"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Saturday, May 23, 2009

THE "FEELGOOD" DDT BAN: THE GREENS ARE NEARLY AS GENOCIDAL AS THE REDS

They're not as genocidal as socialists but did you know that greens/ecologists are responsible for 50 million preventable deaths?

YUP: THEY'RE "FEELGOOD" POLICY BANNING DDT HAS NO BENEFICIAL EFFECT EXCEPT TO MAKE THEM FEELGOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES FOR THE MISTAKEN BELIEF/DELUSION THAT THEY'RE DOING GOOD WHEN THEY REALLY AIN'T AT ALL.
  • THIS IS A VERY VERY BASIC COMPONENT OF LEFTIST PSYCHOLOGY:
  • WHETHER IT'S "PEACE MARCHES" OR KYOTO OR CARBON TRADING OR DRIVING A PRIUS - OR THE NEW PROPOSED CAFE STANDARDS:
  • THEY FAVOR POLICIES AND DO THINGS WHICH HAVE NO POSITIVE EFFECT IN THE REAL WORLD EXCEPT TO MAKE THEM FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES.
CASE IN POINT:

(BTW: NIC KRISTOF AGREES WITH THIS) WSJ EDITORIAL:
In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria.

So much for that.

Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease.

The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result.

... Most malarial deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where chloroquine once worked but started failing in the 1970s as the parasite developed resistance. Even if the drugs were still effective in Africa, they're expensive and thus impractical for one of the world's poorest regions. That's not an argument against chloroquine, bed nets or other interventions. But it is an argument for continuing to make DDT spraying a key part of any effort to eradicate malaria, which kills about a million people -- mainly children -- every year. Nearly all of this spraying is done indoors, by the way, to block mosquito nesting at night. It is not sprayed willy-nilly in jungle habitat.

It's no coincidence that WHO officials were joined by the head of the U.N. Environment Program to announce the new policy. There's no evidence that spraying DDT in the amounts necessary to kill dangerous mosquitoes imperils crops, animals or human health. But that didn't stop green groups like the Pesticide Action Network from urging the public to celebrate World Malaria Day last month by telling "the U.S. to protect children and families from malaria without spraying pesticides like DDT inside people's homes."

"We must take a position based on the science and the data," said WHO's malaria chief, Arata Kochi, in 2006. "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual spraying. Of the dozen or so insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT." Mr. Kochi was right then, even if other WHO officials are now bowing to pressure to pretend otherwise.

FACT: THE LEFT - BOTH GREENS AND REDS - HAVE KILLED MORE PEOPLE THAN ANYTHING IN HUMAN HISTORY - EXCEPT ISLAM.

UPDATE: FOR THE LAZY - WHO HAVE NEVER READ KRISTOF ON DDT AND WON'T GOOGLE IT UP THEMSELVES:

January 8, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST

It's Time to Spray DDT


If the U.S. wants to help people in tsunami-hit countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia - not to mention other poor countries in Africa - there's one step that would cost us nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

It would be to allow DDT in malaria-ravaged countries.

I'm thrilled that we're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the relief effort, but the tsunami was only a blip in third-world mortality. Mosquitoes kill 20 times more people each year than the tsunami did, and in the long war between humans and mosquitoes it looks as if mosquitoes are winning.

One reason is that the U.S. and other rich countries are siding with the mosquitoes against the world's poor - by opposing the use of DDT.

"It's a colossal tragedy," says Donald Roberts, a professor of tropical public health at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. "And it's embroiled in environmental politics and incompetent bureaucracies."

In the 1950's, 60's and early 70's, DDT was used to reduce malaria around the world, even eliminating it in places like Taiwan. But then the growing recognition of the harm DDT can cause in the environment - threatening the extinction of the bald eagle, for example - led DDT to be banned in the West and stigmatized worldwide. Ever since, malaria has been on the rise.

The poor countries that were able to keep malaria in check tend to be the same few that continued to use DDT, like Ecuador.

Similarly, in Mexico, malaria rose and fell with the use of DDT.

South Africa brought back DDT in 2000, after a switch to other pesticides had led to a surge in malaria, and now the disease is under control again. The evidence is overwhelming: DDT saves lives.

But most Western aid agencies will not pay for anti-malarial programs that use DDT, and that pretty much ensures that DDT won't be used. Instead, the U.N. and Western donors encourage use of insecticide-treated bed nets and medicine to cure malaria.

Bed nets and medicines are critical tools in fighting malaria, but they're not enough.

The existing anti-malaria strategy is an underfinanced failure, with malaria probably killing 2 million or 3 million people each year.

DDT doesn't work everywhere. It wasn't nearly as effective in West African savannah as it was in southern Africa, and it's hard to apply in remote villages. And some countries, like Vietnam, have managed to curb malaria without DDT.

But overall, one of the best ways to protect people is to spray the inside of a hut, about once a year, with DDT. This uses tiny amounts of DDT - 450,000 people can be protected with the same amount that was applied in the 1960's to a single 1,000-acre American cotton farm.

