Some nations do not wish to use DDT to poison mosquitoes because they have other poison problems, and they’d almost rather have malaria than more poison.
For example, see this description of clean water problems in India. From A Wide Angle View of India. Be sure to follow the links to stories in the New York Times and on BBC’s website.
Leave a Comment » | 
DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, History, Politics, Public health, Science | Tagged: Clean Water, DDT, Environmental protection, India, Pesticides, Politics, Science | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
DDT advocates continue to smear Rachel Carson and “environmental groups” with a campaign of made up calumny. To the frustration of scientists, health officials and the gods of fairness, these people continue to get credence from people who should know better, like the contributors at the Volokh Conspiracy (Quiggin and Lambert are the good guys, if you’re not following closely).
Reality is a different story. Business interests appear to have started a false rumor that someone stole a massive quantity of DDT from Uganda’s mosquito control program in an attempt to make the mosquito control guys look incompetent and dangerous. From The Monitor in Kampala, via allAfrica.com:
21 May 2008
Posted to the web 21 May 2008Safina Nambafu
KampalaThe Ministry of Health has denied reports that some people were last week arrested in possession of stolen DDT drugs in Oyam District.
The head of the Malaria Control Programme, Dr Rwakimari, said it was the detractors of the campaign that are inciting the public to spread falsified information.
He was addressing the press at the ministry headquarters on Monday.
Dr Rwakimari said some local leaders are trying to fail the DDT campaign yet over 94% of the district had successfully been sprayed as of last Monday. Last week, civil society organisations led by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists [Nape] held a half day sensitization meeting with stakeholders in Kampala where they collectively condemned the government for carrying out the exercise.
They claimed that many of the crew members had reported strange illnesses, which they fear could have been caused by exposure to DDT. Dr Rwakimari said the government would not just look on as individuals de-campaign the exercise, adding that DDT was being sprayed in eight district in an effort to fight malaria.
Erute North MP Charles Angiro Gutomoi told Daily Monitor that he was bitter that government had had sprayed DDT, saying the exercise threatens the food market.
“National Association of Professional Environmentalists” — in Uganda. Don’t you love it? The group’s website, lacking much information, looks like the site of an astroturf organization to me. The organization exists, though, but DDT doesn’t appear to be a major concern of the group (it earns no mention in their April 2008 report).
There is real opposition to the use of DDT in Uganda, and there is a lawsuit to stop use of DDT. The suit was filed on behalf of nine different agricultural businesses. Farmers claim the spraying is not following the strict guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), and they fear their crops will be contaminated and unsaleable.
Effective malaria fighting uses only small quantities of DDT, in a few places, on a few occasions. The fight also requires use of screens and nets to protect people at night, when the mosquitoes are active in feeding. The New York Times featured a story on the successful Nothing But Nets program today — not a government-run program, not a program favored by the Rachel Carson critics, but a useful and necessary program.
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Malaria, Politics, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, health, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You can’t make this stuff up.
Alaska’s lone congressman cosponsored a bill last week to provide help to the states to inspect hotels and motels for bed bugs. Chief sponsor is Rep. G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina. H.R. 6068 was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The title: The Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008.
While an Alaskan newspaper noticed the bill, neither chief sponsor Butterfield nor any cosponsor submitted a statement accompanying introduction, nor have they put out a press release. The blog NY vs Bed Bugs is all over it already.
Funny title but serious business? Can’t tell. Watch that space.
Full text of the bill below the fold.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. Bumsted.
4 Comments | DDT, History, Science, U.S. House of Representatives | Tagged: Bed Bugs, Congress, DDT, Legislation | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Lifecycle of bed bugs, Cimex lectularius. Texas A&M
DDT doesn’t work on bedbugs. Here are the facts, at NY vs Bed Bugs.
2 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, Science | Tagged: bedbugs, DDT, Pesticides, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Steve Milloy and an entire host of DDT denialists hope you never read any newspaper from Africa. Your ignorance is their best argument.
