Another in an occasional series that analyzes “100 Things You Need to Know About DDT,” a junk science publication by former tobacco lobbyist Steven Milloy.
Here’s a note from Audubon a while ago (August 2004) (emphasis added):
Winged Tonic
For those dispirited by the notion that humanity has doomed itself to a lonely, sterile future in a world increasingly bereft of wild creatures, there is no tonic more curative than the peregrine falcon. Today, on cliffs, bridges, and city buildings nationwide, young peregrines are strengthening their wings. Within a few weeks, those wings will propel them at speeds near 250 mph, enabling them to kill birds as large as great blue herons, mostly by impact. City aeries are frequently monitored by TV cameras, and you can watch the progress of the hatchlings on your computer or television. (Do an Internet search to find the monitored aerie nearest you.) Before World War II the peregrine was among the planet’s most successful species, breeding on every continent and many mid-ocean islands, from the Arctic to as far south as Cape Horn. When University of Wisconsin biologist Joseph Hickey surveyed eastern peregrines in 1942, he found 350 breeding pairs. In 1963, after two decades of DDT use, he found none. But in 1972 the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT, and soon an alliance of federal agencies, conservationists, and private groups was sponsoring captive breeding and the “hacking” of young peregrines into the wild. The recovery goal had been 631 breeding pairs in the United States and Canada. By 1999, when the peregrine was taken off the Endangered Species List, there were at least 1,650.
Compare this with Milloy’s claim #77:
The decline in the U.S. peregrine falcon population occurred long before the DDT years.
[Hickey JJ. 1942. (Only 170 pairs of peregrines in eastern U.S. in 1940) Auk 59:176; Hickey JJ. 1971 Testimony at DDT hearings before EPA hearing examiner. (350 pre- DDT peregrines claimed in eastern U.S., with 28 of the females sterile); and Beebe FL. 1971. The Myth of the Vanishing Peregrine Falcon: A study in manipulation of public and official attitudes. Canadian Raptor Society Publication, 31 pages]
Here are some potential problems:
Eggs of peregrine falcon, crushed by parent due to thin shells caused by DDT. Photo copyright Steve Hopkin, http://www.ardea.com
1. Milloy offers no real citation to Hickey in 1942. The quote would be impossible to track down. Why is Milloy hiding sources, being so coy?
2. While Milloy doesn’t quote Hickey directly, Milloy’s citation of Hickey implies that Hickey’s work supports Milloy’s point. But when we read what Hickey found, according to Audubon, it contradicts Milloy’s point. If Hickey found only 170 nesting peregrines in 1940, and 350 in 1942, clearly that suggests the peregrines were doing very well, more than doubling their nests in two years. Milloy claims peregrines were on the decline, but from what little we have, it looks like their populations were rocketing up prior to DDT. Hickey developed a great reputation for his work revealing the bad effects of DDT; how is it that Milloy has found the only instant ever recorded where Hickey discovers no harm? I suspect Milloy has doctored the data, and not that he’s made a grand discovery of a missing Hickey manuscript.
3. A general decline of raptors prior to DDT does not refute the evidence that DDT killed embryoes, killed hatchlings before they could fledge, and killed fledglings before they could mature. DDT wasn’t the sole cause of the decline of peregrines, nor eagles, nor brown pelicans, but DDT was the major barrier to their recovery. The history of the war against eagles, for example, is rather well documented, as is the development of the wild lands eagles use as habitat. Eagle populations started to decline at the latest when Europeans started to settle North America. Those pressures have never gone away. But after the eagle was protected from hunting in 1918, and then with a tougher law in 1940, the decline was not ended. After 1950, eagles essentially stopped reproducing. This made recovery impossible, and this was the problem DDT caused. When DDT spraying stopped, peregrine falcon populations started to rise, and so did eagle and brown pelican populations, among others.
I have been unable to find a single study that does not corroborate the claim that DDT and its daughter products were hammering the reproduction of predator birds in North America — nor have I found a single study that says the damage has ended. Where does Milloy find any evidence to support his implied claim that DDT was not responsible? It’s not in the citations he offers.
There may be more on this issue coming. So far, nothing Milloy has said against a DDT ban, or in favor of DDT, has checked out to be truthful from the citations he gives, nor from any other source. There are 109 points in his diatribe; I’ve only researched fewer than 20 in any depth.
Other posts pointing out Milloy’s errors:
- 100 things about DDT: Dissecting #10
- DDT disruption of hormone activities
- Fisking “Junk Science’s” campaign for DDT: Point #6
- Fisking “Junk Science’s” campaign for DDT: Point #8
- Fisking “Junk Science” and “100 things you should know about DDT”: A new project (points #17, 18 and 19)
Peregrine falcon – “Mr. Milloy, you wouldn’t tell fibs about what’s killing my babies, would you?”
