National Geographic Acknowledges Huge Loss of Life to Malaria and Need for DDT

LifeSiteNews ^ | 8/7/07 | Steve Jalsevac

[wagglebee]

August 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - National Geographic (NG), a leading environmentalist, de-population supporting magazine, has published a major cover story by Michael Finkel on the extraordinarily deadly and complex malaria parasite. The July 2007 NG edition article discusses possible solutions to the disease but also uncharacteristically acknowledges a leading expert's contention that the international ban on DDT was a terrible mistake which may have cost many millions of lives, especially in poor African nations. Environmental ideologues have been quick to slam Finkel's article as being flawed and damaging to the their past success in convincing the world to ban the DDT pesticide.

The article, Malaria, Stopping a Global Killer, states, "This year malaria will strike up to a half billion people. At least a million will die, most of them under age five, the vast majority living in Africa. That's more than twice the annual toll a generation ago."

Finkel writes that Robert Gwadz, a malaria specialist at the US National Institutes of Health, says the worldwide ban on DDT that eventually followed the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which condemned use of the chemical, "may have killed 20 million children." The quote by Gwadz does not include the huge number of adults that have also died since "DDT become nearly impossible to procure" because "the chemical was outlawed by most of the world for agricultural use".

The deaths caused by malaria, however, are only the beginning of the problems caused by the disease. A far greater number of the continent's people are regularly afflicted by malaria, which often causes life-long disabilities and devastating effects on African economies. Gwadz tells NG that "It's possible that due to malaria, almost every child in Africa is in some way neurologically scarred".

NG relates that in the past there were massive numbers of malaria cases in the United States. "A million Union Army casualties in the U.S. Civil War are attributed to malaria." There were also millions of U.S. malaria cases in the 1930s, which led to the launching of an intensive antimalaria program. The Centers for Disease Control was founded in 1946, "specifically to combat malaria". By 1950, reports National Geographic's Finkel, "transmission of malaria was halted in the U.S."

Finkel reports that prosperous nations such as the U.S have been able to eradicate malaria, but "In the meantime, several distinctly unprosperous regions have reached the brink of total malarial collapse." The author presents his own analysis of why this has happened. He does not, however, address the argument presented in past LifeSiteNews articles, that racist western depopulation policies were likely a large factor in the withholding of desperately needed, inexpensive life-saving measures such as DDT from high birthrate African nations.

Internationally prominent author Michael Crichton, who, while having a severe anti-religious bias, nevertheless excels in the area of thoroughly researched fictional novels on scientific issues, presented a more directly condemning view of the Rachel Carson inspired DDT ban in a speech he gave in Sept. 2003. 

In this speech, Environmentalism as a religion, Crichton stated:

"I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn."

The National Geographic magazine website appears to have buried its July malaria cover story. Anyone visiting the site would not be aware that such an important article was published by NG. The article is not listed in the section of latest features at http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/hubs/latest-features.... It can can only be found by doing a search which brings up the appropriate link. 

See the complete National Geographic article at http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature1/index.h... See previous LifeSiteNews and other reports:  

See previous LifeSiteNews and other reports on the malaria issue: 

Green Hands Dipped In Blood: The DDT Genocide
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/050816a.html

Finally an End to Massive Genocide Caused by Environmental Extremists' DDT Ban http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06092709.html

Call for DDT Opponents to be Held Accountable for Millions of Preventable Malaria Deaths
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/060927a.html

50-80 Million Deaths Blamed On Environmental Extremists' DDT Ban
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/05081601.html

U.N. TREATY RESTRICTIONS CRIPPLE FIGHT AGAINST MALARIA
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2001/jun/01061301.html

Tierney Takes on Rachel Carson and 'Silent Spring' DDT Ban
http://newsbusters.org/node/13269

Give Us DDT
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB118160970924631993-lMy...;

[wagglebee]

She has far more deaths on her hands than does Hitler.

Rachel Carson and Margaret Sanger are responsible for more deaths than every genocidal maniac in the history of the world COMBINED.

[rabscuttle385]

But remember - the Zero Population Growth wing of the Left thinks that is a good result.

As long as it's the children of others who suffer needlessly.

However, when it comes to their own children, they are very defensive.

[samtheman]

Margaret Sanger was part of this?

[flashbunny]

Hopefully rachel carson is in hell, experiencing what the people who suffer from malaria go through every day.

[tracer]

Many-fold more people die of malaria than from AIDS, a disease which is quite preventable.

The Bill and melinda Gates Foundation, I believe, has spent more dollars in support of malaria research than has USGOV and WHO combined over the past five years.

Sadly, the virus that is the etiologic agent of AIDS enjoys more "civil rights" than does the Plasmodium parasite........

[TChris]

Mass genocide in the name of horribly false philosophy:

1. Joseph Stalin
2. Adolph Hitler
3. Mao Zedong
4. Pol Pot
5. Rachel Carson

[tennteacher]

This is funny.

[rabscuttle385]

Oops, my bad. Double post.

[wagglebee]

I was simply trying to counter the “evil DDT agenda” lie.

[ValerieTexas]

Carson’s and Sanger’s work both resulted in the practice of eugenics

[dead]

They didn't do it to save mosquitoes.

I know, I was being facetious.

But the proof that it actually saved any birds is tenuous. It did actually save billions of mosquitoes.

[TChris]

But it also killed birds the left would rather have dead people than dead birds.

That was a theory which was later proved false. DDT does not harm birds.

[READINABLUESTATE]

As if there are no other pesticides and counter-measures against malaria vectors.

Talking third world here, DDT is/was really cheap and effective. The newer pesticides are much more expensive.

[Southack]

Ask Hillary and Obama where they stand on using DDT in poor African nations.

[samtheman]

I did not know that. I thought it did kill birds. Not that I would choose birds over people. I would accept the deaths of birds to save the lives of millions of children. But you’re saying the threat to birds has been disproven? You have a link to that?

[dead]

Mao’s gotta be number one on that list. His final score had nine digits!

[SunTzuWu]

What DDT industry?

[samtheman]

Ask Hillary and Obama where they stand on using DDT in poor African nations.

Amen to that!

[Shermy]

“Then WHY aren’t they being used?”

Because they are, have been for years, or if not, due to local0 government breakdown and anarchy.

These articles are lies. There apparently is a campaign by the DDT patent holders to allow them to dump their product in Africa again. I think it is a hope in vain.

These DDT articles don’t derive from some idle pseudo-scientific speculation, they are funded, prepared and released in a programatic way to pursue a political goal. It’s just as how the finance industries are funding and programming the public discussion about global warming.

I think the pr managers are getting a good laugh on all sides of this. Intimate that pollution isn’t a threat to the environment, the corporate conservative go gaga for DDT. Intimate the oil companies are against you, the corporate liberals go gaga for cap and trade.

I’m imagining there are two sets of PR people that have a gentlemen’s bet, who can propagandize the USA best about an absurdity, DDT or Cap and Trade of carbon credits.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

Better late than never, but this is another example where worldwide political correctness can truly create much more damage than good. It’s also not good that the United Nations continues to practice political correctness to the fullest instead of practicing full commonsense to the best of human abilities.