THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 189, September 12, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
Home Page   Main Menu   Recent Articles   Site Map   Website Index   Issues & Controversies
  Cyberland University   Political Science, Philosophy, & History: Lectures   U.S. Constitution
  American Constitutional Law   American Constitutional System   American Political System
  Conservatism, Liberalism, & Radicalism   How America Goes to War
  World War IV: Islamist Terror War Against the U.S.A. & the West

THREE BILLION & COUNTING: THE COST OF BANNING DDT
By Dennis T. Avery

CONSEQUENCES OF THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT & PURSUIT OF ITS POLICY AGENDA:  THE DDT BAN & THE MOUNTING TOLL OF NEEDLESS DEATHS & PERMANENT DEBILITATIONS CAUSED BY MALARIA IN THE TROPICS -- MALARIA TREATMENT A TANGLE OF RED TAPE, MISGUIDED PREVENTION POLICIES, & TREATMENT THAT IS INEFFECTIVE IN THE FACE OF CONTINUAL RE-INFECTION -- WILLFUL DEAFNESS TO THE PLEAS OF LOCAL POPULATIONS TO HELP THEM ERADICATE THE MOSQUITOES THAT DELIVER THE DEADLY CARGO -- HIGH TIME TO RENOUNCE THE "OVERPOPULATION" PANIC & USE THE BEST CHEMISTRY TO EXTERMINATE MOSQUITOES & SUPPRESS THE MALARIA SCOURGE
FULL STORY:   Three Billion and Counting is a new documentary film on the awful human cost of banning DDT. The film’s producer, medical doctor Rutledge Taylor, circled the tropical world, finding that malaria has claimed some three billion human lives throughout history — and the toll of needless deaths is continuing to mount by perhaps 1.5 million per year. Moreover, it permanently debilitates millions more. Taylor says malaria treatment is a “tangle of red tape, misguided prevention policies, and treatment that is ineffective in the face of continual re-infection.” Above all, he found “willful deafness to the pleas of local populations to help them eradicate the mosquitoes that deliver the deadly cargo.”

Steve Milloy at Junkscience.com has called DDT “a weapon of mass survival.”

Rachel Carson ignited the environmentalist movement when her book, Silent Spring, warned the world in 1962 that “DDT would be proven to be a [human] carcinogen.” In fact, no peer-reviewed evidence ever indicted DDT as a carcinogen — or a human health risk of any sort.

What about DDT thinning the eggshells of raptor birds? Audubon counted virtually no eagles in its annual “lower-48 states” Christmas bird counts from 1900 until after 1940. The birds were shot and poisoned for “stealing” fish, lambs, and poultry. The public thought eagles were just big, aggressive predators. Finally, in 1940, Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act. The eagles began a long, initially-slow comeback. Today, Audubon typically records more than 15,000 eagles every Christmas — and the DDT ban had no role in their comeback.

But Rachel Carson struck a public nerve. DDT and window screens had eradicated malaria in America and Europe. Well and good. But then DDT started radically reducing the death rates of the brown, black, and yellow people in the tropics. Paul Ehrlich wrote his incendiary screed The Population Bomb in 1968, and the American public recoiled in horror at “overpopulation.”

Rutledge Taylor traces the horrific DDT mistake back to one man: William Ruckelshaus, the Nixon-appointed lawyer who headed the Environmental Protection Agency in 1972. An EPA judge heard more than 100 expert witnesses, and ruled that DDT was not a carcinogen, nor did it pose a threat to mammals, fish, or birds. Ruckelshaus overruled his own judge, and banned DDT. He had attended none of the hearing, and admitted later he’d never read any of the transcript. Dr. Taylor concludes he did it to please his friends in the Environmental Defense Fund.

The American DDT ban triggered similar bans across the First World — and with it, their refusal to fund its use in poor countries. Malaria resurged all over the tropics. Rachel Carson and William Ruckelshaus were the indirect cause of more deaths than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Genghis Khan combined. You can even throw in the Black Plague and still not match the numbers.