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bug Girl, R S Deese. R S Deese said: RT @bug_girl: Did DDT harm Peregrine falcons? Yes. http://bit.ly/hsS2uF Did Junkscience lie about it? Yes. #DunningDDTfail […]
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Here’s the POPs Treaty. The specific carve out for DDT is in Annex B, page 24 of this document.
Click to access convtext_en.pdf
Please stop claiming things do not exist that do exist and are easily findable by anyone with Google.
If you wish to contend the fact that DDT alone doesn’t work, do so. There is no skullduggery in my noting the facts — nor in noting that, if all you are urging is extremely limited use of DDT under existing conventions, first, your urgings are exactly what Rachel Carson urged in 1962, and your criticism of her is completely misplaced, and second, your claims of any restrictions on the stuff are in error.
If now you are repudiating your previous stand, have the guts to admit it.
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“DDT alone cannot do anything……..”
Did we catch the holocaust-denier this time? Same with Bug Girl. Same with Lambert. Same with all of these holocaust deniers. To them using DDT means using DDT-Alone.’
It is by a series of verbal tricks that they managed to keep this holocaust going so long. And really its still going. We still don’t have free access to all that we need to protect ourselves or help others.
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“And, all the “bans” on DDT expressly allow use of DDT for public health reasons when required — the POPs Treaty has such an exemption for DDT by name.”
Thats not true at all. The control is centralised. Which means that the mosquitos will always get the jump. On top of that since DDT cannot be manufactured and bought everywhere its price is much higher than it ought to be.
There is no need to put inverted commas around the world “ban”. The word ban is perfectly fair shorthand. What has really happened is that it has been put under the control of taxeating environmentalists. And they have ensured the mass eradication of humans as a result. I cannot buy it at the shop and neither can you. Thats a ban.
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It seems this holocaust-denying, this love of junk science and this trashing of history has been going on a long time.
Don’t believe what Tim Lambert tells you. You’ll only embarrasses yourself.
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Ed,
Thanks for the heads up on the email address!
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Research on DDT and related chemicals is a billions of dollars a year enterprise.
And, all the “bans” on DDT expressly allow use of DDT for public health reasons when required — the POPs Treaty has such an exemption for DDT by name.
It is my understanding that malaria parasites are rather species specific, so there is hope that we can eliminate one or more of the human varieties. Of course, one of the animal versions could mutate to infect humans, but that’s always a danger.
The key thing is to improve medical care so victims survive, and so the parasite is purged from victims to prevent subsequent infecting of more mosquitoes and others.
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The cases of malaria here has been greatly reduced since the DDT days. I certainly do not vouch for widespread use of DDT. However, a comprehensive program of mosquitoes elimination and control is possible with proper governance and supervision. Taking the example of morphine, in our country posessing it is subject to death by law, but still hospitals still use it as a means of pain-relieving because nothing else can with proper supervision of course. Prohibitting DDT is fine, but we should always reserve it as a last resort measure against malaria especially in the worst hit area. After each spraying, drying up the swamp area and cleaning up the area around the house is the best measure ever.
As for medical help, little can be offered. Like all vector related illness, it spread like a plague. Like all plague, the best measure is containment. Unless we create a vaccine against it, other treatment simply treats the symptom. Eliminating it is impossible especially in tropical areas and the mosquitoes victims are not only humans, other animals like pig and dogs are bitten too. In Malaysia, any cases (even if it is just one cases) such as dengue & malaria are always responded with immediate reaction by 1) isolating the patient from the general populace 2) Large scale spraying of insecticides (not DDT) 3)Investigations on possible causes 4)Monitoring of possible cases and this are followed up by either actions from the town council or prosecution. If nothing works, all options are considered including DDT.
Rather than stopping all research on DDT, the opposite course should be taken. This includes methods to make DDT a safer chemical (it will be named differently afterwards) for other animals or making it more potent as means of ultimate last measures.
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Thank you, Mark.
It’s hidden in the “About Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub” page.
“You may contact me by e-mail at edarrell-AT-sbcglobal-DOT-net.”
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Well, I’m not going to go there with Milloy and a couple of dozen “experts” of his ilk who are trotted out predictably on issues ranging from DDT as the new snakeoil, anthropogenic global warming, or , etc…. I’m just an ordinary citizen, who happens to be a birder.
