Slashdot Mirror
DDT or Malaria -- Which is Worse?
Assassin bug wonders: "Although the topic of malaria has been discussed on Slashdot, DDT use has not. After having banned DDT (C14H9Cl5)" in 2004, Tanzania has reversed their ban on DDT use. What is the Slashdot community's opinion regarding the use of DDT for mosquito control versus genetically modified mosquitoes?"
"Key facts to consider:
- Insects have developed resistance, for every tactic that has been used against them (including biological control, crop rotation, and various chemicals)
- Although the direct effects of DDT on humans might be benign, the effects on wildlife and the environment are well documented
- In some countries, such as India, popluations of DDT-resistant mosquitoes exist
- The fitness (i.e., reproductive success in the wild) of mutant mosquitoes is not well understood."
Many of you may scoff at Michael Crichton (or worse, judge him based on the horrible movies that his books become) but you cannot deny that the man takes the time to do real, intensive research when he writes about topic X. His are just about the only works of fiction that have bibliographies longer than many works of fact.
His latest novel, State of Fear, is a perfect example. He takes apart the fearmongering and psuedoscience behind manbearpig...er...global warming, and shows it for what it really is: attention-whoring scientists playing Chicken Little to get the grants that pays their salaries.
DDT is one example of how policies are based on sound bites and not science. Pick any perspective: moral, cost/benefit, safety...the DDT ban was a horrible failure. To quote a section from the novel:
"Banning DDT."
"Argueably the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century. DDT was the best agent against mosquitos and despite the rhetoric there was nothing anywhere neat as good or as safe. Since the ban, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. All together, the ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler, Ted. And the environmental movement pushed hard for it."
"But DDT was a carcinogen."
"No, it wasn't. And everybody knew it at the time of the ban."
"It was unsafe."
"Actually, it was so safe you could eat it. People did just that for two years in one experiment. After the ban, it was replaced by parathion, which is really unsafe. More than a hundred farm workers died in the months after the DDT ban, because they were unaccustomed to handling really toxic pesticides."
Okay, now the fun part that makes the above passage of "fiction" so scary...the footnotes:
1) Some people put the number closer to 30 million deaths.
2) Full discussion of DDT in Wildavshy, 1994, pp. 55-80
3) Sweeny Committee, 25 April 1972, "DDT is not a carcinogentic hazard to man." Ruckelshaus banned it two months later, saying, DDT "poses a carcinogenic risk" to man. He never read the Sweeney report.
4) Hayes, 1969
5) John Noble Wilford, "Deaths from DDT Successor Stir Concern," New York Times, 21 August 1970, p. 1
However, there is a more sinister side to the story. I can't find any reference at the moment, but I remember finding a website that claimed that DuPont had engineered the DDT ban because they held a patent on DDT and it was about to expire. They also held patents on several DDR replacements. So, with a little bit of lobbying and media frenzy, DuPont was able to ban the use of the cheapest and most effective product, in favor of enriching their own pockets.
And even worse than allowing millions of people to die for profit? DuPont did it again in the 80's when their patent on freon was due to expire. A little more lobbying and media frenzy, and freon was banned and replaced by numerous patented and nowhere near as effective DuPont products. And, millions of people (mostly in Africa and other poor nations) have died from food poisoning or starvation due to the high cost of preserving and transporting perishables under the new freon-free world regieme.
Call me a kook but...read the book. The gift you receive for your $8.99 is your ability to sleep at night knowing that global warming is just about the last thing you need to worry about.
-JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
You don't address the Scientific question. This is the first thing I've heard contrary to the "fact" that DDT causes thin shells. If yours is the best defense to this accusation then it must be true.
Or do you just mean to say that faking Scientific results is okay as long as your heart is in the right place?
-Peter