Alphabet Soup of Chemical Myths: Environmental advocacy groups have spared no effort to create the impression that organochlorines are extremely resistant to degradation and thus difficult to remove from the environment. Contrary to these beliefs, there is plentiful evidence that biodegradation of these substances is widespread everywhere. Moreover, in the quantities commonly found in the environment, organochlorines are not hazardous to human health. Greenpeace: A Long History of Poor Judgment. Greenpeace Internationals' Cool Farming report is just the latest in a long line of claims by the organization that have proven unwise and incorrect. In the 1970s, Greenpeace took the lead in condemning DDT — after the chemical had been used successfully to rid North America and Europe of malaria, which had been endemic throughout both continents. Greenpeace claimed DDT caused cancer in humans, which has since been proven untrue. It said DDT caused thinning in the eggshells of raptors, which isn't true either. American bald eagles have resurged because the Congressional Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 halted the shooting and poisoning of the birds. Greenpeace's opposition to DDT has contributed to at least 30 million deaths, most of them African children. Top Ten Junk Science Moments for 2006. It only took 30 years, tens of millions of lives lost, billions sickened and trillions of dollars of economic growth foregone, but the World Health Organization finally ended its ban on use of the insecticide DDT to kill malaria-bearing mosquitoes. It's great news for developing nations that want to employ the most affordable and effective anti-malarial tool. So what should happen to those environmental activists and government regulators who used junk science to have DDT banned in the first place? Killing our babies. Finally, the World Health Organization and Uganda's Health Ministry are again emphasizing DDT and other insecticides to control a disease that kills 110,000 Ugandans every year. But instead of applauding the decision, anti-pesticide activists are attacking it with scare stories and lies. The Green-Big Tobacco Death Alliance. What has brought these two seemingly unlikely forces together? The recent decision by the World Health Organization to reverse its 30 year-old ban on DDT for indoor use to combat malaria — one of the biggest killers of children in the Third World — after a mountain of scientific studies have repeatedly found that DDT is safe, inexpensive and the best way to eradicate mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite. DDT Ban Makes Sense — Only If You're Rich. In an affluent, mostly urban country such as the U.S., where malaria had been all but eradicated, the DDT ban was little more than an inconvenience. In less-developed countries, where DDT was banned under U.S. pressure, the consequences were disastrous. From Swaziland to Belize, malaria was soon epidemic again. Millions died. Day of Reckoning for DDT Foes? Last week's announcement that the World Health Organization lifted its nearly 30-year ban on the insecticide DDT is perhaps the most promising development in global public health since… well, 1943 when DDT was first used to combat insect-borne diseases like typhus and malaria. Overlooked in all the hoopla over the announcement, however, is the terrible toll in human lives, illness and poverty caused by the tragic, decades-long ban. An Invaluable Insecticide. [Scroll down] The Lubombo Project succeeded because of indoor house spraying with DDT and other insecticides and the distribution of the best new anti-malaria medicines. It was a triumph of everything that many on the political left want to despise: DDT, mining companies, and aid-rejecting Southern African nations. Only when the campaign was obviously successful did the UN-backed Global Fund and other agencies step in to support it. Yet now the history is being rewritten to remove any mention of DDT. More Global Warming Nonsense. The concept of malaria as a "tropical" infection is nonsense. It is a disease of the poor. Alarmists in the richest countries peddle the notion that the increase in malaria in poor countries is due to global warming and that this will eventually cause malaria to spread to areas that were "previously malaria free." That's a misrepresentation of the facts and disingenuous when packaged with opposition to the cheapest and best insecticide to combat malaria — DDT. Deadly Environmental Program Ends. As reported in the Investor's Business Daily (9/18/06) The World Health Organization reversed its 30 year opposition to the use of DDT — a very effective pesticide. This is good news for millions of 3rd World citizens, millions of whom have died from malaria, yellow fever, typhus, dengue, plague, encephalitis, and other insect-borne diseases. Hooray for DDT's life-saving comeback. Who says there's never any good news? After more than 30 years and tens of millions dead — mostly children — the World Health Organization (WHO) has ended its ban on DDT. DDT is the most effective anti-mosquito, anti-malaria pesticide known. But thanks to the worldwide environmental movement and politically correct bureaucrats in the United States and at the United Nations, the use of this benign chemical has been discouraged in Africa and elsewhere, permitting killer mosquitoes to spread death. I don't expect any apologies from the people who permitted this to happen. But I am thankful this nightmare is ending. Tanzania reverses ban on DDT. Tanzania is lifting a 2004 ban on the pesticide DDT so it can be used to fight mosquitoes carrying malaria in the east African nation. Bishop Tutu Joins the Call to Fight Malaria with DDT. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu … has joined more than 100 prominent scientists and human rights advocates signing a petition urging the use of DDT to stop an African holocaust of malaria deaths. Africa Marks Malaria Day; U.S. Rethinking DDT. Sprayed in small quantities, just twice a year, on the walls and eaves of mud-and-thatch or cinderblock homes, DDT keeps 90 percent of mosquitoes from entering, and it irritates any that do come in, so they rarely bite. No other insecticide at any price does that. DDT also kills mosquitoes that land on walls. Used this way, virtually no DDT ever reaches the environment. But the health results are astounding. Reigniting the Fight Against Malaria: Bring Back DDT and Save Lives. There's an important new coalition in Washington, and it's designed … to stop malarial mosquitoes. It's a coalition that lives by the law of the jungle: Kill them before they kill you. Where Are The Greens On Malaria? Every single day I get e-mail from various environmental groups warning about global warming. Matt Drudge posts on his Web site the latest exhortations about this issue from scientists, politicians, Hollywood celebs, and, of course, Al Gore. A coalition of environmentalists and institutional investors recently laid out for AOL customers a listing of which companies will be best prepared for climate change. Greens may be concerned for their wallets, but when it comes to the lives of Africans, these environmentalists are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Africa Launches DDT Attack Against Malaria. Constant pressure from concerned scientists and public interest groups appears to be paying off for the people of Africa, as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has endorsed the indoor spraying of DDT to battle malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. The decision, announced on May 2, is expected to turn the tide on a disease that has killed more than 1 million people each and every year since environmental activists effectively banned DDT in favor of ineffective tools such as bed nets. Uganda Fighting for Right to Eradicate Malaria. Until now, Uganda has bowed to outside pressure, but Health Minister Jim Muhwezi is determined to use DDT. Speaking at a World Malaria Day commemoration in April 2005, Muhwezi noted, "DDT has been proven, over and over again, to be the most effective and least expensive method of fighting malaria." Consensus is Nonsensus in Scientific Matters. The US government has had a poor record in resolving scientific disputes. Furthermore, the resulting unscientific government policies have been harmful, costly, and deadly (such as the EPA DDT ban, the proposed EPA chlorine ban, exaggerations of harmful effects of low level radiation, acid rain, etc). In fact the 9000 pages of expert testimony given at the 1972 EPA hearings on DDT were ignored. This resulted in the DDT ban with the resulting millions of deaths from malaria that could have been easily controlled by DDT. The EPA continues with the 34 year DDT ban continues to this today. Anti-pesticide Activists Perpetuate Diseases that Kill Millions. Malaria is a disease that kills three times more African children than AIDS. Hundreds of millions are infected and up to two million die annually. But as the body count continues to mount, environmental activists and international aid agencies continue a deadly campaign against DDT. Greenpeace, WWF Repudiate Anti-DDT Agenda. Spokesmen for Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, activist environmental groups that have led the effort to ban worldwide use of the pesticide DDT, have admitted to the New York Times that DDT may be necessary and desirable after all. Reject Environmentalism, Not DDT. The West Nile virus deaths being reported across North America are a grim echo of a larger tragedy. Each year a million lives are taken worldwide by another mosquito-borne killer: malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance. But the real tragedy is that its horrific death toll is largely preventable. The most effective agent of mosquito control, the pesticide DDT, has been essentially discarded — discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma. The myth of DDT versus the reality of malaria in Africa: The United States has just assumed the largest burden of forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by 18 mostly African countries. It's no wonder these countries can't repay their debts when they suffer the enormous human and economic costs of malaria. According to Harvard development expert Jeffrey Sachs, malaria cuts in half the potential growth of African countries. DDT Saves Lives. The environmentalists' spin has taken hold and, in the conventional wisdom, DDT is associated with the death of Nature, if not the end of the world. Its use has been banned in North America and Europe. However, if this stuff was so bad and we basically dumped tons of it on our farms up until the 1970's, then