Did you know that 370 beautiful children die every day in Uganda from malaria? In the 1930s, 40s, and fifties in the United States we sprayed the heck out of our country with DDT. All of the malaria-carrying mosquitoes were killed.
Then, Rachel Carson wrote a book called The Silent Spring. The forward to the book was written by Al Gore. She claimed that pesticides were causing cancer. DDT was banned worldwide, before the malaria-carrying mosquitoes could be killed in places like Africa.
Does Al Gore now repudiate Rachel Carson? No. Does Al Gore participate in open forums where people can refute his crackpot ideas about global warming and DDT? No.
Two America-loving Irish citizens have produced two documentaries about the effects of non-apologizing, power-wielding politicians like Gore. The names of the documentaries are "Not Evil, Just Wrong," and "Mine Your Own Business." I heard them interviewed today on the Dennis Miller radio show, which was hosted today by the wonderful Andrew Breitbart of Breitbart.com.
8 comments:
This is a personal vendetta of mine! Most people do not realize that more people die yearly form malaria than aids.And malaria is preventable. I and my entire family have all had malaria more than once. Some of us have had cerebral malaria and suffer spleen damage and other conditions brought on by malaria or the medications. But Aids is the disease that gets the medias attention and the big bucks!
I have personally watched infants and elderly die, literally in my arms, from this disease which DDT could eliminate!!!
Sorry for the rant!!!
Rachel Carson meant well but Gore and friends are just plain power hungry.
When accusing people of foul actions, it behooves one to get the facts right, first. Let me suggest some corrections.
All of the malaria-carrying mosquitoes were killed.
Especially in Uganda, that's not true. At no time has every nation in Africa had an anti-malaria campaign. In the 1960s, when DDT was used extensively in Africa, mostly it was used to kill other insects on crops. This overuse led to DDT poisoning of many other, non-target species.
Uganda, I believe, did not participate in anti-malaria campaigns at that time.
By the mid-1960s, mosquitoes in Africa already demonstrated resistance to DDT, and some populations developed a mutation that made them immune to the stuff (which is still a problem, worldwide).
DDT was not then a panacea against malaria, nor is it now. Advances against malaria in the past 40 years include the necessary step of improved medical care for victims. Remember, the malaria parasite must spend part of its life in a human host. If we could wipe it out in humans, the mosquitoes cease to be carriers. Alas, pharmaceuticals "new" in 1960s also have ceased to be effective.
And let's be realistic: Any claim that Idi Amin was prevented from fighting malaria by Rachel Carson is pure fiction, silly and dangerous fantasy.
Then, Rachel Carson wrote a book called The Silent Spring. The forward to the book was written by Al Gore.
Al Gore was a child in 1962. There are good histories of Rachel Carson's wonderful work; you can Google it, or check some of the posts on Carson at my blog.
Gore may have written a forward to an anniversary edition, but as a child, he didn't write the forward to Silent Spring in 1962.
She claimed that pesticides were causing cancer.
No, she didn't. She said complex organic chemicals were implicated in leukemia, and she wondered whether there was a connection. This was in addition to mounds of data showing the harms of DDT to the environment. Carson's chief argument was that DDT is a poison that damages creatures in the environment, and she was amazingly accurate. There is no refutation of her claims in science. Her writing was based on 20 years of research at the time. Nothing she wrote has ever been contradicted by subsequent research -- and in fact, as Discover Magazine noted late last year, more than 1,000 follow-up studies have confirmed Carson's writings, and suggested she was way too optimistic.
DDT was banned worldwide, before the malaria-carrying mosquitoes could be killed in places like Africa.
DDT has never been banned worldwide. It has been in constant use in Mexico since 1946, for example. Restrictions on DDT, such as the "ban" in the U.S., allow specific exemptions for fighting diseases like malaria, and other uses.
Killing all the mosquitoes never works against malaria. There is always a next generation, moving in from somewhere else at least, but usually taking advantage of the natural fact that some mosquitoes will be resistant to any poison. This is how the mutation making mosquitoes immune to DDT has taken hold worldwide.
Wiping out malaria usually requires a lot of money. The best preventive is to prevent bites; this is done best by screening people from mosquitoes at night. In the U.S., we did this by raising incomes enough that most people could live in houses with screens. Africa has had less success at raising living standards. In the U.S., we used effective and available medical care to treat affected humans; this has worked in Africa where tried, but again, the implementation has been far less comprehensive than in the U.S., or Europe.