Let me tell you, when our group sees a peregrine, we ALWAYS get excited. To think they were almost extnctied is truly sad. And peregrines are not an everyday sight, either.
We are but a rocky planet on the whole, with a smearing of biosphere…to think we can live without all the critters (even the non-sexy megafauna: slimy, wormy, etc) is arrogance to the highest degree.
We know very little, and sciences, as we know them, is still fairly young as a discipline. If you disagree with these observations, let me show you otherwise.
CAO, I will gladly give you a tour in this park here…it just may open your eyes.
Unless we find another planet to colonise, we are all in this together, and must heed numerous cautionary tales.
One question I did want to ask you: despite every insult we have subjected our lands, human population continues to increase doesn’t it? Do you believe our carrying capacity will increase as well, especially if the global community wishes to live a high consumption lifestyle, as is enjoyed in most Western countries?
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Meson, I’m referring to the well established syndrome in which DDT is sprayed all over creation to kill some pest. Within a few weeks or months, the pest is back, in populations doubled, tripled, quadrupled or more, and the diseases or other problems intended to be controlled rage out of control. This has been our experience almost everywhere DDT was sprayed in the wild, in the out-of-doors.
DDT kills the insect vectors, but it is more deadly to the predators of those insect vectors. In nature, there are insects and animals that prey on disease-carrying mosquitoes, for example. As the cat-drop story indicates, those predatory creatures can get wiped out, and they recover more slowly than mosquitoes. Since these predators play a huge role in controlling the vectors in normal times, when they are gone the vectors’ populations surge. Compounding this issue is that rapidly-breeding insects develop resistance and immunity to DDT much more rapidly under such circumstances.
Spraying DDT literally forces the evolution of super mosquitoes. Jonathan Weiner wrote, in The Beak of the Finch, a story of evolution in our time (1994):
Weiner points out that DDT seems to push most insects to evolve quickly to almost any chemical we could invent. Once flies developed resistance to DDT, they were also resistant to almost all other variants of DDT, and many other chemicals. This gene also confers resistance to pyrethroids.
The malaria vectors are species of the genus Anopheles. I don’t have a handy reference for whether this genus has the B1 and B2 alleles, but there are four different ways insects evolve to avoid the effects of poisons, and DDT drives insects to explore all four ways. Among malaria vectors, one of the most famous is the hut-wall-landing dodge: DDT is sprayed on hut walls; mosquitoes that bite generally fly to the wall of the hut after biting (and already spreading malaria, if they’re spreading it — this tactic is aimed at reducing but not eliminating infections) and land to rest. But in every population there are mutants that don’t fly the hut wall, and instead just fly out of the hut. DDT gets the insects that land on the hut walls; since this seems to be an instinctual behavior passed in the genes, the next generation of the mosquitoes will almost universally avoid the hut walls and exposure to DDT, because they will be descended from the mosquitoes that avoided the hut walls.
So, DDT spraying, especially in the wild, is a destructive maneuver. It’s anti-nature. It will reduce a vector population today, but it increases future vector populations, and makes them more difficult to control.
Such an error and prat-fall prone chemical as DDT should be used very, very sparingly, if at all.
To fight malaria effectively, we need to dramatically upgrade medical care to be able to treat malaria victims and cure them. We need to spread the use of treatments that do not rely on one drug, such as the arteminisin-based treatments offered in several African nations (we need to worry about the parasite becoming resistant to drugs, too). Never forget that, if we could wipe out the malaria parasite in humans, there is no other pool of the parasite for mosquitoes to get it from, and consequently, there would be a much-reduced need to do anything about mosquitoes. We also need to teach people to drain mosquito breeding areas around their homes, so the vector mosquitoes won’t be there to bite them, and we need to spread the use of bed netting, which can reduce malaria by 50%.
DDT alone cannot do anything but make malaria worse, over time. DDT can be sparingly used in an integrated pest-management program to great effect, and gains against malaria can be cemented with improvements in medical care and the delivery of that care. Calling for more DDT does nothing to fight malaria, in the long run, since it deals incorrectly with a minority part of the problem.
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Another great “DDT is a-OK”- debunking post. The level of disinformation that these folks spew is truly amazing. I’ve learned a lot from your series of posts on this topic.
On a completely unrelated topic- is there a contact email address for you somewhere on your blog? I’ve come across a something related to math education that might be of interest that I’d like to bring to your attention. Can’t guarantee that, but who knows? Anyway, am I blind or what?
