THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 158, August 15, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CRISIS! NEW YORK STYLE VERSUS THE REAL THING:
Our Obsession with Pesticide "Risks" Has Very
Different Consequences for America & Africa
By Paul K. Driessen
BEDBUGS IN NEW YORK CITY & MALARIAL MOSQUITOES IN AFRICA: WHY NOT USE INSECTICIDES & DDT TO COPE
WITH BOTH PROBLEMS? THE INCREASING OUTBREAK OF BEDBUGS IN NEW YORK CITY HAS REVIVED THE DEBATE
OVER INSECTICIDES & DDT. IT OUGHT TO INVITE MUCH MORE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE USE OF DDT & INSECTICIDES
IN AFRICA TO COMBAT A TRULY CRITICAL DISEASE -- MALARIA.
FULL STORY:
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” is no longer a fashionable good-night wish for Big Apple kids, even in the City’s high-rent
districts and posh hotels. Growing infestations of the ravenous bloodsuckers have New Yorkers annoyed, anguished,
angry about officialdom’s inadequate responses, and “itching” for answers.
Instead, their Bedbug Advisory Board recommends a bedbug team and educational website. Residents, it advises, should
monitor and report infestations. Use blowdryers to flush out (maybe 5% of) the bugs, then sweep them into a plastic bag
and dispose properly. Throw away (thousands of dollars worth of) infested clothing, bedding, carpeting, and furniture.
Hire (expensive) professionals who (may) have insecticides that (may) eradicate the pests, and hope you don’t get
scammed. Don’t use “risky” pesticides yourself. Follow guideline for donating potentially infested furnishings, and be
wary of bedbug risks from donated furniture and mattresses.
New Yorkers want real solutions, including affordable insecticides that work. Fear and loathing, from decades of
chemophobic indoctrination, are slowly giving way to a healthy renewed recognition that the risk of not using chemicals
can be greater than the risk of using them (carefully). Eco-myths are being replaced with more informed discussions about
alleged effects of DDT and other pesticides on humans and wildlife.
Thankfully, bedbugs have not been linked to disease, except sometimes severe emotional distress associated with
obstinate infestations, incessant itching, and pathetic “proactive” advice, rules, and “solutions” right out of Saturday
Night Live.
It is hellish for people who must live with bedbugs, and can't afford professional eradication like what Hilton Hotels or
Mayor Bloomberg might hire. But imagine what it’s like for two billion people who live 24/7/365 with insects that definitely
are responsible for disease: malarial mosquitoes.
Malaria infects over 300 million people annually. For weeks or months on end, it renders them unable to work, attend
school or care for their families, and far more susceptible to death from tuberculosis, dysentery, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition
and other diseases that still stalk their impoverished lands.
This vicious disease causes low birth weights in babies and leaves millions permanently brain-damaged. It kills over a
million annually, most of them children and mothers, the vast majority of them in Africa. It drains families’ meager savings,
and magnifies and perpetuates the region’s endemic poverty.
Emotional distress? Imagine the stress that comes from having no escape from destitution and disease; having to support
a child with a perpetual ten-year-old’s mental functions; burying your baby, wife, or sibling; or wondering whether you
can walk twenty miles to a clinic, before the child you are carrying dies, and whether the clinic will have (non-counterfeit)
medicine to cure her.
Frustration over absurd bedbug “solutions”? Imagine the reaction Africans must have to “malaria no more” campaigns
that claim they will (eventually) eradicate the disease solely with insecticide-treated bed nets, drugs, “capacity building,”
education, and (maybe someday) mosquitoes genetically engineered not to carry malaria parasites. As to insecticide
spraying, and especially DDT – fuggetaboutit.
DDT is the most powerful, effective, long-lasting mosquito repellant ever invented. Spraying the eaves and inside walls
of mud huts and cinderblock homes every six months keeps 80% of the flying killers from entering. It irritates most that
do enter, so they leave without biting, and kills any that land. However, many aid agencies refuse to encourage, endorse,
or fund spraying.
Many don’t even want to monitor mosquito and malaria outbreaks, or determine actual success in reducing disease and
death rates. That would be more difficult and expensive than counting the number of bed nets distributed, and
underscore the embarrassing reality that their “comprehensive” (and politically correct) insecticide-free programs achieve
only 20-40% reductions in morbidity and mortality. By contrast, as South Africa and other countries have demonstrated,
adding insecticides and DDT can bring 95% success.
We would never consider 20-40% fewer deaths a “success” for American children. Why should Africa?
Since EPA banned DDT in 1972, after the United States and Europe had eradicated malaria, billions have been stricken
by the vicious diseases, and tens of millions have died. That is intolerable.
We need adult supervision and informed debate on pesticide policies, laws, and regulations. We can no longer leave
those decisions to unaccountable anti-chemical activists in pressure groups and government agencies. These zealots
are making decisions that determine the quality of life for millions of Americans, especially poor families – and life itself
for billions of malaria-threatened people worldwide.
If not for the economic and mental health of Americans afflicted by bedbugs, support responsible, ethical policies for
Africa’s sick, brain-damaged, and dying parents and children.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Africa South of the Sahara -- Black Africa
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial
Equality, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death, and consultant to the forthcoming malaria-really-no-more film
titled Three Billion and Counting.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity