DDT, Environmental Politics, and Genocide
Category : DDT, Environmental Issues, International, Weekly Feature
Most of us in the developed world have no concept of the pain, suffering, and death being caused by malaria. This preventable disease puts about 40% of world population at risk, and kills roughly 3 million people a year. Most health experts admit that a high percentage of deaths being attributed to AIDS, are actually malaria deaths, so the number may even be considerably higher.
The suffering associated with death by malaria is horrible, but malaria survivors don’t get off easily either. Survivors often suffer brain damage, chronic illnesses, and weakened immune systems. As a result, malaria deaths are associated directly with a malaria attack, or indirectly many months or years later.
Christine Silvestri was a student from the U.S. studying in Ghana when she contracted malaria. In a brief overview of her ordeal she wrote…
The clinic near the university where I sought treatment was dark and claustrophobic, filled with old and outdated medical equipment. The doctor told me I had malaria as he handed me the edge of a piece of newspaper to stop the bleeding from my blood test (they had temporarily run out of band-aids). He assured me that with a packet of anti-malarials I would be fine within a week.
That didn’t happen. As it turned out, I had accidentally been given substandard pills. Meanwhile, my uncomplicated malaria was given the time to morph into a dangerous, drug-resistant strain…I visited yet another public hospital, which unfortunately, like the first, provided substandard care. Consequently my malaria became even more deadly. The parasite attacked my brain and neurological system, leaving my upper body partially paralyzed and my legs able to move just a few inches. I could hobble only a few feet before becoming unconscious due to uncontrollable dizziness…
Just a few weeks after my check-up with the private clinic, due to my own recently weakened immune system, I contracted a water-borne parasite resulting in fever, vomiting and violent diarrhea. At 5’8,’’ I weighed a little over 100 pounds. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a skeleton. My cheeks were indented and my round jaw had lost its natural curve. My skin had turned a grayish green, and my hair had lost its shimmer. Friends and family encouraged me to return to the States immediately, but I wanted to complete my semester abroad so badly. I slept 20 to 22 hours a day for a week. After two months of fighting malaria and other parasitic diseases, I finally returned home.
Over a year and a half has passed since I was diagnosed with malaria, and I am still recovering. I go to physical therapy three times a week to build strength, and I participate in a brain-training program to improve memory and attention span.
Ms. Silvestri acknowledges that if she had been a citizen of Ghana, and provided routine health care, she would have died. She wants to get well and dedicate her life to improving health care opportunities for those poor people in Africa.
Well, the sad truth is that this death and suffering is preventable. In fact, by 1972, after DDT had been used to fight this disease for 20 years, most malaria deaths had been eliminated. Then a book was written that made false claims, a movement was created, and 10 years later DDT was banned. Environmental paranoia, population concerns, elitism, and political irresponsibility joined forces to commit what is likely the worst case of genocide in history.
But let’s back up and tell the abridged story in sequence.
DDT Considered Miracle Insecticide
DDT was introduced in the developing world in the1940s. The walls of homes were treated, mosquito nesting areas were sprayed, mosquito nets treated with DDT were provided, etc. In 1970 the National Academy of Sciences claimed that DDT had saved the lives of 500 million people!
“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.”
That (500 million people saved) was probably a big exaggeration – maybe it was only 100 million saved in 20 years. Those that were saved from 1950 to 1972, however, were put in risk again in the 1970’s. If 500 million people (or 100 million) were saved in those 20 years, how many died during the 30+ years since DDT has been banned.
The previous quote and a number of statements that follow were taken from 100 Things You Should Know About DDT. The entire list is very interesting to browse through.
DDT Demonized
Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote “Dr. DeWitt’s now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction.
There was no proof of damage and, in fact, Rachel Carson also lied, by omission at least.
Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt’s report that “control” pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.
World Health Organization and Population Groups Grew Concerned That DDT Was So Effective
Population control advocates blamed DDT for increasing third world population. In the 1960s, World Health Organization authorities believed there was no alternative to the overpopulation problem but to assure that up to 40 percent of the children in poor nations would die of malaria. As an official of the Agency for International Development stated, “Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing.”