If you don’t read African newspapers, they can continue to blame environmentalists for any case of malaria that occurs in Africa. They’ll claim, though it’s not true, that environmentalists urged a complete ban on the use of DDT. They’ll argue, falsely, that African governments were bullied into not using DDT by environmentalists, ignoring the fact that some African nations have just never been able to get their kit together to conduct an anti-malaria campaign, while other nations discovered DDT was ineffective — and most of the nations have no love for environmentalists anyway (Idi Amin? Jomo Kenyatta? Who does Milloy think he’s kidding?).
If you don’t read African newspapers, you’ll miss stories like this one, from the Daily Times in Malawi, that say it’s Milloy’s old friends in the tobacco business who stand in the way of modest use of DDT.
If you don’t read African newspapers, you’ll miss stories like this one, from New Vision in Kampala, Uganda, that say it’s the cotton farmers who stand in the way of modest use of DDT.
If Steven Milloy wanted to get DDT used against malaria in Africa, in indoor residual spraying (IRS) campaigns, all he has to do is pick up the phone and ask his friends to allow it to be done.
Someone who will lie to you about their friends’ misdeeds, and try to pin it on a nice old lady like Rachel Carson, will go Charles Colson one better: They’ll walk over your grandmother to do what they want to do. In fact, they’ll go out of their way to walk over your grandmother.
The New Republic seems to have come around to get the story straight. Truth wins in a fair fight — it’s a fight to make sure the fight is fair, though.
John Stossel? Your company doesn’t get tobacco money any more. What’s your excuse? Do you really believe the Bush administration is beholden to environmentalists on this one issue? How long have you been covering politics?
(Texts of news stories below the fold.)
Leave a Comment » | Africa, Business Ethics, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, Ethics, Health care, Hoaxes, Junk science, Malaria, Newspapers, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Ethics, health, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
DDT denialists like Steven Milloy like to paint Rachel Carson as a lone, cranky and crackpot voice in the wilderness against DDT (never mind how that makes the DDT industry look, unable to use facts and the $500,000 public relations campaign to get their message out).
It’s not so. As Carson noted, concerns about DDT were raised early, and often.
The Dallas Public Library makes available much of the news from the Dallas Morning News of the last century. On my way to find something else, I plugged in “DDT” as a search term. Among other articles that popped up was a May 9, 1951 story of Texas scientists warning a Congressional committee of the harms of DDT.
“Hazard to health,” was the flying head, “Renner Scientist Cites DDT Harm.” The story, by the News’ Washington Bureau reporter Ruth Schumm, covered a hearing before an unnamed committee of the House, “investigating the use of chemicals in foods.” (Where was the copy editor on that one?)
John M. Dendy of the Texas Research Foundation delivered the testimony. Dendy worked out of the Foundation’s laboratory in Renner. Renner was an independent community then, located south of Renner, west of Coit, and north of Campbell Roads (no, it’s not there today).
Studies in the foundation’s laboratories at Renner, Dallas County, have proved that DDT and other chemicals are now causing mass contamination of milk, meat and other foods, Dendy said.
Dendy said that crops absorb the DDT sprayed on them — still true, and more problematic since it’s been discovered that DDT is also damaging to some plants — and animals that graze the crops get that dosage. Dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep were the chief animals mentioned.
Even though the Texas State Health Department has ruled that no DDT should be present in milk comsumed by human beings, DDT is showing up in the Dallas milk supply even in December, long past the usual season for spraying with insecticides. About half of the Dallas milk supply is imported from Oklahoma, Missouri and Wisconsin, he said.
* * * * *
In the Texas Research Foundation tests, the degree of contamination ranged from 3.10 parts per million in lean meat to 68.55 parts per million in fat meat, Dendy testified.
In milk, the DDT conamination ranged from less than .5 parts per million to 13.83 parts per million.
Dendy testified that so far as he knew, the exact effects of such poisoning on human beings has not yet been established.
Dendy warned in his testimony that DDT builds up over time in “human and animal fat tissue,” so the dangers to human health become greater as the exposure grows over time.
The worried Congressmen wanted to know if there is a substitute for DDT.
Dendy said he was not working on that problem, but he knew others were.
Notably absent from the hearing was the committee chairman, Rep. James J. Delaney, D-NY, according to the list offered by the DMN. That’s right: Delaney was the one who, in 1957, got his amendment passed to the Safe Food and Drug Act, the organic act for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) making it illegal to use anything known to be carcinogenic as a food additive (DDT doesn’t count, because it’s not a food additive, but a food contaminant, which is regulated not by the FDA, but by the Department of Agriculture).
So, in 1951, before Rachel Carson had left the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 11 years prior to the publication of her book Silent Spring, 21 years before the EPA banned use of DDT on crops, conservative scientists from Texas were alerting Congress to the dangers of DDT.
It’s in the history books. You can look it up.
2 Comments | DDT, Health care, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: DDT, health, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
New article in Prospect praises Rachel Carson — the authors post the longer version at Crooked Timber.
It’s spring. It’s not a silent spring here in Dallas, thanks to the efforts of Ms. Carson and others more than 40 years ago.
It’s spring, and the efforts to smear Carson and all people who work for clean air and water and good wildlife habitat ramp up again. Articles accusing Carson of genocide are on the upswing. Iain Murray has a book out on the disreputable Regnery label, so desperate to smear that he names this author, and so morally vacuous he includes a chapter complaining about “endocrine disruptors” without acknowledging that one of the chief endocrine disruptors is DDT and its byproducts.
Take a deep breath. If your air is clean, you’re lucky. Now let’s go to work to make sure others can safely take a deep breath, too.
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Bernarda.
More about Rachel Carson at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Update: Why do we need to post links to the truth about Rachel Carson? Blogs like Tarpon’s Swamp carry on the slanderous campaign of calumny against the truth. Astoundingly crass, don’t you think?
2 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, DDT, Environmental protection, History, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: DDT, Environmental protection, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rachel Carson’s careful citations in her book Silent Spring have been reinforced by a recent study that shows a more direct link between DDT and human cancers, contrary to claims by lobbyists, junk science purveyors and practitioners of voodoo science.
Another study suggests DDT causes damage to the reproductive organs of children of people exposed to the pesticide. The connection is again to the daughter product, DDE.
Danger appears to result from exposure in utero or from breast feeding. The Reuters India story said:
Researchers led by Katherine McGlynn of the U.S. government’s National Cancer Institute examined blood samples provided by 739 men in the U.S. military with testicular cancer and 915 others who did not have it.
The link between DDE and cancer was particularly strong with a type of testicular cancer known as seminoma, which involves the sperm-producing germ cells of the testicles.
If diagnosed, testicular cancers are among the most treatable. It generally strikes men in their 20s and 30s. About 8,000 new cases per year show up in the U.S. In an average year testicular cancer kills 380 Americans. The NCI study suggests about 15 percent of cases in the U.S. can be attributed to DDT exposure.
It is possible some of the men who later developed cancer of the testicles were exposed to DDE at very young ages — in the womb or through breastfeeding, the researchers said.
“In testicular cancer, there’s a fair amount of evidence that something is happening very early in life to increase risk,” McGlynn said in a telephone interview.
DDE remains ubiquitous in the environment even decades after DDT was being banned in the United States — and is present in about 90 percent of Americans, McGlynn said.
“The trouble with these chemicals is they hang around a long time. It’s in the food chain now,” McGlynn added. People who eat fish from contaminated areas can absorb it, for instance.
The study was published on-line in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute on April 29, 2008, ahead of print publication.
Image from Testicular Cancer Diagnosis page at M. D. Anderson Center in Houston, Texas
Resources:
3 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, History, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: cancer, DDT, health, Junk science, Pesticide, Rachel Carson, Science, Testicular cancer | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Our usual free press in history discourse suggests that the press, especially the newspapers, were more partisan in the early days of our republic than they are now. American Aurora tells the story of newspaper editors being thrown in jail during the administration of John Adams, for example, for their excesses (which may merit being known as “rabid” excesses).
Regnery Publishing is today at least as inaccurate, if not as completely vitriolic, as any of the nasty newspapers published in the John Adams administration. Regnery is the publisher of Jonathan Wells’ mostly fictional, all incorrect account of biology, Icons of Evolution, for example.
Regnery once again pushes the bounds of propriety with a new book by Iain Murray with a title that tells all the author thinks he knows: The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About–Because They Helped Cause Them.
You can bet the conservative and anti-science, and anti-environmental protection blogs will light up with this book.
I see from the index on Amazon that I get a mention. I hope Murray claims I caused one of those disasters. You can bet that if he says it, the opposite is true.
In the past couple of months I have had a couple of opportunities to spend some time in libraries and with databases. Checking out the citations from Steven Milloy’s “100 things” about DDT list, I discovered not a single citation relating to DDT’s effects on birds was correct; those articles that did exist concluded opposite what Milloy claims. Some of the articles simply didn’t exist. Bet Murray doesn’t question a single claim from Milloy.
And, did you know that DDT problems were common items for newspapers through the 1950s? You won’t learn that from Murray’s book.
Update, May 2: I have a copy of the book (Regnery did not provide it); it’s worse than I had imagined. Examples: The quote from this blog is criticized as being inaccurate; the quote describes Bush administration policies in 2004 and corporate actions in Uganda to discourage DDT spraying which continue. Murray’s rebuttal discusses Bush administration actions taken two years later, but fails to note that they have not yet worked.
Worse example: Murray has an entire chapter accusing “environmentalists” of being asleep at the switch for damages to fish and other wildlife due to birth control pill residues in the water; he fails to mention that DDT causes exactly the same problems. He fails to note that DDT and especially DDE are endocrine disruptors usually cited as culprits in these cases. He fails to note that the issues are at the top of the list of environmental organizations involved in fish, river conservation, and pesticide safety issues. Regnery’s name is rapidly becoming synonymous with”wildly inaccurate and politically skewed.”
Alas, that’s what I got from a skim of the book before this evening’s meetings.
3 Comments | Accuracy, Business Ethics, DDT, Debunking, Ethics, Journalism, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: DDT, denialism, Environmental protection, Junk science, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
World Malaria Day passed yesterday (see immediately previous post). News articles and blog articles educating people about malaria and how to fight it increased modestly.
Now it’s back to the grind. Malaria is killing hundreds of thousands. Some people are interested in using those deaths for political gain, to get economic gain, at the expense of the dead and others whose deaths could be prevented.
In order to fight malaria, the world has come around to the tactics of fighting the mosquitoes that transmit it from human to human that were advocated by naturalist and author Rachel Carson, in her book on pesticides and other hydrocarbon chemicals, Silent Spring.
Carson realized that poisoning the air, water and soil could not work to stop disease, ultimately. She sounded the alarm with her book in 1962. In the 1950s DDT became ineffective against bedbugs. By the middle 1960s, resistance and immunity to DDT by malaria-carrying mosquitoes was almost world wide. The attempt to “eradicate malaria” collapsed when mosquitoes became resistant, coupled with the failure of too many nations to get an anti-malaria program up and running — and the disease came roaring back when the malaria parasites themselves became resistant to the pharmaceuticals used to treat the disease in humans.
New strides against malaria have been made with the creation of new pharmaceutical regimens to kill the parasites in humans, and the adoption of the rigorous, Rachel Carson-advocated programs of integrated pest management to control insects that are a necessary part of the malaria parasites’ life cycle.
Unfortunately, about 6 out of every ten stories done on mosquitoes and malaria in the past year have scoriated Carson as wrong on the science (she was not), and as a “killer of children” despite the millions her work is saving. There is a big business in spreading false tales about DDT, about malaria, and about Rachel Carson.
Who would do such a thing? I call your attention to Uganda, where modest use of DDT in Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) was started earlier this month despite lots of loud protests — from businesses. Tobacco and other big business agriculture interests opposed spraying DDT in homes. Why?
It’s silly. But tobacco interests are mad at the World Health Organization for campaigning against cigarette smoking. To frustrate WHO’s pro-health, anti-tobacco campaign, tobacco companies started attacking WHO for being “soft on malaria” about a decade ago. The idea was that, if the case could be made that WHO was lacking in credibility, no one would listen to WHO about tobacco.
Tim Lambert and Deltoid have the story summarized, “Taking Aim at Rachel Carson.” Go read it.
In the fight against malaria, the bad guy, the villain, is malaria; malaria’s unwitting henchmen are mosquitoes. Good science and good information, coupled with consistent governmental action to improve health care, are the good guys. Rachel Carson is one of the good guys.
When you see a piece that says Rachel Carson is part of the problem, you’ve found a piece written by a tempter, or a dupe, or maybe just someone who isn’t thinking about the issues. Don’t give money to that person’s organization to promote junk science and political calumny. Don’t waiver in your resolve against malaria — find another, good charity, to give your money, time and effort to. The Global Fund is a good group for contributing. Africa Fighting Malaria spends a lot of time asking bloggers and reporters to write dubious stories against Rachel Carson and environmentalists, and not enough time or effort against malaria. I do not recommend Africa Fighting Malaria as a recipient of your money.
Information, science, action: Fighting malaria requires we keep our wits and reason about us, and act.
A Few Resources:
1 Comment | DDT, Education, Environmental protection, Junk science, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: DDT, Environmental protection, Junk science, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, World Malaria Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 25, 2008, is World Malaria Day. I’ve purchased some bednets thorugh Nothing But Nets to help fight malaria. Educating others about the disease is one of the chief goals, too.
Will you help, please?
See the statement from the World Malaria Day community below; pass it along to someone else.
A Malaria Community Statement –
April 25th is World Malaria Day and also Malaria Awareness Day in the United States. In observance of this day and in recognition of the tremendous opportunities to reduce the burden that malaria imposes on the health of people worldwide, we, the Malaria Community, stand in support of the following statement.
We Have Made Progress
Dynamic new public and private partnerships and renewed commitments to strengthen
longstanding efforts to combat malaria are showing positive results. Global partners include
bilateral, multilateral and U.N. programs, faith-based groups, business coalitions and private
foundations. The single largest U.S.-funded malaria program, the President’s Malaria Initiative
(PMI), has accomplished the following:
- Indoor residual spraying benefiting more than 17 million people;
- Procurement and distribution of 5 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets;
- Procurement of 12.6 million artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) treatments and training of more than 28,000 health workers in use of ACTs; and
- Procurement of malaria treatment for more than 4 million pregnant women.
Expanding Access to Current Interventions
It is imperative that stakeholders in the fight against malaria maximize global access to existing proven interventions including insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying with insecticides, and effective medications. Through generous donor contributions, access to essential interventions is improving—yielding dramatic successes in places like Ethiopia and Rwanda where malaria infections and deaths have decreased by more than 50 percent. But the availability of interventions is only half the battle. We must find means to expand delivery of proven interventions, strengthen the capacity of partner countries to administer basic interventions at the community level, share best practices across countries, and motivate individuals to protect themselves and their families.
Investing in New Tools
Simultaneously, we must increase investment in developing new, improved technologies for controlling malaria, including effective drugs, insecticides, and vaccines. Resistance to the most commonly prescribed drugs in most countries has been rapidly increasing. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) must be readily available and affordable, and new therapies must be developed to prevent resistance to ACTs and eventually replace them. The U.S. government’s commitment to expedite the development of highly effective malaria vaccines is needed now, understanding that the process will take significant time and investment. The potential of developing a vaccine of even limited efficacy could have a significant impact on deaths and illness, especially among infants and young children.
Global Problem, Local Solutions
Achieving results will also depend on the effective engagement of national, regional and local governments in the effective deployment of malaria control tools. To guarantee the best use of resources, steps must be taken to ensure that anti-malaria tools, research and investment reach the communities that need them the most, while ensuring that no community is left unsupported. Community-based efforts to deliver malaria prevention and treatment programs must inform the development of the comprehensive global strategy needed so that efforts can be sustained over time. All stakeholders need to be engaged in thoughtful, coordinated planning that brings to bear the best evidence from all levels of efforts to control or eliminate malaria while addressing changes in the epidemiology of the disease.
Note carefully and well that the major organizations fighting malaria neither slam Rachel Carson, whose methods they use to fight malaria today, nor call for a return to wholesale poisoning of Africa and Asia with DDT, but instead urge wise use of resources including an expansion of health care to aid the human victims of malaria. Malaria is the problem, not science.
World Malaria Day is a logical extension of Earth Day; the two are not in opposition.
More Resources:
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Health care, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Travel, War on Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, health, Politics, Science, World Malaria Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A Quebec research team finds that DDT’s breakdown product, DDE, could promote aggressive breast cancer growth; news report on forthcoming journal paper.
Other news on cancer and DDT:
Leave a Comment » | DDT, Health care, Research, Science | Tagged: Breast Cancer, cancer, DDT, health, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Bedbugs came back.
Common bedbug, Cimex lectularius, University of Minnesota image
Once a scourge, bedbugs seemed to have gone away, largely, during most of the past 30 years, in most of the western world. International travel and other conducive conditions joined in the perfect storm, however, and bedbug infestation reports are rising in places like New York City.
A significant number of news stories on the topic mention DDT, which was briefly the pesticide of choice against bedbugs. Probably a majority of the blog posts on the topic call for a return of DDT for general use.
This blog is a refreshing exception: New York vs. Bed Bugs, “No DDT, thanks, we’re good.”
Update: In comments, Bug Girl suggests we look at the blog of Bedbugger, and especially this interview with an entomologist. Take a look — the expert, Dr. James W. Austin of Texas A&M, says bedbugs are about 100% resistant to DDT.
20 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, History, Research, Science, Texas | Tagged: bedbugs, DDT, Research, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Stephen Milloy can’t even herd his own cats — why should we listen to him?
While Milloy proclaims junk science and loudly impugns the reputation of a dead woman (Rachel Carson), it’s his business colleagues who demand Uganda avoid DDT, not environmentalists.
New Vision in Kampala reports that a local council has rejected DDT use, and told Uganda’s government the reasons why:
Bundibugyo district council has rejected the Government’s programme of indoor residual spraying of DDT.
During a council meeting last Wednesday, the councillors argued that the anti-malaria project would scare away organic cocoa buyers.
According to the LC5 chairman, Jackson Bambalira, Olam and Esko, the cocoa buyers, threatened to stop buying the produce if the area was sprayed with DDT.
“We know that malaria is a number one killer disease in our district but we have no option. The Government should look for another alternative of containing malaria by supplying mosquito nets but not spraying DDT.”
You and I know that indoor residential spraying (IRS) shouldn’t harm crops in any way, even if DDT is the pesticide used. Can the cocoa growers and buyers be convinced DDT won’t get into their products?
How many stories like this have to appear before the anti-environmentalists stop their unholy campaign against Rachel Carson? Complaining, falsely, about evils of environmentalism doesn’t save anyone from malaria, especially when it’s not environmentalists blocking the campaign against the disease.
8 Comments | Accuracy, Africa, DDT, Debunking, Environmental protection, Health care, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, health, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Earlier this month, just before the conference at Alma College, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a draft report on toxic wastes found in the Great Lakes and other surrounding waters. Was it the pending conference that kicked the thing loose?
See the report at CDC’s site, here.
The Center for Public Integrity snagged a copy of the study earlier, and published it at their website. Some of us infer the hurdles for the report to be more the administration’s War on Science. But supression of a report is a lot easier if there are no copies circulating on the internet.
CDC had sat on the report for most of a year. After this interview of Chris Derosa, the report’s author appeared on CNN, and before the Alma Conference on DDT, CDC got a sudden change of heart and released the report.
Too few news reports came out of the conference. Let’s hope the proceedings will be available soon.
1 Comment | DDT, Environmental protection, Public health, War on Science | Tagged: Centers for Disease Control, DDT, Great Lakes, Michigan, Public health, Toxic wastes | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the DDT category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 