WHO ARE THE REAL ENVIRO-RACISTS?

September 7, 2002 -- ALMOST as soon as birds started dying of West Nile virus in Central Park some three years ago, controversy erupted about whether to use pesticides to counter the deadly threat.

Those shouting (and suing) for a "no-spray" policy have been a small, but loud array of self-styled, fringe environmentalists. To them, pesticides are the ultimate evil. They claim a kaleidoscope of ill-defined, unsupported side effects and environmental harm.

katt, as far as I know, I was the first to dub the nineteen-nineties as

"The Decade of Fraud(s),"

but this stuff has been going on for years and years.

"Silent Spring" appeared about the time Nader's "Unsafe at any Speed" did-- even though GM had fixed the "tuck-under" problem described in Nader's book, it wasn't enough to save the Corvair- the public "knew" it was "unsafe..."

I covered some of these common public delusions here:

Scams, Scalawags, and an all-too-gullible Public...famous frauds sold to America

...and, of course, you have seen these:

West Nile Virus- Bring Back DDT?
100 things you should know about DDT

I have a particular interest in this matter, as an amateur of epidemiology.

DDT once prevented millions of cases of malaria and yellow fever every year. In Sri Lanka alone, its use averted about 3,000,000 malaria cases every year -- about 100,000 of which would prove fatal, typically to the very young and the elderly. Now that DDT has been suppressed by the green bigots -- thank you, Thomas Sowell, for that marvelous phrase -- those malaria cases, and the associated deaths, are with us again.

This is the human face of eco-fascism. I want the next greenie who proposes any such measure as DDT suppression to stand up in a public forum and name the people he proposes to kill. If he can't name them, I want numbers and nationalities at the least. These monsters should be compelled to confront the consequences of their mindless, sod-worshipping activism.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

Malaria Cases in Sri Lanka

WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia

According to this chart, malaria cases recently peaked at 1 million in 1997. Even so, there were only 115 deaths in 1998.

There were apparent problems with DDT resistance even before it was banned in the US.

After the first flush of success of malaria eradication campaigns and a drastic fall in its incidence in most countries of the Region, there were disturbing signs in the early 1970s that malaria was returning. There were several reasons for this setback. These were: operational, administrative and financial factors; movement and cross-border migration of large segments of populations; technical problems of resistance of mosquitoes to DDT; alterations in mosquito behaviour, and development of resistance of malaria parasites to drugs.
WHO SEA

Fnally, DDT may have been banned in the US, but it's production and use has not stopped everywhere.

India and China remain the only countries in the world which manufacture and promote the use of DDT, whose effectiveness has been steadily eroding through resistance to it. Although India has completely banned the use of DDT in agriculture, farmers take advantage of the fact that the ban on the cheap pesticide does not extend to anti-mosquito spraying in malaria control programs.
The result of its continued use is DDT levels in mother's breast milk in India is among the highest in the world. The capital city Delhi is the worst affected area, according to a survey carried out by the environmental group Toxics Link. Environmentally, the large-scale use of DDT has been traced to the sudden depletion of vultures from the Indian skies, forcing the Parsis, an ethnic community, to suspend "sky burials" in which the corpses of their dead are left to be eaten by vultures.
Not only does India manufacture and use vast quantities of DDT - it is also a major exporter of the chemical, which is in high demand by farmers in the neighboring countries of Nepal and Bangladesh.
Asian Times

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