why haven't we all dropped dead in the streets? How Precaution Kills: The Demise of DDT and the Resurgence of Malaria. Most of our preoccupations arise from the modern paradox: while our longevity, health and environment has never been better, we spend more time than ever before worrying about all three. Classic concerns are the various scares — alar, saccharine, breast implants, passive smoking, nuclear power, pesticide residues, children's vaccines — and more recently, mobile phones, genetically modified foods and global warming. In some of these cases, the concern was completely invalid, in others the scare was blown out of all proportion. The Myth of DDT, Pesticides and Health Risks: This one is quick and easy: There has never been a single documented death from the recommended use of DDT or any other pesticide. Applying the Precautionary Principle to DDT. When comparing the relative risks from banning DDT use to the risk of continued targeted use indoors, it is clear that a proper application of the precautionary principle would not only support continued use, but ethics would also require it. USAID in the Hot Seat — Again. Malaria is a preventable and curable disease. Yet it continues to claim the lives of over one million people each year, with Africa, Asia and the Near East suffering the most losses. USAID must change its policy or its health officials should be replaced by those who will. Spray-averse officials just really bug me: We shouldn't continue to treat mosquitoes like an endangered species. We should use pesticides to kill them at the first sign of West Nile. Mosquito-borne diseases: West Nile Fever, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Malaria, Dengue Fever. How mosquitoes spread West Nile, but not HIV: Think of mosquitoes as having two tiny straws inside their proboscis, or "stinger." Through one they spit an anti-clotting saliva to thin your blood, which they sip through the other. Environmental Genocide: DDT was developed by Dr. Paul Müller, a Swiss chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1948, in recognition of the enormous medical importance of this remarkable chemical substance. Though widely used for only three decades, DDT has been justifiably credited with preventing more human deaths by disease than any chemical ever concocted. The Fruits of Eco-Extremism: The unnecessary banning of DDT has resulted in the worldwide resurgence of malaria and the deaths of millions, and the banning of freon and similar CFCs will result in the deaths of millions more. The Environmentalist Evil: A great number of people tend to regard Environmentalism as a movement for cleaner air and water, for a better environment for man. But the environmentalists' actions demonstrate otherwise. Clear evidence of their disregard for human life is their decades-long campaign to ban the insecticide DDT, even for specific use against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Whatever the long-term effects of DDT on human health, they should certainly be an option for the people at risk from the ravaging short-term effects of malaria. Science Rejects Anti-Pesticide Claims. Public health officials across the country are considering widespread spraying of pesticides to control the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. Anti-pesticide environmentalists claim spraying will devastate bird populations and other wildlife, but sound science shows the pesticides are safe and necessary. West Nile virus and other factors in the natural environment pose greater threats to birds and wildlife than pesticide spraying. West Nile Virus: The Environmentalist's Epidemic. So why, in the face of having their scientific arguments refuted and with the benefits of technology so clear, are the environmentalists able to keep the use of pesticides like DDT illegal? Activists are to be Feared More than Pesticides. As public health officials consider spraying pesticides to control the mosquito-borne West Nile virus, anti-pesticide activists claim that spraying devastates birds and other wildlife. But such claims should be viewed with skepticism. DDT saves lives: Last year [1999], malaria deaths in Africa reached an all-time high. Next year [2001] the disease will claim an estimated one million children. To visualize this number, imagine seven Boeing 747s, loaded with kids, crashing every day. Manto hails DDT against malaria. Reports say DDT has reduced the number of malaria cases in South Africa by 42%. How Good Intentions Kill: One need only compare malaria rates in South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique to see the effect of banning DDT. DDT is safe: just ask the professor who ate it for 40 years. 