It’s remarkable the number of articles the BBC can run, like this, on the topic of Malaria without ever ONCE mentioning the fact that DDT remains the most practical and effective means of controlling it. Why? I think the BBC still accepts the entirely discredited drivel “Silent Spring” served up by Rachel Carson decades ago – the consequences of which are millions of lost lives caused by the de facto banning of DDT.
DON’T MENTION DDT.
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Looks like you and the BBC are on the same page on this one, David – even down to the Rachel Carson allusion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5350068.stm
“Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT,” said Arata Kochi, director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5350068.stm
Looks like you and the BBC are on the same page on this one, David – even down to the Rachel Carson allusion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/t…ech/ 5350068.stm
Anonymous | 14.07.08 – 1:23 pm | #
Bit late though isn’t it?
Millions have died in third world countries since environmental pressure groups got DDT banned – and the BBC Natural History Unit were endorsing Carson’s views with the documentary “Another Silent Spring” as recently as 1993.
It’s hilarious when woolly minded liberals recant their dopey enthusiasms – only after millions have suffered or died.
Just like Marxism and “one man one vote” for Africa.
Give ’em a few more years and they’ll be waking up to the fact that Islamism is a fascist doctrine and global warming isn’t happening – but too late as usual.
And now it’s over to the Farnborough Air Show and that cheeky chappy Declan, and this morning’s topic of discussion is glob…………
The problem with DDT is tat kills just about everything and has a cumulative effect. There are other methods…
…despite what the DDT salesmen say.
But you are right, it is effective in the short term.
DDT:
The problem with DDT is tat kills just about everything and has a cumulative effect. (false) There are other methods (bogus)…
So basically you told a big fat lie.
But I’d glad you’re happy millions of poor brown and black people have died so you can feel good about yourself.
The thing is despite you saying it is false, it is in fact true…
There seem to be lots of folks on here who quite enjoy demonising ‘poor brown’ people.
I bet they shed plenty of tears for them…
Are you sure you’re not just trying to sell lots of weed-killer?
DDT:
The problem with DDT is tat kills just about everything and has a cumulative effect. There are other methods…
Quite the reverse, actually.
DDT is very specific to insect life.
It is remarkable for its lack of toxicity in mammals. So much so that, when it was in widespread use, it could be detected in most healthy humans and animals. The activists who got it banned used this fact and the “precautionary” argument – “we can’t prove it’s harmful, but better safe than sorry.”
Just like AGW in fact.
The alternatives you refer to are mainly synthetic pyrethroids which are powerful nerve poisons – damaging to all mammals and lethal in small doses to many (cats for instance).
Try not to swallow so much unscientific green propaganda – it’s far more damaging than DDT.
Are you sure you’re not just trying to sell lots of weed-killer?
DDT | 14.07.08 – 7:17 pm |
By the way, DDT isn’t a weedkiller – it’s an insecticide.
Can you pass that on to your fellow activists at school tomorrow.
The only minor problem in your argument is that DDT has never been banned for malaria eradication.
Rather, its use gradually declined as mosquitos became DDT-resistant (which happened much more slowly after the chemical was banned for general agricultural use, *saving* many developing world lives) and less toxic-to-people alternatives became available. It’s still used in 11 African countries where the government feels it’s the least worst alternative.
More here.
Haha,
thanks for that, changes things a bit. 🙂 Shame it doesn’t just kill bloodsuckers…
I’m glad its not so bad for mammals, as I am a mammal myself… or so they taught me at school.
Sorry by the way for my slapdash post.
Obviously I don’t think its weed killer…
Anyways, enjoy…
More here.
john b | Homepage | 14.07.08 – 9:09 pm |
I don’t think quotes from Marxist activist sites like “Spinwatch” are going to win any arguments here.
Much of Florida was reclaimed from mosquito ridden swampland by liberal, generalised application of DDT after WW2 – and malaria eradicated, without any harmful side effects.
You mention eleven African countries who still use it – what about the other fifty?