DDT “Safe” but Banned Anyway
Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man… DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man… The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.”
Overruling the EPA hearing examiner, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckelshaus’ aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT.”
After reversing the EPA hearing examiner’s decision, Ruckelshaus refused to release materials upon which his ban was based. Ruckelshaus rebuffed USDA efforts to obtain those materials through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming that they were just “internal memos.” Scientists were therefore prevented from refuting the false allegations in the Ruckelshaus’ “Opinion and Order on DDT.”
Environmental Organizations Stifle Opposition
Environmental activists planned to defame scientists who defended DDT. In an uncontradicted deposition in a federal lawsuit, Victor Yannacone, a founder of the Environmental Defense Fund, testified that he attended a meeting in which Roland Clement of the Audubon Society and officials of the Environmental Defense Fund decided that University of California-Berkeley professor and DDT-supporter Thomas H. Jukes was to be muzzled by attacking his credibility.
Malaria Gains Lost as Disease Returns Full Force
The graph below shows how malaria returned with a vengeance in South and Central America when DDT was removed from the market. The situation in Asia and Africa was exactly the same.
It is only a graph, but imagine what the graph represents. Each dot of red print added to the second figure represents untold suffering and death for tens of thousands of people. These are poor people from poor countries that can not protect them. This is serial killing on a scale Hitler could never imagine. Western environmental organizations and western politicians from wealthy countries are directly responsible for this genocide.
These are real people, just like you and me, with families that love them. The New York Times did a touching series of stories about those people who died in the 2001 attack. Maybe the Times should do a story for each of these victims of politics and malaria. The problem is that the job is too big for the Times – more than 8,000 malaria deaths occur every day.
DDT is Not a Carcinogen and Not Harmful to Animals
Over the years many additional tests have been carried out that exonerate DDT. There is no credible evidence that DDT is harmful to animals or humans. I will include just a few items from the list of 100, but you can also cover this on your own if you choose.
No correlation at the population level can be demonstrated between exposures to DDT and the incidence of cancer at any site. It is concluded that DDT has had no significant impact on human cancer patterns and is unlikely to be an important carcinogen for man at previous exposure levels, within the statistical limitations of the data.(Study completed 1985)
None of 35 workers heavily exposed to DDT (600 times the average U.S. exposure for 9 to 19 years) developed cancer.
Men who voluntarily ingested 35 mgs of DDT daily for nearly two years were carefully examined for years and “developed no adverse effects.”
After 15 years of heavy and widespread usage of DDT, Audubon Society ornithologists counted 25 percent more eagles per observer in 1960 than during the pre-DDT 1941 bird census.
The Audubon Society’s annual bird census in 1960 reported that at least 26 kinds of birds became more numerous during 1941 – 1960.
The white-tailed kite, a raptor, was “in very real danger of complete extirpation in the U.S.” in 1935, but “by the 1960′s, a very great population increase and range expansion had become apparent in California and the breeding range had extended through the Central American countries.”
Conclusion – DDT and Genocide
There has been some progress in reintroducing mosquito nets into malaria infested areas but the progress is very slow. Other chemicals are available but they are too expensive for poverty stricken countries. Economic pressure is still being applied to leaders of poor countries that prevent the re-adoption of DDT for wide-scale use.
This (DDT – Malaria) is a shameful episode in human history. If you have supported an environmental organization that has fought against the use of DDT, past or present, your assistance is contributing to the deaths of millions on people.
Where is the outrage? Why aren’t the people responsible for this carnage help accountable? Why, when we know the truth, do we still refuse to act?
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Wow. Somebody suckered you with a bunch of tall tales.
1. DDT was never banned for being carcinogenic. It was banned because it kills entire ecosystems, and it is uncontrollable. Though DDT is known to be carcinogenic to all other mammals, it is listed as a “probable” carcinogen in humans by the American Cancer Society and all other cancer-fighting agencies on Earth.
