DDT, Environmental Politics, and Genocide
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The clinic near the university where I sought treatment was dark and claustrophobic, filled with old and outdated medical equipment.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.
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?