And of course there were all those nations in Subsaharan Africa that didn't have any anti-malaria programs at all. DDT was never sprayed there because the governments simply had no program to fight malaria.
Absolute inaction was the culprit, not a lack of DDT. Research over the last 40 years confirms that effective programs against malaria include better pharmaceuticals, better delivery of medical care, effective prevention which requires significant education of the human population, screening, and much less spraying. In no case is DDT required, and in many cases DDT is a barrier to malaria control. DDT kills the predators of the mosquitoes more effectively than it kills the mosquitoes; unless an area is overpoisoned to kill all mosquitoes, the mosquito population comes roaring back, unchecked by natural predation.
But World Health Organization officials and others who have been fighting malaria for the past five decades agree, the chief problem was that the malaria parasites became resistant to the drugs used to treat infections in humans. DDT can't help there at all. More DDT costs money in such cases, but does nothing at all to aid the fight.
Does Al Gore now repudiate Rachel Carson? No. Does Al Gore participate in open forums where people can refute his crackpot ideas about global warming and DDT? No.
Good. Al Gore shouldn't repudiate the woman who advocated the programs that now are effective in fighting malaria. You ARE aware that Carson advocated integrated pest management, aren't you? That's the program that now is working, worldwide, against malaria vectors -- had we adopted her view in 1962, millions could have been saved. As she warned, DDT could be used effectively and wisely to stop the spread of disease, if use were restricted to prevent the development of resistance in the mosquitoes. Few listened at the time; now uninformed critics claim Carson's program is, somehow, a repudiation of her claims. How bizarre.
If you have any facts about malaria that would "refute" anything Gore claims, by all means, post away. You can use the internet to do that because Al Gore went to bat to save ARPANET -- you forgot to thank Gore for that, you ingrate -- and you have newspapers, radio, letters, and television, all to make your case.
But get your facts straight, first, will you? Al Gore is right. Rachel Carson, whom you denigrate, is the one who advocated the programs that currently work against mosquitoes. No study has ever refuted Carson's work, remarkable after so long a time.
Let's not kick the people who help us, please.
How about this: let's not quibble over minor details. The truth is inconvenient. DDT is not that harmful and is tremondously helpful. 'nough said?
Ed Darrell is only partially right, and he's using clever wording to mask his errors. He is right that DDT alone did not keep Malaria from "roaring" back but that was not due to killing predators of the mosquito. India, Brazil and Italy all completely eradicated Malaria using DDT in the late 40s and 50s. But no one knew at the time that human carriers would bring the parasite back into the regions, along with mosquito "hitchikers". That was the source of reinfection.
Also, Ed mentions that DDT was a barrier to a full program. Truthfully, greedy politicians and short-sited medical beaurocrats simply withdrew money for long-term programs to spend elsewhere. DDT did what was expected, but the areas were neglected and fell back into their prior conditions.
I'm no fan of DDT alone, but I've been in Uganda, and seen the yellow eyes and weak condition of the children. Both sides continue to spin their political agendas while the kids keep dying. Stop ranting and do something...go there...assist in providing treatment...distribute nets and show why to use them...educate the workers and children...fund effective and accountable programs that help malaria victims. Shut up and do something useful please!!
10:30 AM
I agree with Terri. It it is just an inconvenient truth that DDT is helpful and not harmful. Ironically, there is a new book out called The Really Inconvenient Truths. I think it is by Iain Murray, an environmental analyst. Guess what one of the Inconvenient Truths is? That DDT is helpful, not harmful, and people have villionized it for no legitimate reason. I just finished the book, and it is really good. Murray also writes about the ethanol crisis as well. You can find it on Amazon.
Hey, Mark and Lindsay:
Can you point me to any documentation that Uganda used DDT prior to 1972? Or any of the nations immediately south of the Sahara? Which ones? When did they stop? Why?
DDT can be relatively safely used, when used as Rachel Carson prescribed. Anything more is stupid and deadly. Nations that have followed Carson's suggestions have had great success fighting malaria.
To call the woman wrong whose methods we use now is ungrateful, and morally wrong.
Post a Comment