2. You suckered big time for the Milloy Hoax on DeWitt’s research. DeWitt found that DDT harmed even seed-eating birds (who get a much lower dose of DDT than predators), and that even when the hatch rates were normal, the chicks didn’t survive. Milloy has edited the quotes to keep the truth from you — see here for more details.
3. Ruckelshaus was required by law to stay away from the hearings — Ruckelshaus was the appeals officer. If they’ll lie to you about civil procedure, what won’t they lie to you about? Your incorrect, DDT-poisoned source said:
He read key parts of the transcript — but no appeals officer, or judge, is required to read everything. If you read the order he signed, it’s clear that he read most of it. Hearing officers are supposed to hear the evidence, not the appeals guys. Sweeney said he didn’t think he had the legal authority to change the label as it was finally proposed by DDT manufacturers. Ruckelshaus pointed out that two federal courts had already ruled that EPA had that authority. Your source failed to tell you — that is, lied by omission — about the two federal courts that had stayed a complete ban on DDT awaiting the EPA action. Had Ruckelshaus done less, DDT would have been completely banned from everything. Why would your source lie to you about that?
4. The hearings were all on the public record and have been available ever since. Why would your source lie to you about that? See here.
5. It’s illegal for a federal agency (USDA) to use FOIA to ask for data from another federal agency. You’ve been lied to bad. Are you going to take that from Milloy?
Look at the link I provided above. What in the world is Milloy claiming? An agency could sue another agency — rarely happens — but there’s no indication that EPA ever hid documents from Ag. None.
Milloy lied to you again.
In both federal court cases ordering EPA to conduct the regulatory action, scientists were on the dock on both sides at length. DDT manufacturers had a full and fair opportunity to present their cases. DDT manufacturers cross-examined scientists claiming DDT was harmful, at length. Such a decision would be illegal were it not based on hard science. No DDT manufacturer ever claimed there was no chance for scientists to review the stuff, nor that they didn’t have the chance to crucify ban advocates on the stand. Don’t fall for that bovine excrement.
Also, consider that under U.S. common law, under the Administrative Procedures Act, and under the law creating the EPA, no regulatory decision can be made in a scientific area without substantial evidence backing the action. If there is not substantial supporting evidence, under U.S. law, the regulation must be struck down. If there is contradicting evidence, if it outweighs the evidence in favor of the action, the regulation must be struck down.
Two suits were brought against EPA to overturn the regulations, but both suits were tossed on summary judgment. The courts found that the regulations were based on firm science, and a lot of it.
Were I you, I’d write Steven Milloy at Junk Science and tell him to stop lying to you. You could get embarrassed in internet discussions if he tells you such whoppers, and you fall for them.
Ed,
Thanks for your comments.
Just a few items as an overview. I won’t respond to all your comments, right now. First, yes “my source” for this piece was primarily the list of 100 DDT items. Separate from that list, I have been following this story for years. And here are the two key points that I feel comfortable with.
1.The dangers of DDT were grossly, even criminally overstated. There is no good evidence that DDT “kills ecosystems”. What does that even mean? I am not aware of any dead zones created by the use of DDT. If you are referring to altering ecosystems by changing the biological make-up, that is done every day and in hundreds of ways, and not only due to human intrvention. DDT was used around the world for 20+ years. Where are those dead ecosystems from all this DDT use? Where are the environmental horrors – those DDT wastelands – that arose from the widespread use of DDT?
2. The removal of DDT killed tens of millions of poor people that were considered expendible to the developed world. You can, apparently, be cavalier about the suffering and deaths of these victims of the environmental movement – I can not. The DDT ban was based on hysteria and crappy science. Are you suggesting that it has all has been worth it? Is that your argument? If it were up to you in 1972, you would have made the same decision?
I would bet that if you and your loved ones traveled to Africa, and camped outside (or stayed overnight in the huts of poor Africans) – you would choose to be protected by DDT treated mosquito nets. We North Americans have that choice and that luxury. You would also take other medical precautions that locals can not avail themselves of. You are very committed to the environment, as long as it does not cost you anything. On your death bed dying of malaria, your priorities would be quite different.
verle