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. Sick Argument: Global Warming and the Spread of Tropical Diseases. Examples of misguided policies resulting in unnecessary illness and death abound. Through the use of DDT, malaria mortality in Ceylon fell from tens of thousands of cases to a few hundred each year. DDT was considered one of the safest pesticides in use. However, DDT was banned in the United States by the EPA for fear it was causing death and reproductive problems in bald eagles and other raptors - despite the fact that most scientists found no links between DDT use and thinner eggshells or bird deformities. "When U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief William Ruckelshaus was about to announce his decision to ban DDT in June 1972, he confided to a friend, "There is no scientific basis for banning this chemical — this is a political decision." Pesticides in general: Creating the Great American Potato Famine. McDonald's just agreed to pursue pesticide-free potatoes for its restaurants. The anti-technology activists pushing this organic move had better hope the company drags its feet — or we risk having the first McDonald's in history with no French fries. Less than a decade ago, the Danish government's high-level Bichel technical committee concluded that an organic-only mandate would cut Danish potato production by 80 percent. Indigestible Organic Propaganda. The research is actually good news on two fronts. First, only miniscule traces of pesticide metabolites were found. A part per billion is equal to one second in 32 years. Second, it confirms that pesticides are rapidly detoxified and cleared from children's bodies — just as we thought they were. But instead of using these findings to reassure parents about the safety of the food supply, the researchers tacitly promoted organic foods. Plans to ban dozens of pesticides will 'lead to food shortages'. A directive being proposed by the European Commission is designed to reduce the level of toxic chemicals in food. It would lead to a ban on 15 percent of pesticides, it has been estimated. Pesticides Not a Threat to Students. The anti-pesticide crowd tried to scare parents last week with a new report alleging that pesticide use in schools is dangerous for students. Contrary to its authors' apparent intent, however, the report should actually serve to reduce any anxiety parents may have about pesticide use. Baby Boomers Are Living Proof That Pesticides Are Safe. If pesticides are as harmful to human health as the Environmental Working Group and Consumers Union would have you believe, then there ought to be plenty of proof of this in the Baby Boom generation, which has lived 50 years with pesticide-treated food. If what they say is true — that millions of children today are exposed to unsafe levels of pesticides in fruit and vegetables — then those of us who are Baby Boomers would have had our lives shortened or suffered all kinds of serious illnesses. The facts say otherwise. Pesticide bans put children at risk from roaches and rodents. In the first phase of a carefully scripted campaign to ban the use of pesticides in the United States, environmental activist groups have taken aim at a population they usually claim to defend: children. Making no secret of their ultimate goal of using more "natural" means — such as a dramatically increased spider population — to control nuisance and disease-carrying insects, the anti-chemical groups are targeting schools and parks in their efforts to ban pesticides entirely. Misconceptions About Environmental Pollution, Pesticides and the Causes of Cancer: There is no epidemic of cancer, except for lung cancer due to smoking. Cancer mortality rates have declined 16 percent since 1950 (excluding lung cancer). Regulatory policy that focuses on traces of synthetic chemicals is based on misconceptions about animal cancer tests. Latest Pesticide Scare Dismissed by Scientists. Experts in nutrition and food safety have overwhelmingly rejected a report released January 29 [1998] by an activist environmental group alleging that over one million American infants and children are exposed each day to unsafe doses of pesticides in their food. Stand by for Higher Food Prices, Courtesy of California's Environmental Crazies. The Monterey Bay area is faced with an infestation of the Australian light brown apple moth that could jeopardize the area's massive agribusiness. If you eat salads, the lettuce probably came from the fertile Salinas Valley. The cost to eradicate the pest was estimated to be $1 million. But the environmentally sensitive, question-authority crowd obtained a court order to temporarily stop the spraying. They claim there is not enough known about the safety of the chemical being sprayed. This caused the state to waste valuable time going to court litigating the safety of "Checkmate," the name of the pheromone (not pesticide) being used to stop the destructive moth. Anti-pesticides Report Called a "Shameless Attempt" to Frighten the Public. Leading scientists agree that Americans enjoy the world's safest, most abundant food supply. A report that claims otherwise, released by a Washington, DC-based advocacy group, was deemed "a shameless attempt to frighten parents and an arrogant power play" by the American Farm Bureau Federation. Will the EPA Make America Safe for Cockroaches? The argument against organophosphates is essentially that they're poisonous — something that is true of most poisons. The question is how harmful they are to those of us with fewer than six legs. Answer: not very. Studies on laboratory mice have found that the average human adult would need to eat 875 pounds of broccoli every day for the rest of his life to approach the chlorpyrifos levels that caused problems in the rodents. EPA's cautious exposure assumptions often mean the agency sets standards based on risk levels that are tens, and sometimes hundreds, of thousands of times higher than actual risks. University of Texas Professor Frank Cross reviewed studies on the topic in 1997, just after the new pesticide law was passed. He found EPA's conservative risk estimates overstated pesticide exposure by as much as 99,000 to 463,000 times actual exposure levels.