Your statement that withdrawing DDT saved lives by slowing down resistance development has a bit of a logical flaw when you think about it. What about all the disease transmitted by the higher numbers of surviving mosquitos?
And once more – the alternatives are all pyrethroids which are far more toxic to humans and mammals.
Read this, bearing in mind that no mammal toxicity was ever demonstrated for DDT:-
Click to access Pyrethroid_Toxicity_In_Cats.pdf
I should pick up your science from professionals rather than green agitprop sites if I were you.
DDT is bad.
Oil is bad.
DDT kills the insects that cause malaria.
Oil fuels our cars.
The left doesn’t give a flying f@#$ at a rollng donut, what it’s “unintended consequences” cause.
They meant well.
They’ll allow millions to suffer and die, because their other option is to admit that THEY WERE WRONG.
I pick up my science from professionals, and my collections of sourced links from wherever is convenient. If you think that the fact that Spinwatch is centre-left and green-leaning (although hardly Marxist) means that its citation of and links to scientific studies and government organisations is wrong, then you’re the unwise one.
“Much of Florida was reclaimed from mosquito ridden swampland by liberal, generalised application of DDT after WW2 – and malaria eradicated, without any harmful side effects.”
High-doss DDT spraying, combined with swamp-draining and similar measures, was effective to a degree in the US in the late 1940s and early 1950s, (although malaria had been declining significantly in southern Florida since WWI). Now, 60 years later, high-dose DDT spraying is longer effective, because most mosquito populations have already evolved DDT resistance.
“You mention eleven African countries who still use it – what about the other fifty?”
They don’t use it, even though they’re allowed to use it, because they find nets and pyrethroids to be more effective.
“Your statement that withdrawing DDT saved lives by slowing down resistance development has a bit of a logical flaw when you think about it. What about all the disease transmitted by the higher numbers of surviving mosquitos?”
DDT is banned as an agricultural pesticide. It is not banned for malaria prevention. Hence, there is no logical flaw.
“And once more – the alternatives are all pyrethroids which are far more toxic to humans and mammals.”
Whereas DDT is just statistically correlated with a 5x elevation in breast cancer incidence, so nothing to worry about at all then.
“I should pick up your science from professionals rather than green agitprop sites if I were you.”
Which reminds me – can you show me *one* professional epidemiologist (nb Roger Bate is not a professional epidemiologist) who believes the DDT-is-banned-so-Africans-die myth?
Everyone I’ve encountered, whether in real life or on the Internet, who has any professional involvement in this area supports the use of pyrethroids, nets and draining programmes as more effective than the use of high-dose DDT spraying (most do favour the emergency use of DDT in specific, short-term emergency contexts, as has always been permitted and recommended by the WHO).
As a counterweight to john b’s predictable commentary, readers might like to consider the following: http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
And
http://www.junkscience.com/news3/foxddt.htm
Note that the commentary above doesn’t actually address any of my claims (indeed, it backs up my point that DDT’s use as an agricultural pesticide fatally undermined its efficacy in disease prevention by creating resistance) – the cancer study took place eight years after the Junkscience piece was written…
By the way, DDT isn’t a weedkiller – it’s an insecticide.
Can you pass that on to your fellow activists at school tomorrow.
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 14.07.08 – 8:11 pm | #
Stop confusing him with facts. He has a pathological desire to support the banning of something that makes HIM feel good, and damn the consequences.
I bet he’s against nuclear power too.
john b:
The only minor problem in your argument is that DDT has never been banned for malaria eradication.
That’s such a dopey statement, pathetic really.
Anyone puzzled by the heat this issue generates can find more by Gooling it. Like AGW, it’s become a shibboleth of the eco-Left.
A few useful starting points might include:
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/june-06-08/an-invaluable-insecticide
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F0DEEDA1738F932A25757C0A9629C8B63
And: http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.442/healthissue_detail.asp
These are all useful background material, throwing light on how lobbies work.
Jack Bauer | Homepage | 15.07.08 – 10:20 am
Actually john b is correct.
The use of DDT against malaria was not stopped because of pressure from envir-loons who’d read Rachel Carson, it was stopped largely because the mosquitos had developed a resistance to it.
Why had they developed resistance?
Because of sloppy, non-intensive use in agriculture (particularly cotton production).
The ban for agricultural use is therefore quite sensible.
DDT has never been banned for malaria control and is still widely used in countries where it can still be effective. Where it is used, it needs to be used consistently and intensively for four to five years without let up to have a major effect on malaria eradication.
Given the resistance issue, the most sensible plan is to use a range of different insecticides at the same time.
”I bet he’s against nuclear power too.”
All for it if it is built near you and not me… self confessed NIMBY; and I bet you are too… 😉 (maybe not self confessed…)
Most of you are as bad as each other… are there any reasonable people on this site, or is it just extremes… opposite / moderate bashers?
looks to me that moderates and those who came to learn something get a bad impression of this place rather quickly…
I’ve been insulted more than once, after my first post… which I took in good part until the follow up comes in… and I conceded the point…
I question the motives of this ‘organisation’, who is in charge here?
DDT | 15.07.08 – 12:41 pm |
looks to me that moderates and those who came to learn something get a bad impression of this place rather quickly…
Excluding yourself (assuming you actually are, and there’s no way to tell so far), I have yet to see an actual “moderate” come here and get a bad impression rather quickly. As far as I can tell, the only people who come here and get into fights right away are rather extreme in their own positions and well set in their beliefs long before their first look in. And they always seem to claim they came here “to learn” about BBC bias.
I suspect in reality you’ll find more “moderates” commenting here regularly than among those who look in briefly, firmly take the opposite side, and then proclaim this place a right-wing cesspool or somesuch.
Surely you will admit that your own User Name hardly makes you appear “moderate” at all. But as I said, it’s not really possible to tell based on this thread alone.
Also, I don’t care for the extreme level of abusive language that sometimes happens here either, but you haven’t been insulted or abused at all, from what I can see on this thread. Having said that, your cries about being insulted will fall on deaf ears when in only your second post here (@7:17) you throw this at us:
There seem to be lots of folks on here who quite enjoy demonising ‘poor brown’ people.
And that’s before anyone had a go at your argument. With only this thread as evidence, it appears that you came here with a specific agenda, so you’re hardly in a place to question anyone’s motivations.
If they got ddt wrong what else did they mess up on?…the beeb and nulabour can never ever make a mistake.
Before you can “discredit” Silent Spring, you have to READ it.
Once you bother, you will discover that Rachel Carson DID NOT advocate a ban against the use of DDT against malarial mosquito areas. She did, however, advocate a ban on using DDT against agricultural pests, in order to avoid developing resistance against it that would make it ineffective against malaria.
Just because you’re criticizing the scum of the BBC doesn’t give you a license to be a burke.
On the contrary, if he were a Burke then he’d be a better man. He doesn’t, however, have the license to be a berk.
you question the motive of the site and demand to know who is in charge because a poster disagrees with you.
why dont you just go ahead with legal action and get the place shut down, save all the posturing.
Best we keep quiet on this!
Sad but true, like Aids, Malaria is doing something to control world population.
A bit like having to put up with the global warming lies, it may be the only way to push through the building opf much needed nuclear power stations.
“March of the eco-imperialists” (by Lee Jones).
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/44753,opinion,march-of-the-eco-imperialists
[Extract]:
“Western development agencies have banned the use of DDT when 300m people suffer from malaria and up to 3m die from it each year. The UN promotes the burning of charcoal instead of kerosene when 5m young people die annually from diseases caused by indoor wood-smoke inhalation.
“Organic farming is promoted at the expense of mechanised agriculture when 840m people suffer from malnutrition. Guilt-ridden Westerners offset their carbon via charities that re-impose back-breaking drudgery on Third World peasants, while their governments, via the 2008 Bali Accord, pay poor countries to plant trees instead of developing their economies. “