One of the anti-environmental, anti-green false myths kicking around is that DDT is not harmful to humans, and therefore it probably shouldn’t have been banned, “and Rachel Carson was wrong.”
This poster from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illustrates bioaccumulation, the process by which larger animals can be killed by acute DDT poisoning.
Reality is that DDT is a poison, but acute poisoning of large animals tends to take a lot. Insectivorous animals or their predators can get those fatal amounts, but humans generally don’t. DDT as a toxin kills mammals and birds and amphibians and reptiles and fish with equal alacrity, slowed only by the size of the organism and whether the organism’s diet consists of other things that consume and accumulate DDT.
Often that misperception is coupled with a claim that DDT does not cause cancer, and so should have its ban lifted.
But, the facts:
- DDT is a neurotoxin; in accumulates in fat, and if enough of it courses through the blood of an animal at a given point, it kills off parts of the neurosystem including the brain.
- DDT kills mammals (humans are mammals); in fact the U.S. Army argued to keep DDT on the market to use against bats that infested barracks in training camps (bats are mammals, too). Death depends on the dose, which depends on body size. Takes a fair amount to kill off a large mammal, quickly. DDT is implicated in the near extinction of different species of migratory free-tail bats in the Southwest.
- DDT is carcinogenic. Fortunately for humans, it’s a weak carcinogen for most cancers, though research points to a troubling link to some cancers (breast, reproductive organs) that appear very late relative to exposure, especially if exposure to DDT occurs in utero, or in infancy.
- DDT was not banned as a hazard to human health; it was banned as a hazard to wildlife. DDT in almost all concentrations becomes an indiscriminate killer of wildlife when used outdoors.
- DDT can kill humans with acute poisoning.
That last point isn’t easy to document in the U.S. During the go-go DDT years there was one case of a young girl who drank from a prepared DDT solution, and died a short time later. The incident was a tragedy, but not unique for the 1950s and 1960s. It was written off to lax safety standards, and because it occurred long before the origin of on-line databases, essentially it has fallen out of history. Just try to find a reference to the death today.
Partly, this lack of information on human toxicity is due to the fact that DDT use was slowing dramatically by the late 1960s (it was becoming ineffective), and after the ban in 1972, there were few cases in the U.S. where humans were exposed to the stuff, except in emissions from DDT manufacturing plants. EPA’s order banning DDT in the U.S. applied only to agricultural use, and the chief agricultural use remaining was on cotton. Manufacturing was not banned, however, which meant U.S. DDT makers could continue to pump the stuff out and sell it overseas, in Africa, and Asia. This continued right up to that day in 1984 that U.S. companies became subject to damage for the poisons they make under the Superfund law — almost every DDT maker declared bankruptcy to escape liability in the weeks before the Superfund became effective, saddling taxpayers with a few dozen Superfund sites to be cleaned up on the taxpayer’s dime.
DDT has never been banned in Africa or Asia, however. And there we find a badly-documented history of people poisoning themselves with DDT, usually in suicides.
Whatever other pathologies these cases may exhibit, they reveal that DDT does, indeed, kill humans.
Like this recent case, from Ghana; yes, that’s the illustration used in the newspaper; from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation:
Sep 11, 2013 at 11:52amMan commits suicide over wife’s confessionBenjamin Kwaku Owusu, a 40-year-old former Manager of Unity Oil Filling Station in Suhum, has committed suicide by drinking DDT Gamullio 20 insecticide.
A family spokesperson who spoke to the Ghana News Agency on condition of anonymity said Owusu and his wife lived at Suhum and had been married for five years but never had a child.
He said the situation often developed into misunderstanding between them but later the wife got pregnant and left for her home town.
According to the spokesperson, whiles Owusu was preparing for the wife to deliver, he had a shocking message from the wife that the pregnancy belonged to another man and not him.
He said Owusu, who had a shock, rushed into his room and drunk the DDT Insecticide and fell unconscious.
“Owusu was rushed to the hospital but died soon after he was admitted,” he said.
When the police at Suhum was contacted, they confirmed the story and said the body of the deceased had since been buried after post mortem examination at the Suhum Government Hospital.
GNA
Not sure what “Gamullio 20” means, but it seems to be the brand name of the poison used.
More:
- Study: Rare condors harmed by DDT (redding.com)
- AP Exclusive: Study: rare condors harmed by DDT (seattletimes.com)
- Infidelity causes 2 men to commit suicide (modernghana.com)
- The People All Said Sit Down, Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat (ecofeminism-mothering.blogspot.com)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Poster from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service https://timpanogos.blog/2013/09/16/yes-ddt-is-deadly-to-humans-as-suicides-demonstrate/ […]
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Yes, you can drown yourself. That fact does indicate water can kill you, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Those who say DDT is perfectly safe for humans, that it cannot kill acutely or by chronic disease, are liars, too.
Anyone lied to you about water lately?
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You can kill yourself by drowning, That does not indicate that water is toxic and should be banned.
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I’m an extreme libertarian, but I realize we’re in a democracy, and in a democracy, people can have views of all stripes, and there’s no reason to argue about it.
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[…] a result of using DDT in the limited way it’s now used in the U.S. There have been deaths outside the U.S. (and my recollection is at least one in the U.S.); and the methods that have prevented deaths are […]
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I am a disabled Air Force veteran who has Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer an was subjected to almost daily fogging of DDT and have been told by 3 doctors who are all specialists and concur that it is more likely than not the cause of my medical problems. So there is no question that DDT is a deadly weapon that was used to kill mosquitoes and wound up as a deadly poison that affected many veterans and has caused untold pain and suffering and even death.
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This probably won’t help your case with the VA, nor any other case against the Air Force, but have you seen this study on bladder cancer causes?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791455/
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I was diagnosed in June of 2009 with Bladder Cancer, both of my Doctors (Urologist & Gastroenterologist) agreed that in their opinion that “It was more likely than not” my cancer was caused by my exposure to DDT while serving in the Air Force at a tropical Island for 2 years. I along with other Airmen were exposed to heavy doses of a mixture of DDT/Diesel fuel to eradicate the Mosquito population. We escorted sprayers in secret areas of the base (we were Air Police Security, they the sprayers had not the proper clearance) after 1 to 2 hour of escorting, our vehicles had a thick heavy oily residue caused by the heavy fogging of the DDT! This occurred many years ago but I am told that it takes many years to show up in your body. In trying to locate other comrades from that time I realized that 2 others had died from Bladder Cancer, 1 other has Parkinson’s now and another died from Parkinson’s. Connect the dots, DDT causes Cancer and other debilitating diseases!
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[…] Yes, DDT is deadly to humans, as suicides demonstrate (timpanogos.wordpress.com) […]
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Mr. Hightower! Here’s a group that really, really needs your common sense approach.
Good luck: http://twitchy.com/2013/09/24/lefty-celebs-on-board-with-ddt-friendly-malaria-no-mores-power-of-one-campaign/
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Another post of benefit to those who may think defense of Rachel Carson and science is not necessary:
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For Mr. Hightower’s enjoyment and edification:
More context, from: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/silent-spring/overview
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More.
That’s a complete falsehood. In fact, ornithologists and toxicologists now agree that the damage to birds was much greater than Carson could have known. She did not know about eggshell thinning, for example, one more path to kill birds.
Since Carson published, a lot of research has been done on effects of DDT on birds — and almost unanimously, that research supports Carson’s carefully documented claims, or the research shows Carson was too optimistic and DDT is more dangerous than she knew.
You could check out the research yourself, or take the word of Discover Magazine:
If you think Carson erred, I challenge you to offer us any citation from the 53 pages of notes she provided in Silent Spring together with citations of research to show either we know better, now, or she erred.
If you find such an error, it will be the first.
Hightower said:
If you can find someplace Carson erred, please point it out to us. Quote from the book, and offer us page numbers so we can see for ourselves.
Do not, in any case, quote the crank rant from the formerly distinguished entomologist J. Gordon Edwards, spread far and wide through Lyndon Larouche’s propaganda machine, and by corporate propagandist Stephen Milloy since Edwards’s untimely death. If you find that stuff, and if you check it out, you’ll quickly discover the citations do not work, or in the few cases they point to actual articles on the topic, the articles deny the case made by Edwards.
It’s a political fight, fueled by such errors of science and history as you make now. Pick apart Carson’s acumen? Only charlatans claim to have done that successfully.
You seem not to want to read the research. I link to handily indexed items at my blog because I made them, so when people make erroneous claims, as you have done, I can quickly set them aright — if they’re willing to be set aright.
My sources are solid, and they get it. I don’t know why you have a burr under your saddle against Rachel Carson, but it’s your burr, and your error, not hers.
Again, if you can find where I err, let me know. If you find where Ms. Carson erred, it would be a first, but let us know. You think highly of your opinion of Carson’s science. You’ll think more highly, justifiably, once you get the facts.
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I’ve already responded to your charge of errors. There are none. You said that I overstated the case. I explained that my “overstatement” was answer to charges made against Rachel Carson and science, which you doubted.
I pointed to those absurd charges.
Now you say I erred, again.
Please look back at my explanation. I made no errors, according to your original criticism. If you have documentation to show that I erred, I’d like to see it.
I didn’t say “the other guys are stupid, too.” I explained, carefully for the brevity, why my responses, scientifically accurate, were necessary. Did you bother to read any of that stuff?
The facts remain the same:
Is there an error there? You didn’t claim so in your first post. Point it out now, if you see one.
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“The other guys are stupid too” is a poor defense. You are committing repeated glaring scientific errors in your posts. Pointing the finger at someone else’s stupidity doesn’t make you seem smarter.
When you say things like “Here is my definition of acute and chronic” that is very funny to me. There is no “your definition” and “my definition” of those terms. There is one definition used in toxicology, and you should stick to it.
Most scientists agree that the damage to birds discussed by Rachael Carson was overblown – but it was largely an honest mistake. She didn’t know what she didn’t know, and the science of environmental toxicology was in its infancy. She suffered from a distinct lack of solid data, and the information to interpret that data.
I think Carson deserves a lot of credit for shining a light on our cavalier use of chemicals, but that doesn’t mean she was right on the particulars of some, or any, of her claims, which creates the problem you are facing. People can pick apart her scientific acumen in retrospect, just like we can pick apart Copernicus and Galileo (Jupiter has four moons? Idiot! Everyone knows it has 67 moons!). You’d be wise not to get bogged down defending her every claim, and focus on the current state of the science, and her contribution to awareness of the potential problem.
You seem to be linking a lot to…yourself. You are committing a number of errors in your posts, so I’m not all that interested in your sources, or your previous posts. Either your sources are right, and you don’t get it, or they are as misinformed as you are.
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Hightower, I appreciate your good intentions, but you appear wholly unaware of the assault on good science from people who deny your claims exactly.
You said:
You accuse me of flights of fancy? Wow.
Take a look at some of my earlier alerts to denials you don’t know about.
1. Back when I discovered Congressmen were denying the naming of a post office after Rachel Carson, because DDT was perfectly safe, and anyone saying otherwise (like Hightower) was a mass murderer like Mao or Pol Pot: “GOP War on Science victim, Rachel Carson” (2007)
2. Taking on Steven Milloy’s pro-DDT forces, who argue that DDT never harmed a feather of any bird, including the lie that the National Academy of Sciences said DDT is essential and shouldn’t be banned: “Fisking ‘Junk Science’s’ campaign for DDT: Point # 6”
3. Wall Street Journal editorial comment from 2007, in which the author denies every one of Hightower’s common sense points.
4. “DDT snake oil salesman of the month”
5. Michael Crichton’s hysterical call for more DDT to end the imagined sins of Rachel Carson and make Africa healthy by poisoning the hell out of it, and my response.
6. A good summary, not here, but at Crooked Timber, of the malicious campaign against Rachel Carson and for more DDT, and the manifold errors in that campaign. [Well, crap. Okay, try this link to the shorter version of the article in Prospect: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/rehabilitatingcarson/#.UkDbcD9_lMU ] [And the followup at Crooked Timber, here: http://crookedtimber.org/2008/06/14/defending-rachel-carson-the-last-word/ ]
In fact, at the top of this blog you’ll find a mostly complete index of all the DDT and malaria stuff I’ve written here, much of it in direct rebuttal to the wild claims of so-called conservatives who are prone to claim exactly the things you claim they shouldn’t.
Take a look through there and see if you can find other errors of mine.
It would be nice if the world were so honest and science-oriented as you claim. But it’s not.
Hey, even better: Go after some of their errors, will you?
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You make so many persistent mistakes in the science its pretty clear you really don’t know what you are talking about. I know, that’s a bit harsh, but I think it needs to be said. I sincerely doubt you even understand the arguments being advanced by “DDT advocates”, assuming those people even exist. This suggests to me that you are probably fighting against a series of straw man arguments generated by your own gross misunderstanding of the discussion.
The science on risk, cancer, interactions between various chemicals and the environment, differential impacts to species, daughter products, breakdown chain is REALLY complicated stuff, and constantly evolving. Best to stick with generalized statements.
It’s really very simple. DDT is a persistent organic pollutant that can accumulate in various organisms to concentrations that can have detrimental impacts, and for that reason it should be banned. Just stick with that statement, avoid various flights of fancy, and you’ll be fine.
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I’d take your criticism more to heart if you had appeared to be aware of the DDT advocates who argue without blushing about the degree of error and deception in their false claims:
1. There is no dangerous dose of DDT to humans — it’s perfectly harmless.
2. While DDT is deadly to (fewer and fewer) populations of mosquitoes, it’s not poisonous to beneficial plants, insects or other animals.
3. All mammals are immune to DDT, so no reason to worry.
4. DDT is absolutely not carcinogenic, to anyone or anything, at any time, in any dose, ever — so scientists are all fools or evil madmen (or madwomen in the case of Rachel Carson).
4. a. No substance should ever be banned unless it causes cancer; and DDT must have been banned because of false claims that it causes cancer.
The point is that DDT is, in fact, carcinogenic. If it were not carcinogenic to humans, I believe it would be the ONLY mammalian carcinogen that does not also cause cancer in humans.
DDT advocates — that is, opponents of WHO, good health policies, medical personnel, scientists and “environmentalists” — wish to create a view that DDT should not be banned if it does not cause cancer. There are several links in the logic chain, but the dastardly nature of the entire chain is exposed with the simple realization that DDT is, contrary to their claims, a cause of cancer.
DDT is also an endocrine disruptor, a mimic of estrogen (which is one more path towards carcinogenicity). It is more dangerous than its advocates let on.
Their goal is not rational discussion about DDT policies, nor rational discussion about how to fight malaria. Their goal is to impugn scientists in the public’s mind, so that people will dismiss other claims of medical personnel and scientists, such as the valid claims that tobacco use causes cancer and emphysema and heart disease.
Yes, it is a weak carcinogen. At least you admit that. Now, will you join us correcting the claims that it causes no cancers to anyone, anywhere, and that it should be approved for use everywhere because it doesn’t cause cancer?
5. That’s right. The ban on DDT was not done on the basis of harms to humans, but instead on the harms to beneficial and non-target wildlife and other animals. Why do you think that is “BS?”
5. a. Advocates of DDT claim it discriminates carefully, killing only harmful mosquitoes and flies, and never spiders, helpful insects, fish, birds, mammals, or anything else. My careful parsing of words to directly rebut those false claims may seem overkill to you — but you’re not so crazy as the DDT advocates, it seems to me.
We can argue over acute death versus chronic death. Here’s my criterion: If the death is a result of sudden toxicity to an organ, it’s acute. If the death is the result of long-term effects of poisoning, it’s chronic.
Bats and hummingbirds, for two examples, accumulate DDT in their fat as they forage through a summer. It is bound up, essentially inactive (except for causing cancers) until they migrate. In migration, they burn that fat; when they burn the fat, the DDT in the fat stays in their bloodstreams, and can cause acute neurological damage, usually severe brain damage, that causes them literally to fall out of the sky and die. It’s not a slow wasting of any organ, but a simple dose-to-certain levels, then quick death issue.
DDT kills young birds in several ways. It poisons them acutely, so they simply die, some without hatching, some in the process of hatching (which produces toxicity to brains like migration does), or it upsets their endocrine systems so they cannot eat, and they starve; or it upsets their endocrine systems so they cannot mature correctly, and consequently cannot migrate; or it affects the endocrine systems of their mothers, so the mothers cannot form competent eggshells, and even if the chick is not poisoned acutely by DDT, the lack of the protection of the shell allows infection in, or means the mother’s sitting on the eggs crushes the chick.
DDT and its daughters can also scramble sex organs of a number animals, including birds, so that they simply do not produce eggs or semen, or the necessary plumbing to mate the eggs and semen.
Acute means short-term illness and death, like the sudden poisoning that affects their brains; chronic means long-term health issues, like reproductive problems, or nerve damage, caused by exposure over time, either low or high in concentration.
I’m distinguishing between the neurotoxic effects of DDT killing the birds (or other animals) as soon as the poison hits a certain concentration in the blood, and the non-neurotoxic effects that kill a species more slowly, over time.
While some eagles were killed outright by DDT poisoning in the fish they ate, the same as a robin might be (worms are rather resistant, and live worms could accumulate a serious dose of DDT — generally a dozen DDT-laced worms kill a robin within a few hours), other eagles didn’t appear to be slowed by those amounts of DDT; but their young couldn’t fledge, didn’t survive migration, or didn’t survive gestation. The former takes out an eagle right away, acutely. The latter leaves the poor creature alive for a decade or more, but unable to reproduce. That’s chronic.
I appreciate your haggling on technical points; but I fear you’re not considering adequately the arguments to which I’m responding.
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You mix and match lots of things that are either irrelevant to your case, or meaningless from scientific standpoint. Now, I’m personally am comfortable with a ban on DDT (I’ll say why at the end), but you don’t help yourself by making silly statements.
1) Enough of almost anything will cause disease and death, including water, salt, and other otherwise safe substances. Dose is everything. The question isn’t whether drinking pure DDT will kill you, it most certainly will. Drinking pure ethyl alcohol will do the same. The question is whether there is No Safe Dose, which is what you are contending. And the answer is there is a safe dose of almost anything, that is to say a low enough concentration of a compound or element that will cause no measurable adverse physiological effect on an organism. For example, a single bite from a Black Mamba can inject enough venom to kill up to 10-25 grown men. However a single molecule of this venom would not harm our health in any measurable way. A tall drinking glass of DDT will kill you. A single molecule? Not so much.
2) Pesticides are poisonous? Who would have guessed? DDT is a neurotoxin? You mean like almost every other pesticide? Like nicotine? Caffeine? Ammonia? Aluminum? Alcohol? Glutamate? Is suicide by DDT is more odious than suicide by sleeping pills?
3) Responses to chemical compounds differ between species significantly. The classic example is that chickens are much more tolerant of arsenic than humans. We are both mammals, but our responses differ. Your logic is DDT kills bats. Bats are mammals. DDT must be bad for humans. However, by your logic, arsenic does not kill chickens. Chickens are mammals. We are mammals, Arsenic does not kill humans. It is science via analogy.
4) I won’t bother listing all the weak carcinogens out there, but trust me, the list is endless and inclusive to a point that the designation is essentially meaningless. Top of my list of things to stop eating that are weak carcinogens – all grilled meat, and peanut butter.
5) “DDT was not banned as a hazard to human health; it was banned as a hazard to wildlife. DDT in almost all concentrations becomes an indiscriminate killer of wildlife when used outdoors.” So it wasn’t banned because it was dangerous to humans? It’s almost like every other point you made was BS.”an indiscriminate killer”? Actually it discriminates quite a bit. It kills frogs and bats and reduces bird reproduction. Seems to have little effect on cows and humans, and rats.
DDT at low concentrations has very few ill effects to humans, and is no more dangerous to handle or use than any other pesticide, and safer than some. I would say that from a toxicological aspect, it is also no more dangerous to the environment than most pesticides, which are, by definition, designed to kill living things. The only problem with DDT, which you touch on in the little graphic, is that it is a persistent organic pollutant (POP). That is to say it breaks down very slowly in the environment, and can bioaccumulate. For that reason alone it should be banned. No sense making up a bunch of silly reasons why DDT is the worst substance ever invented, which it is not.
Finally your caption for that graphic – DDT doesn’t become “acute” via bioaccumulation. It becomes “chronic”. Acute means short term illness and death, usual via exposure to high concentrations. Chronic means long term health issues, like reproductive problems, usually caused by long term exposures to low concentrations.
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It wasn’t good!
All of us who lived then probably have trace amounts of DDT stored in fat. With luck, we don’t have so much that, were we to diet, it would all come out and cause us grief.
Those who were pregnant or nursing when exposed to a great amount of DDT, should watch daughters and sons for any estrogen-related cancers or other maladies. But fortunately, even those are rare.
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…so, are you saying it was bad to run in and out of the fog those mosquito trucks sprayed when I was little?
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