* Teddy Tackles the "Terrorists": Is the Orkin Man the equivalent of an anthrax-mailing terrorist? Senator Ted Kennedy thinks so. Or, at least, the Massachusetts Democrat wants you to think so. Anti-science Policies from EPA: Carol Browner's own Scientific Advisory Panel … rejected the EPA's proposal to declare the nation's highest-use herbicide, atrazine, a "likely carcinogen." Few papers covered it, and the most prominent, USA Today, got the story backward. It declared: "The most commonly used herbicide in the USA has been upgraded from a 'possible' to a 'likely' carcinogen in a draft report prepared by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency." Eat Your Vegetables, Reduce Cancer Risk: To put the cancer risk from pesticides in perspective, 99.9 percent of all pesticides that humans eat are naturally produced by plants to defend themselves against fungi, insects and other animal predators. Americans eat about 10,000 times more natural pesticides per person, per day (measured by weight) than they consume in synthetic pesticide residues. Progressive Environmentalism: Principles for Regulatory Reform. A significant share of the world's food supply never makes it to market. Even with pesticide use, insects eat high percentages of many crops and other crops spoil before reaching consumers. Without pesticides, the loss would be much greater. For example, a recent Department of Agriculture study estimated that if herbicides were banned in the state of Indiana, over 50 percent of the corn crop would be lost. Rachel Carson subsection: Practically all of the DDT debacle is the fault of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, and the alarmists who picked up where she left off. Movement to Ban DDT Cost Millions of Lives. I find it very disturbing that there is a one-woman play to glorify Rachel Carson and her radical approach of placing the "natural world" above all else, including human life. Writer Krista Ramsey stated that Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring," "changed the nation's thinking on pesticide use and started grassroots environmentalism." The most significant result of Carson's activism was the banning of DDT in the U.S. and, more critically, eliminating its availability in developing countries. DDT was a means to an end for Rachael Carson and the environmental groups expanding their power in the early 1960s. Green: The New Color of Catastrophe. By exaggerating the effects of DDT, in particular by alleging a non-existent cancer risk from mere contact with it, [Rachel Carson] fomented a zealotry that cast any who opposed such measures as uniquely evil. That fervor is self-perpetuating. That is why DDT use is still for all intents and purposes banned despite its withdrawal causing devastation among the population of American elms, and the far more tragic result of stripping African nations of the most effective weapon they had against malaria. The real silent spring is heard every year in playgrounds across countries like Uganda, where children fall victim to the disease in heart-rending numbers. That's the human price of the moral fervor over DDT. Rachel Carson and the Malaria Tragedy: If Rachel Carson were still alive, April 12 would have been her 100th birthday. All over the Western World well-meaning, but misguided, souls marked that day with choruses of praise for the woman who almost singly-handed created the modern environmental movement. Her book, Silent Spring, warned us that man-made pesticides would kill our kids with cancer and eliminate our wild birds. Since Silent Spring was published, of course, massive testing has documented that synthetic pesticides are no cancer threat to humans. GOP senator thwarts Rachel Carson tribute. A Democrat senator's resolution to honor the centennial of famed environmentalist and "Silent Spring" author Rachel Carson unexpectedly was blocked by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who blamed Carson for creating a climate of "hysteria and misinformation" that led to the banning of DDT and the deaths of millions. Rachel Carson's Dire Unintended Consequences. One of the most difficult aspects of keeping up with environmental issues is having to suffer through the agonizing hero worship at the altar of Rachel Carson. … It is mind-boggling to find such incredibly misguided admiration for a woman whose opposition to DDT and other synthetic pesticides led to the suffering and death of millions of people around the world. Rachel's Folly: The End of Chlorine. The environmentalists are right about one thing: Dirty water kills. Millions are people are dying needlessly all over the world because of it. But are the main culprits man-made pollution and chlorinated chemicals? Try endemic poverty, bad plumbing and lack of access to basic water chlorination techniques. [PDF] Post Glosses over Deaths Linked to 'Silent Spring' Author. The book "Silent Spring" set in motion the banning of DDT and needlessly cost millions of lives. The Washington Post chose to mark author Rachel Carson's 100th birthday by barely mentioning that her actions "have remained controversial." That's quite an understatement. Rachel Carson's Genocide: [Rachel] Carson's centenary is no cause for celebration. Her legacy includes more than a million deaths a year from the mosquito-borne disease malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance because DDT, the most effective agent of mosquito control, has been essentially discarded — discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma advanced by Carson. It's Time to Silence Silent Spring. Published in 1962 at the height of the worldwide antimalaria campaign, Silent Spring sparked a crusade against DDT. The widespread spraying of DDT had caused a spectacular drop in malaria incidence — Sri Lanka, for example, reported 2.8 million malaria victims in 1948, but by 1963 it had only 17. Yet Carson's book made no mention of this. It said nothing of DDT's crucial role in eradicating malaria in industrialized countries, or of the tens of millions of lives saved by its use. Killing Mosquitoes or Killing Humans? It took me a long time to understand why so many environmentalists oppose any and all pesticides. It began with Rachel Carsen's Silent Spring in the 1960s, filled with dire predictions about pesticide use, most of which have long since been proven wrong. By way of just one example, she claimed DDT spraying would wipe out the U.S. robin population. Instead, the bird's population actually increased between 1941 and 1972. How many people have died from insect-borne diseases because of her book can't even be calculated, but the loss of DDT alone has doomed millions. The inconvenient truth: In his new book, "Eco-Freaks," John Berlau, a policy director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank devoted to environmental policies, catalogs the tragic mistakes imposed on the rest of us by the environmentally correct. After Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring," DDT was banned nearly everywhere. Most of her "evidence" later turned out to be all wrong, but 2 million poor Africans die every year of malaria that DDT was on the way to eradicating. Al Gore, of course, blames global warming. Should We Be Honoring Rachel Carson? Every year, half a billion people, mostly in Africa, get malaria. … Just spraying tiny amounts of DDT on the inside walls of houses once or twice a year keeps 90 percent of mosquitoes from entering homes, and thus reduces malaria by 75 percent or more. Telling countries they must not use this insecticide is an unconscionable human rights violation. Rachel Carson would surely not want this to be her legacy. The New Black Death: Every year, millions die of malaria in Africa simply because the environmental movement, sparked by a book written by Rachel Carson in the 1950s, has done everything in its power to eliminate the use of DDT and every other pesticide that might otherwise protect our lives. That is murder on a grand scale. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. If DDT had not been banned by a United Nations protocol, those millions would have been spared an early death. The Bill Gates Mosquito Circus: [Scroll down] In this case, the good intentions of The Gates Foundation overlook the simple fact that their efforts are redundant: Malaria was nearly eradicated in the 1960's. And then came Rachel Carson and her wrong-headed book, Silent Spring. Since Ms. Carson's tome was published, spring has been permanently silent for millions of Africans ... Ms. Carson's misguided compassion for a few species of birds which might possibly have been harmed by DDT made her an inspiration to the proto-PETA types who helped found the modern environmental movement. Rachel Carson, environmentalism's answer to Pol Pot. [David Hinz] doesn't mince his words: Rachel Carson — poster girl of the international eco movement — was a "mass murderer" to rival Stalin and Pol Pot. Was she really responsible for the deaths of as many as 50 million people? That's just an estimate. What we do know is that her landmark 1962 bestseller Silent Spring — the book that set a million and one green activists on the path of eco righteousness — was responsible for the worldwide ban on the insecticide DDT, the most effective preventative against the mosquitos which spread the world's deadliest disease, Malaria. In this way countless millions of people, mostly Third World children, were condemned to death in the name of ecological correctness. The Ghost of Lysenko. The imaginary science of man-made global warning can now be entered into the infamous history of politicized science, the results of which have threads in our lives today. Consider the residue of such frauds as Rachel Carson, Alfred Kinsey, and Margaret Mead. ... Carson, Kinsey, and Mead had an agenda before they did any research, and this agenda governed everything else. Environmentalists Are Killing Environmentalism. [Environmentalists have] misled, exaggerated and made a multitude of false predictions to the detriment of the environment and people's willingness to be aware and concerned. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was a major starting point that blamed DDT for many things including thinner eggshells none of which proved correct. Back to the Environmental Issues Page More Environmental False Alarms Back to the Home page 
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