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I’m from Sarawak, the part of Borneo where they actually implement the famous DDT spraying. The DDT in the end was considered too dangereous as a pesticide and was banned. Recently, certain strains of mosquitoes in Indonesia are able to resist DDT making it an even worst choice of pesticide.
http://mma.org.my/mjm/4_original_82.htm
However, claiming that DDT is causing malaria (yellow fever) and dengue is far-fetched since these sickness are almost virtually eliminated. These illness use mosquitoes as vectors. DDT eliminates these mosquitoes, resulting in huge drop of malaria cases after the spraying. If possible using DDT should be avoided, but not at all cost for precious lives are at stake.
WHO itself (and you) quotes 500 million cases of malaria and will only increase if no concrete actions are taken to reduce the population of mosquitoes. With more infection, more death follows. DDT should not be banned but it must be constantly improved and used sparingly. Banning DDT is equivalent to banning penicillin just because of environmental reasons especially if it was proven to be effective. I don’t think it is wise to compromise human lives because of certain ideals.
Surviving malaria is possibble but i remind you the ordeal is a painful one. The victims are hit by fever that causes their body feeling chilly the whole time. After a while, the patient will got so pale thus giving the illness the term yellow fever to describe the symptoms. If not treated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs. In many parts of the world, the parasites have developed resistance to a number of malaria medicines. Here’s the WHO source on Malaria
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/malaria/en/index.html
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You and “Van Helsing” are the only ones here who believe vampires are anything other than a largely harmless, South American bat. Reality check? You’re several quarts low.
We know that Moonbattery is peddling crap from the start: He opens with a quote so false that any 8th grade kid should be able to do the math and see (you didn’t catch it?)
500 million people dead from malaria since 1972? Is that your claim, really? That’s 35 years. At that rate, malaria would have to kill about 14.3 million people per year. At the worst since 1960, malaria killed 2.7 million. Your numbers are off by a factor of 7. In fact, had you bothered to check this blog, you’d have found the post where I show where this error came from.
https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/fisking-junk-sciences-campaign-against-ddt-point-6/
But would you ever let the facts get in the way of your rant? Not so far.
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Cao said:
Well, on your blog and mine, I’ve posted at least a half-dozen science journal sources. You’ve not given us an original source you didn’t crib from Steve Milloy. I think my sources of news are vastly superior to whatever it is you’re using, as evidenced by your lack of effective or on-point rebuttal to anything I’ve posted so far.
You give us a link to Newsbusters, an organization largely without news sense or news ethics, offering sly intimations that NBC and very conservative newspapers in Virginia are incorrect to report the facts — is that supposed to impress us, while you complain about the quality of sources? That’s not even a bad joke.
The facts are that preservation of a species is immensely more difficult where there is a patchwork of private landowners, especially when some of the owners don’t really care about preserving a species. Habitat is the big issue.
Had you followed the delisting debate over the past 9 years, you’d know that NBC got the issue exactly right. Sure, it’s good news that the eagle is coming off the list. The future is not all wine and roses for the bird.
Had you bothered to view the NBC News piece, you’d know that the complaint about NBC not being happy enough is a load of crap. Brian Williams introduced the piece saying it was good news; the reporter, Anne Thompson, spent 1:25 talking about how good the news is that eagles are coming off the list, about 60 percent of the story (the story ran 2:25). Then she talked about the biggest threats eagles face today.
Solid news, good information — you reject it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s mainstream media or not. That piece was spot on, accurate to a fault, relying on science journal research and opinions from experts. You reject such information in favor of false claims that NBC doesn’t like the news and reports it wrong; and you reject news about the eagles that doesn’t square with the false propaganda put out by the anti-environment groups that include Steven Milloy.
You know, the fact is that we can’t find a single source to corroborate your claims that DDT didn’t harm eagles. Not one. You’ve not bothered to post anything beyond Milloy’s stuff, which so far checks out to be deceptive except where it’s dead wrong.
News, heck — you’re not even getting the history close to right.
And then you have the gall to complain they get it wrong?
Here, look at the story again:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19461134/ (the print version is even stronger your way than the video — you can get to the video from that page).
C’mon, Cao, get up to speed on the issue.
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Nitpick? Here I’ve caught Milloy distorting the evidence again (that’s “lying,” in lay terms). He’s claiming one thing, and I find his source saying Milloy is wrong on Milloy’s conclusions.
That’s no nit. That’s a major parasitic infection.
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Is Milloy a real person? He publishes so much garbage; polluters should be chastised, and then if they don’t change their ways, their ideas deserve to be attacked.
“Lord Monckton?” Is there no hoax you will not fall victim to, Cao? Why, just today Deltoid relates one of his latest scams:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/monckton_watch.php
Be sure you see this one:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/monckton_was_behind_dimmocks_l.php
Does tinfoil hattery run in families?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/03/dominic_lawson_spreads_ddt_ban.php
If you think that there is any significant change required to use DDT against malaria, you’re completely uninformed about what DDT policy is. If you are asking for a change to broadcast spray the stuff, you’re completely uninformed about DDT’s dangers.
What is it you want?
I suspect you’re ill-informed at both ends of the argument, and really just wish to slam environmentalists, and then whine about “ad hominem” when your multiple bluffs are called.
Is there nothing you’ve got that comes with a serious citation? If you want to know what’s going on, check out Deltoid (the blog listed above), and do a search for “DDT.” Or check here.
But let it suffice to note that every source you cite is either badly flawed, or exactly, totally and completely wrong. In “badly flawed” I included the false and distorted.
I challenged you to cite a single thing in Milloy’s list of 109 points that is correct. You said you thought his arguments that eagle populations were in fine shape while DDT was being sprayed, was a good place to start. But of course, you hadn’t bothered to check any of the references, and you appear not yet to be aware that none of Milloy’s sources say what he claims they say.
Good heavens! Was it your blog that repeated the “500 million people dead from malaria since 1972” hoax?
In any case, the policies that NOW work in Mexico, and South Africa, and increasingly across Africa, are those advocated by Rachel Carson. They work fine with a DDT ban, or they work with extremely limited use of DDT.
But DDT is a poison. Where DDT is used in broadcast spraying, malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and other diseases follow.
Whose side are you on, really?
(By the way, do you know what “ad hominem” means? Then you know I don’t engage in the tactic, unless, as with Milloy, his own character seems to be the major problem.)
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What a weird suspicious person you are in addition to waging ad hominem attacks against people who you disagree with.
At least you could be honest about your malicious attacks rather than vicious about the substantive arguments others are putting forth on this.
It’s actually getting harder to find people who still favor the DDT ban.
Richard Liroff, the World Wildlife Fund:
“If the alternatives to DDT aren’t working, as they weren’t in South Africa, geez, you’ve got to use it.”
Greenpeace Rick Hind: “If there’s nothing else and it’s going to save lives, we’re all for it. Nobody’s dogmatic about it.”
Nobody except you, apparently, Ed.
Vice Admiral Dr. Harold M. Koenig, former surgeon general of the Navy, said this about the politics of the ban:
“Poor public policies [prohibiting the use of DDT] are being implemented because it easier for politicans to go along with the noise coming from the hysterics rather than to learn the whole story and educate the general electorate that there are ways agents like DDT can be used safely.”
The ban turned out to be ‘a colossal tragedy’-says Donald Roberts, professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health and Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. “It’s embroiled in environmental politics and incompetent bureaucracies.” He told Frontpage Magazine: “DDT is the best insecticide we have today for controlling malaria. DDT is long acting, the alternatives are not. DDT is cheap, the alternatives are not. End of story.”
Rachel Carson’s Ecological Genocide
New York Times: It’s Time to Spray DDT
NYT: What the World Needs Now Is DDT
I think you’d better catch up with what’s happening in the news, you’re incredibly behind-the-times.
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Your attitude is the same as the MSM (which is probably where you get all your news):
Eagles Flourishing, But NBC Worries about Decline
Let’s take a look at Van Helsing…he has a lot to say on this…lol
Environmentalism Kills Africans
Rachel Carson Tribute Nixed
You need a reality check, I guess…not everybody is on that anti-DDT bandwagon anymore, including Greenpeace. LOL
But they told us DDT was bad
Anti-DDT Policies Are Deadly for Africa (This one is important: it’s from an African man whose family has contracted Malaria.)
Look who’s ignoring science now
As for your pointing out an anonymous source, I’m sure that nobody is posting anonymously anywhere …lol..you’re right it probably doesn’t exist just like the rest of what I’m citing here.
Ignore all the evidence and focus on one anonymous source, and imagine that it doesn’t exist.
That’s the ticket.
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You’re kind of an idiot.
From Lord Monckton in Bali…:
Thirty-five years ago the world decided to ban DDT, the only effective agent against malaria. Result: 40 million deaths in poor countries. The World Health Organization lifted the DDT ban on Sept. 15 last year. It now recommends the use of DDT to control malaria. Dr. Arata Kochi of the WHO said that politics could no longer be allowed to stand in the way of the science and the data. Amen to that.
But you go ahead with your tunnelvision and keep attacking Milloy when he’s right-on.
It must really bother you that all you can do is nit-pick when the real evidence is all around you; you just keep ignoring it.
good luck with that.
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