DDT is not only the most cost-effective mosquito killer, it is also a powerful mosquito repellent. If tropic homes get a mild interior DDT whitewash, the insects don’t come in, bite somebody, and then die two hours later. They just don’t come in! DDT is, by itself, capable of reducing a malaria outbreak by 80 percent — quickly.

Global population is now rapidly stabilizing, and will trend slowly down after 2050. Is it time to renounce the “overpopulation” panic and use the best chemistry to suppress the awful malaria scourge? Remember, each case of malaria causes not only the victim’s near-constant suffering, but the need for much nursing care from his family. Malaria may be enough, by destroying the vigorous health of its citizens, to explain the poverty of so many tropical countries

Meanwhile, Ohio’s governor is trying for an EPA waiver for malathion, another persistent pesticide, to control the bedbugs that were once eradicated by DDT and are making a vigorous comeback. We wish him good luck.

Conflict of interest note: I was proud to be interviewed in this film, and received no remuneration. My deepest thanks go to Dr. Taylor for his constructive dedication to correcting our society’s massive, tragic malaria mistake.


LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources

Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy



Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and an environmental economist. He was formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years. Readers may write to him at PO Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421, or send him email at cgfi@hughes.net.




Return to Top of Page

Go to the WEBSITE INDEX

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume XII, 2010


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights


Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage

CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION




LINKS TO PARTICULAR ISSUES & SUBJECT MATTER CATEGORIES
TREATED IN THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.:

Africa: Black Africa * Africa: North Africa * American Government 1
American Government 2 * American Government 3 * American Government 4
American Government 5 * American Politics * Anglosphere * Arabs
Arms Control & WMD * Aztlan Separatists * Big Government
Black Africa * Bureaucracy * Canada * China * Civil Liberties * Communism
Congress, U.S. * Conservative Groups * Conservative vs. Liberal
Constitutional Law * Counterterrorism * Criminal Justice * Disloyalty * Economy
Education * Elections, U.S. * Eminent Domain * Energy & Environment
English-Speaking World * Ethnicity & Race * Europe * Europe: Jews
Family Values * Far East * Fiscal Policy, U.S. * Foreign Aid, U.S. * Foreign Policy, U.S.
France * Hispanic Separatism * Hispanic Treason * Human Health * Immigration
Infrastructure, U.S. * Intelligence, U.S. * Iran * Iraq * Islamic North Africa
Islamic Threat * Islamism * Israeli vs. Arabs * Jews & Anti-Semitism
Jihad & Jihadism * Jihad Manifesto I * Jihad Manifesto II * Judges, U.S. Federal
Judicial Appointments * Judiciary, American * Latin America * Latino Separatism
Latino Treason * Lebanon * Leftists/Liberals * Legal Issues
Local Government, U.S. * Marriage & Family * Media Political Bias
Middle East: Arabs * Middle East: Iran * Middle East: Iraq * Middle East: Israel
Middle East: Lebanon * Middle East: Syria * Middle East: Tunisia
Middle East: Turkey * Militant Islam * Military Defense * Military Justice
Military Weaponry * Modern Welfare State * Morality & Decency
National Identity * National Security * Natural Resources * News Media Bias
North Africa * Patriot Act, USA * Patriotism * Political Culture * Political Ideologies
Political Parties * Political Philosophy * Politics, American * Presidency, U.S.
Private Property * Property Rights * Public Assistance * Radical Islam
Religion & America * Rogue States & WMD * Russia * Science & Ethics
Sedition & Treason * Senate, U.S. * Social Welfare Policy * South Africa
State Government, U.S. * Subsaharan Africa * Subversion * Syria * Terrorism 1
Terrorism 2 * Treason & Sedition * Tunisia * Turkey * Ukraine
UnAmerican Activity * UN & Its Agencies * USA Patriot Act * U.S. Foreign Aid
U.S. Infrastructure * U.S. Intelligence * U.S. Senate * War & Peace
Welfare Policy * WMD & Arms Control


This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics, civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy and political philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.



POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS

POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE

Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.

Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs, International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests, Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy

INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z




THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis

Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor

Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic, Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues


Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity