Benefits offset by infant deaths? DDT no panacea

December 10, 2007

Cover of August 2008 Emerging Infectious Diseases from the CDC, featuring: Jan Steen (c. 1625–1679). Beware of Luxury (c. 1665). Oil on canvas 105 cm x 145 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Cover of August 2008 Emerging Infectious Diseases from the CDC, featuring: Jan Steen (c. 1625–1679). Beware of Luxury (c. 1665). Oil on canvas 105 cm x 145 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Weighing risks against benefits for DDT spraying is very difficult. Anti-environmentalists and junk science purveyors claim millions of deaths from DDT’s not being sprayed.

They never tell us about the kids DDT could kill.

When we combine data from North America on preterm delivery or duration of lactation and DDE with African data on DDT spraying and the effect of preterm birth or lactation duration on infant deaths, we estimate an increase in infant deaths that is of the same order of magnitude as that from eliminating infant malaria. Therefore, the side effects of DDT spraying might reduce or abolish its benefit from the control of malaria in infants, even if such spraying prevents all infant deaths from malaria.

*   *   *   *   *

The prohibition of DDT use for malaria control was probably not the sole cause of increasing malaria burden in sub-Saharan Africa (40), and thus DDT will probably not be the sole cure for the malaria epidemic there. Insecticide-treated bed nets, widely used in African households to prevent mosquito bites, are effective (41,42). Synthetic pyrethroid insecticides, cheaper than DDT, are available (43,44). Where DDT is used, all infant deaths, plus birth weights and the duration of lactation, should be counted. Some thought could also be given to a formal trial, since the risk and benefit calculations apply to individual dwellings, and an effective alternative, namely bed nets, is available. (Chen A, Rogan WJ. Nonmalarial infant deaths and DDT use for malaria control. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2003 Aug. Available from: URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020610/)

Go read it — the issue of spraying or not is complex, and this study talks only about infant deaths (there may be greater life saving among older children and adults that would make the infant deaths a trade off policy makers would consider, for example). It’s a study from the Centers for Disease Control, part of a continuing series of technical publications from CDC titled Emerging Infectious Diseases. This series tracks much of the work done to fight malaria world wide.

This is valuable information. It shows the issue is much more complex that just “spray or don’t spray.” It’s also information that JunkScience.com hopes you will not pursue. It’s real information, and it refutes the junk science claims from that site.

(In June 2004 the denialists at Africa Fighting Malaria had a letter published complaining about this paper’s findings, but offering no data in rebuttal.)

Wikimedia Commons image of Jan Steen's painting,

A more clear image from Wikimedia Commons of Jan Steen’s painting, “Beware of Luxury.” Click on cover of journal at top of post for a discussion of this painting and how it relates to infectious diseases.

7 Comments | Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Malaria, Natural history, Natural resources, Science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Peregrine falcons — ‘100 things about DDT #77’

December 8, 2007

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, www.ardea.com

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:

Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine falcon – “Mr. Milloy, you wouldn’t tell fibs about what’s killing my babies, would you?”

20 Comments | Bad Quotes, Cost of Green, DDT, Environmental protection, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Ted Williams (the conservationist)

December 8, 2007

It’s a long passage, but worth the read. Go to the Audubon site for the full essay; it’s longer, and worth more. (Photo: Bald eagle, from the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Bald Eagle, USFWS photo

This is from an essay the great conservation curmudgeon Ted Williams published in Audubon in December 2004.

I envy young environmentalists of the 21st century, but I feel bad for them, too. They don’t know what it feels like to win big against seemingly impossible odds. When I started out, America and the world were environmentally lawless. There was no Endangered Species Act, no Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, no Clean Water Act, no Clean Air Act, no National Environmental Policy Act, no National Forest Management Act. In 1970 I remember standing on the steps of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife field headquarters and arguing with a colleague, Joe, about the banning of DDT. “It will never happen,” he told me. When DDT was banned two years later, he said, “It won’t make any difference.”

For a while it didn’t. The March 1976 Audubon reported “considerable gloomy speculation” about the plight of endangered bald eagles in the Lower 48—more birds dying than hatching, fewer than a thousand nesting pairs. Today there are an estimated 7,000 nesting pairs. The September 1975 Audubon reported that 300 brown pelicans transplanted from Florida to Louisiana—”the Pelican State”—had died from lethal doses of DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons. Today Louisiana has more than 13,000 nesting pairs. In 1972 I was assigned by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to write an article on the peregrine falcon in the East—a history piece, because the species had been extirpated from the region. By 1999 peregrines had fully recovered, and they were removed from the Endangered Species List.

The hopelessness I felt about DDT in 1970 was nothing compared with what Rachel Carson felt when she started her campaign against this World War II hero. Writing a book about DDT seemed impossible; she was a nature writer, not an investigative reporter. Barely had she taken pen to paper when she was assailed by arthritis, flu, intestinal virus, sinus infections, staph infections, ulcers, phlebitis, and breast cancer. She didn’t get discouraged; she got mad. Her ulcers, she told her editor, “might have waited till the book was done.” Radiation treatments were “a serious diversion of time.” She found the phlebitis that prevented her from walking “quite trying””not for herself but for “poor Roger,” her adopted son.

When Silent Spring appeared in 1962, Chemical World News condemned it as “science fiction.” Time magazine dismissed it as an “emotional and inaccurate outburst.” Reader’s Digest canceled a contract for a 20,000-word condensation and ran the Time piece instead. But only seven years later Time used a photo of Carson to illustrate its new Environment section. Silent Spring was not a prediction, as anti-environmentalists profess; it was a warning, full of hope. “No,” Carson wrote her friend Lois Crisler, “I myself never thought the ugly facts would dominate. . . . The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has always been uppermost in my mind.” If Rachel Carson could find hope in the face of what and who were closing in on her, no environmentalist has the right to feel discouraged in 2004.

Leave a Comment » | Environmental protection, History, History and art, Politics, Quotes, Rachel Carson, Science, Science and faith | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The difference between science and intelligent design/creationism

December 6, 2007

Or is it just the difference between the rational English and the U.S.?

James K. Wilmot in the Louisville (Kentucky!) Courier-Journal:

Last month in England, I toured the Natural History Museum in London. (It’s free by the way.) They too [with Ken Ham’s Creation Museum] have animatronic dinosaurs. However, that’s where the similarity between this “real” museum and the AIG’s creation museum ends. The NHM of London has 55 million preserved animal specimens, nine million fossils, six million plant specimens and more than 500,000 rocks and minerals.

They have a staff of over 300 scientists working on various projects to gain a better understanding of the Earth and the creatures that inhabit (or did inhabit) our planet. Is there not something wrong when thousands of people are flocking to Northern Kentucky and paying $20 a pop to see a Flintstones-like interpretation of pre-history, and yet anyone who lives in or visits London can see one of the world’s greatest real science centers for free?

According to the Courier-Journal, “James K. Willmot is a former science teacher at St. Francis School in Goshen, Ky., and an environmental laboratory director. He is the author of many articles on science, science education and science understanding. Formerly from Louisville, he now lives in Virginia Water, England.” (Be sure to check out the comments, where advocates of the Creation Museum make the case that it is damaging to education and knowledge.)

Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas creationism scandal only one of many

December 6, 2007

McBlogger has an interesting, Texas-based take on the scandals at the Texas Education Agency: It’s a hallmark of Republicans in Texas government.

In other words, other agencies are similarly screwed up, and the common thread is Republican appointees out of their depth and unaware of it.

(Do short posts make this place start to look like Instapundit? Looks only — check the substance.)

Tip of the old scrub brush to Bluedaze.

Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Government, Intelligent Design, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The whole world is watching: Evolution in Texas, or new Dark Ages

December 4, 2007

The whole world should be watching.

Today’s New York Times editorial, “Evolution and Texas”:

It was especially disturbing that the agency accused Ms. Comer — by forwarding the e-mail message — of taking a position on “a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.” Surely the agency should not remain neutral on the central struggle between science and religion in the public schools. It should take a stand in favor of evolution as a central theory in modern biology. Texas’s own education standards require the teaching of evolution.

Those standards are scheduled to be reviewed next year. Ms. Comer’s dismissal and comments in favor of intelligent design by the chairman of the state board of education do not augur well for that review. We can only hope that adherents of a sound science education can save Texas from a retreat into the darker ages.

It remains a mystery how an education agency official could take such a public stand against the state’s education standards and still keep the job in these days, but no one is seriously talking about even investigating the odd events at TEA under the new highly-political director Robert Scott, or the Republican Party operative Lizzette Reynolds.

Texas is a particularly ironic location for these events, being the home of George Bush, who staked his reputation on education reforms that require higher standards, not lower ones; Texas being a state whose money and history rest on oil and natural gas, two fossil fuels found with the geology the TEA now repudiates; Texas being a state trying to get rid of the cotton boll weevil and the imported fire ant, both of which have nationally-coordinated eradication programs based on thorough knowledge of evolution to prevent the insects from evolving resistance or immunity to pesticides. Texas A&M University is one of the nation’s leaders in creating new food crops, using the evolution principles Ms. Comer was fired for noting.

Talk in Austin Rick Perry’s mind ponders whether Gov. Rick Perry has a chance at a vice president nomination. Perry is a typically-weak-by-state constitution Southern governor. He still has clout with agencies, if and when he chooses to use it. Perhaps Perry will read the New York Times today while sitting in an Iowa coffee shop, and wonder what’s up in Texas.

What passes for leadership these days.

Also see:

6 Comments | Accuracy, Evolution, Politics, Public education, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Coda on the Oxford Union debate fiasco

December 2, 2007

 

Alun Salt correctly pins the difficulty of dealing with stupidly planned debates, those that give credence to the uncredible merely by allowing them to appear — in this case, in regard to the Oxford Union’s ill-thought notion to invite neo-fascists and Holocaust deniers in to discuss “freedom of speech.”

This is exactly the same issue that arises when the tinfoil hats group asks a distinguished scientist to “debate” a creationist, or when someone demands a forum for David Barton to discuss the Christian nature of the design of U.S. government.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press include the freedom to be stupid, and the freedom to believe stupid and false things. Our First Amendment does not create a privilege to waste the time of other people who do not share such beliefs.

I wish Mr. Salt had the answer we need in Texas: What do you do when the tinfoil hats people take over the Texas State Board of Education and demand that religious superstition replace science in the science classes?

2 Comments | Accuracy, Dissent, History, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Rampant stupidity, Voodoo history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Puncturing gas bags

November 24, 2007

Bad, from The Bad Idea Blog (the guy who uses that amazingly ugly fish with the huge proboscis-like thing as his avatar), has done a fine job of defending Darwin, evolution, science, reason, manners, Mom, apple pie, the American flag, free markets, liberty, and the 8th Amendment, over at a blog called Seedlings.

The proprietor of Seedlings is unhappy with people who contest his claims. That he’s let Bad go so long is a tribute to Bad — and worthy of your looking in. There is nothing quite so pompous as a creationist ruling that biologists don’t know beans about biology. It’s astounding such rooms full of balloons don’t attract more kids with pins.

Don’t forget to see Bad’s blog, too.

7 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Voodoo science, Weblogs | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Paul Davies bucks the trend toward reason in physics – faith instead?

November 24, 2007

In 2003 Physics Nobel Winner Steven Weinberg made a stunning presentation to the Texas State Board of Education on why evolution needs to be in biology texts.

Live by the physicist, die by the physicist: Paul Davies takes it back, giving aid and comfort to the intelligent design/creationist camp, in Saturday’s New York Times. While he doesn’t mention evolution or biology, the Public Spin Department at the Discovery Institute is probably at work on press releases touting Davies’ piece right now.

Oy.

13 Comments | Physics, Rampant stupidity, Science and faith, Woo | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Unread scripture: Come, let us reason together*

November 23, 2007

The right-wing nominally Catholic journal First Things features another assault on the quest for reason in its October issue.

Pope John Paul II said evolution is a scientific understanding of creation and should be studied by people, with no claim that it conflicts with Christianity. Since his death, and since the installation of Pope Benedict, Benedict and several cardinals have been backpedaling as fast as they can. When they get called on some of their more radical statements, they claim that “radical atheists” have forced them to their public relations firms and far-right magazines. So far, Pope Benedict has not directly claimed Pope John Paul II to have been in error about evolution. He seems happy to let others make that inference explicitly, however.

I am particularly troubled by Cardinal Dulles’ citing of an article by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, published on July 7, 2005, as an op-ed in the New York Times. Schönborn’s view sounded oddly as if it squared completely with the fundamentalist Christian view espoused from the Discovery Institute in Seattle. It turns out that Schönborn had not written the piece at all, but instead was asked to sign his name to a piece written by one of the Discovery Institute’s commercial public relations groups.

It is probably not fair yet to say that Pope Benedict has been purchased by the Discovery Institute. But it would be good if Catholic officials were to stick to Catholicism and leave the petty, erroneous science politics and destructive education politics to the Discovery Institute; it would be better still if the Discovery Institute were to abandon such things, too.

Tip of the old scrub brush to a commenter at Telic Thoughts. [And, yes, this sat for a while in my draft box.]

* Isaiah 1:18

The verse is almost always cited out of context. In this verse a prophet Isaiah recites words he’s been given from God, by his account. This opens an invitation, from God, to the people of Judah, to discuss their actions. God was particularly concerned about injustices and inequities practiced by the people; for example, in the verses immediately preceding, Isaiah quotes God (CEV): “No matter how much you pray,/I won’t listen./You are too violent./Wash yourselves clean!/I am disgusted with your filthy deeds./Stop doing wrong/and learn to live right./See that justice is done./Defend widows and orphans and help those in need.” It is my view that Cardinal Dulles is missing that context here. The scriptures call us to see that justice is done, first. Slamming evolution and the rest of science is not such action.

Other sources

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, Accuracy, Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education quality, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Natural history, Religion, Science, Textbook Selection | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why creationists? Why Rachel Carson critics?

November 22, 2007

At least once a week I buy the New York Times. Tuesday’s edition carries the Science section. It’s better than a weekly science magazine.

And especially since the Dallas Morning News absent-mindedly closed down their award-winning science section and misplaced their award-winning science section editor, Tom Siegfried, the Times is even more important here in Dallas.

Last Tuesday’s main story explained a lot about some of the issues I write about here: Why do people deny obvious stuff — creationists, DDT nuts, history revisionists, Christian nationalists, and so on? Go check out “Denial Makes the World Go ‘Round.”

I’m sorta surprised the guys at denialism blog (“don’t mistake denialism for debate”) haven’t mentioned it.

1 Comment | Creationism, Intelligent Design, Newspapers, Research, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Brits struggle to save Sherwood Forest

November 21, 2007

Worldwide fans of Robin Hood should be concerned: Sherwood Forest is not even a ghost of what it once was.

The Associated Press carried a story detailing efforts to preserve and revive the forest made famous by the stories of Robin Hood. 900-year-old oaks, encroaching development, a sense of history, and a need to save green space — it’s a good story for warm-up on conservation, development, historical myths, or England’s geography.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Heroes, History, World history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

DDT works! (When used carefully, in IVM, and sparingly)

November 20, 2007

Discover Magazine’s site has a solid story on DDT and malaria, “Can a maligned pesticide save lives.” Among other things, the article notes that Rachel Carson was scientifically accurate in her cited concerns that DDT was killing birds, and in fact later research of more than 1,000 peer-reviewed papers has born out her worries, and provided even greater evidence of damage.

Cover of November 2007 Discover Magazine, featuring an article on DDT's continuing use in the fight against malaria, and vindicating Rachel Carson's research citations with regard to injuries to birds.

Cover of November 2007 Discover Magazine, featuring an article on DDT’s continuing use in the fight against malaria, and vindicating Rachel Carson’s research citations with regard to injuries to birds.

The article details how DDT is used in integrated vector management (IVM), where pesticides are sparingly and carefully used to prevent their target pests from evolving resistance and immunity.  DDT’s abuse had bred widespread resistance in mosquito populations in Africa and other malaria-endemic locations, forcing the World Health Organization to abandon its ambitious program to eradicate malaria in a program dependent on DDT working for at least a year.

Steven Milloy and the Usual Suspects and Comrades in Junk Science, in the War on Science at AEI and CEI will start their distortions of the Discover article any moment now . . . three, two, one . . .

1 Comment | Accuracy, DDT, History, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Practice, even with failure, more important than talent

November 20, 2007

Every teacher needs to get familiar with the work of Carol Dweck. She’s a Stanford psychologist who is advising the Blackburn Rovers from England’s Premier League, on how to win, and how to develop winning ways.

Your students need you to have this stuff.

A 60-year-old academic psychologist might seem an unlikely sports motivation guru. But Dweck’s expertise—and her recent book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success—bear directly on the sort of problem facing the Rovers. Through more than three decades of systematic research, she has been figuring out answers to why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others don’t—why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson. The key, she found, isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated or as something that can be developed.

What’s more, Dweck has shown that people can learn to adopt the latter belief and make dramatic strides in performance. These days, she’s sought out wherever motivation and achievement matter, from education and parenting to business management and personal development. [emphasis added]

I can’t do justice to Dweck’s work. See this story in Stanford Magazine.

See a significant update on this article, in October 2012, here.

 

1 Comment | Brain development, Brain learning, Classroom management, Education, Education success, Learning, Pedagogy, psychology, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Another carnival of DDT

November 18, 2007

One of the clues that someone is financing a public relations campaign for DDT and against care for the environment is the way “news” keeps popping out about the benefits of DDT, though there is no natural process for making such news in back of the stories.

We old PR flacks recognize that without the push from an agent, these stories wouldn’t get written.

Just over a month ago there was a flurry of stories about how DDT was “effective” even after mosquitoes developed immunity to it, because it repels mosquitoes, too — even though that wasn’t what the researchers concluded, and that wasn’t the major thrust of the research article.

We also saw a Hoover Institute fellow call for DDT to be used to fight the spread of West Nile virus, though no public health official called for such action, though there is no particular need for such a drastic change in policy, and despite the fact that DDT spraying for the mosquitoes that carry West Nile is one of the least effective means of killing them (DDT is not a larvacide, and larvacides are called for to combat West Nile).

This month? No real news, but the American Enterprise Institute, which nominally is pitched at promoting business interests, issued a new report recycling all the old canards, calling for increased use of DDT in Africa to fight malaria, despite already expanded use, and despite a lack of call from health officials to spray more DDT.

Here’s how it looks on the internet:

November 5, 2007 – Wall Street Journal opinion piece by AEI’s Roger Bate, over the years one of the most ardent salesmen of DDT as the solution to nearly every problem, so long as it bashed environmentalists. WSJ notes the piece is a shorter version of the AEI report.

November 1, 2007 – TCS piece by AEI’s Roger Bate, complaining generally about environmentalists.

Random DDT stuff, some of which may turn into separate posts:

6 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, History, History Revisionism, Malaria, Public health, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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