Posted on 08/11/2002 7:19:03 AM PDT by Skooz
No you're not. As I said earlier, you are trying to be clever, and failing miserably.
I don't oppose the use of DDT in this country, I just don't think it would get through the political minefield that awaits it. Therefore I don't think it should be reintorduced. I have NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER of it's safety. If reisitance was as big an issue as you imply, it would obviously not be as effective as it is, and it is VERY effective IF USED PROPERLY. The constant stopping and starting again of its use is what breeds resistance.
No, DDT is safe and effective, it just isn't worth the political capital that would be necessary to get it reapproved in this country. In that area, there are bigger fish to fry. However, unlike you, I see that there is no reason to push a ban on it in other areas of the world simply because the environmentalists want it. And I'm not willing to sacrifice millions of people at the altar of environmental activism, just because of their skin color.
You make a compelling argument.
Let's lift the ban.
From the same place:
Years of carefully controlled feeding experiments involving levels of DDT as high as present in most wild birds resulted in no tremors, mortality, thinning of egg shells nor reproductive interference.
[Scott, ML et al. 1975. Poultry Science 54: 350-368 (Egg production, hatch ability and shell quality depend on calcium, and are not effected by DDT and its metabolites)]
And it looks like your textbook might need updating:
Some mosquitoes became "resistant" to DDT. "There is persuasive evidence that antimalarial operations did not produce mosquito resistance to DDT. That crime, and in a very real sense it was a crime, can be laid to the intemperate and inappropriate use of DDT by farmers, espeially cotton growers. They used the insecticide at levels that would accelerate, if not actually induce, the selection of a resistant population of mosquitoes."
[Desowitz, RS. 1992. Malaria Capers, W.W. Norton & Company]
"Resistance" may be a misleading term when discussing DDT and mosquitoes. While some mosquitoes develop biochemical/physiological mechanisms of resistance to the chemical, DDT also can provoke strong avoidance behavior in some mosquitoes so they spend less time in areas where DDT has been applied -- this still reduces mosquito-human contact. "This avoidance behavior, exhibited when malaria vectors avoid insecticides by not entering or by rapidly exiting sprayed houses, should raise serious questions about the overall value of current physiological and biochemical resistance tests. The continued efficacy of DDT in Africa, India, Brazil, and Mexico, where 69% of all reported cases of malaria occur and where vectors are physiologically resistant to DDT (excluding Brazil), serves as one indicator that repellency is very important in preventing indoor transmission of malaria."
[See, e.g., J Am Mosq Control Assoc 1998 Dec;14(4):410-20; and Am J Trop Med Hyg 1994;50(6 Suppl):21-34]
Not a lasting solution? Malaria was endemic in Louisiana before DDT.
clear out places where mosquitoes could be found
cover water supplies with nets
all tents and houses were covered with nets
new sewers were put in
In 1906 eight out of ten workers had malaria. By 1913 only 7 out of 100 had the disease.
Now, bunkie, the workers referred to were grown men, not infants and children. Is seven out of 100 adults ill with malaria OK with you?
If it is so easy to control malaria, why are so many people dying?
How many human deaths are acceptable to the Green lobby? There is a term for people who find megadeaths acceptable in pursuit of idealogical goals. Can you guess what it is?
Maybe he is too.
DDT shouldn't be banned for malaria outbreaks assuming it is necessary to suppress them, but DDT should be banned for agricultural usage. Rachel Carson was not responsible for the deaths of people in the third world from malaria, since the ban on US usage did not occur until 1972, and did not apply to the Third World. The US ban did not apply to health emergencies, and we haven't had a malaria epidemic that I know of. The malaria outbreak in Sri Lanka occurred in 1968-9, and was due to the factors I stated in another post.
About 1990, the 2 mosquito vectors responsible for 80% of India's annual malaria case load, plus 14 other public health insect pests were broadly resistant to the 3 major public health insecticides DDT, HCH & malathion.
Really, there is a DDT cult in the USA, and they are people that want you to sprinkle it on your breakfast cereal. I believe that this cult is not interested in the welfare of African babies, and is really a stalking horse for the agricultural uses of DDT. The return of malaria in the Third world is due to insect resistance and agricultural misuse.
Why? It isn't harmful to humans. And I've seen absolutlely no current evidence that it is even remotely dangerous to birds.
What is it that enables people like you and the WWF to decide the fate of the poor and indigenent of the world? Oh! I am sorry,you do not smoke.
Do not attempt to justify murder by quoting falacious psuedo science.The old standard applies more people died in Ted Kennedy's car than from DDT.
An article that ran in the science News in 2000, The Case for DDT, also mentions the important role of DDT in repelling mosquitoes
Roberts, John P. Grieco, who is also at the Uniformed Services University, and their colleagues just completed one such comparison. Published in the June Journal of Vector Ecology, it finds that deltamethrin—the insecticide usually held up as the leading alternative—doesn't come close to matching DDT's performance.
In and around a trio of dirt-floor, thatched huts in southern Belize, Grieco monitored the behavior of the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles vestitipennis. Mosquitoes entered an untreated hut at dusk and left at sunrise. After the interior walls of a second hut were sprayed with deltamethrin, the mosquitoes entered at dusk but left by midnight. As expected, Roberts notes, "the whole time they were inside, the mosquitoes were biting [us]."
However, DDT sprayed inside the third hut repelled the flying bloodhounds. Only 3 percent as many mosquitoes entered the DDT-sprayed hut as the other two. Of those few mosquitoes that did venture in, most exited without biting.
Roberts argues that although DDT can kill mosquitoes, the new study suggests that it primarily protects by repelling them. Comparing DDT's killing action with that of other pesticides used for malaria control—the standard practice for 55 years—may be the wrong measure of its value, he now contends.
Throughout the tropical Americas, malaria is undergoing a massive resurgence. Roberts argues that the reason is largely that control programs have been abandoning DDT. He'd like to see more use of the chemical, not less. If the plant in Mexico chooses not to reopen, he says, countries should consider setting up their own facilities to make DDT.
Then, by extension, the simple question is, whether or not you would support the employment of DDT for the control of West Nile infected mosquitos in Louisiana? Or aren't they dangerous enough?
Being against broadcast spraying is hardly the same as being pro-murder. Really!!
If it is necessary, sure, go for it. My major problem is with agricultural uses of DDT, which accounted for the majority of its' use in the 1960s. Agricultural use is bad for malaria prevention, and the overuse of any pesticide will cause resistance. I am amazed that some of the people on this thread deny that insect resistance is even possible. That is a denial of reality, usually only seen in communists.
Why, in the very act of describing behavior that is unfeeling and evil, does the author feel compelled to say that Lieberman is not "unfeeling or...evil"?
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