Is it safe? DDT was sprayed in America in the 1950's as children played in the spray, and up to 80,000 tons a year were sprayed on American crops. There is some research suggesting that it could lead to premature births, but humans are far better off exposed to DDT than exposed to malaria.

I called the World Wildlife Fund, thinking I would get a fight. But Richard Liroff, its expert on toxins, said he could accept the use of DDT when necessary in anti-malaria programs.

"South Africa was right to use DDT," he said. "If the alternatives to DDT aren't working, as they weren't in South Africa, geez, you've got to use it. In South Africa it prevented tens of thousands of malaria cases and saved lots of lives."

At Greenpeace, Rick Hind noted reasons to be wary of DDT, but added: "If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it."

So why do the U.N. and donor agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, generally avoid financing DDT programs?

The main obstacle seems to be bureaucratic caution and inertia. President Bush should cut through that and lead an effort to fight malaria using all necessary tools - including DDT.

One of my most exhilarating moments with my children came when we were backpacking together and spotted a bald eagle. It was a tragedy that we nearly allowed DDT to wipe out such magnificent birds, and we should continue to ban DDT in the U.S.

But it's also tragic that our squeamishness about DDT is killing more people in poor countries, year in and year out, than even a once-in-a-century tsunami.

Malaria kills more people in Africa than aids, but aids gets the $.

Why!?

Because of politicS. The media is leftists and homophilic.

And using DDT doesn't make them feel good.

The best way to save the most lives from ALL HARM is to eradicate leftism - green, red - all of it.

6 comments:

Ed Darrell said...

1. Kristof doesn't appear at the link you offer.

2. The National Academy of Sciences urged DDT be discontinued because of its great danger, vastly outweighing any benefits -- in 1980. DDT has gotten no safer since then.

3. DDT has never been banned in Africa or Asia. Use stopped because it was relatively ineffective, or not so effective as to overcome its problems (it famously wiped out the fish in some areas where the local people depend on fish to eat).

4. No "Greens" ban ever stopped delivery of DDT to Africa. George Bush did in 2001, however, and he stopped any spending of U.S. money for DDT until at least 2008. Why don't you blame him, if someone is to be blamed?

5. DDT cannot save lives on the scale you claim. No expert in malaria eradication agrees with your calumny against greens.

6. The problem is malaria. Environmental groups have been fighting malaria in Africa for years. Why don't you join them? It's malaria that kills kids, not greens. Your advocacy against malaria fighters is bizarre. Your claim that all we need to do is poison Africa to get rid of malaria is wrong, and pushing that policy is what makes children die. The longer we delay effective action against malaria -- none of which includes DDT as a major component -- the more children die.

How many bednets have you sent this year? Why not? Nets save lives. If you're genuinely concerned about lives, you can stop the deaths. Calling for DDT does no good.

Reliapundit said...

1 - correct, but he has written a dozen columns on it.

2 - ddt is safe used as directed.

read the article.

they use it indoors ass hole.

3 - wrong.

4 - gwb bush was a LIBERAL: biggest spender since LBJ; for amnesty for illegals, HUGE aid for AIDS in Africa, etc.

5 - i claim nothing: kristof claims it as so MANY others. i report it.

if you could read you'd see that NOBODY is saying it would save 50 million lives all at a time, but IF it had been used than maybe 50 million people who died from malaria wouldn't have gotten it.

asshole.

6 - malaria kills; green anti-ddt policies ALLOWED malaria to kill. and AIDS gets more $$$$ even though malaria kills more humans.

which proves POLITICS controls the aid flow and not logic.

nets are okay but not enough - obviously because of the continued toll. which is MORE THAN AIDS IN AFRICA. asshole.

WHY NOT LET THEM USE IT!!?!?!? IT'S SAFE.

you are a kneejerk liberal asshole, ed darrell.

i grew up a leftie raised by card-carrying commies.

i saw the light. you can too.

stop reflexively regurgitating leftist BS and start thinking.

here idiot: a kristof article from 2005.

asshole.

Reliapundit said...

January 8, 2005 OP-ED COLUMNIST
It's Time to Spray DDT

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

If the U.S. wants to help people in tsunami-hit countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia - not to mention other poor countries in Africa - there's one step that would cost us nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

It would be to allow DDT in malaria-ravaged countries.

I'm thrilled that we're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the relief effort, but the tsunami was only a blip in third-world mortality. Mosquitoes kill 20 times more people each year than the tsunami did, and in the long war between humans and mosquitoes it looks as if mosquitoes are winning.

One reason is that the U.S. and other rich countries are siding with the mosquitoes against the world's poor - by opposing the use of DDT.

"It's a colossal tragedy," says Donald Roberts, a professor of tropical public health at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. "And it's embroiled in environmental politics and incompetent bureaucracies."

In the 1950's, 60's and early 70's, DDT was used to reduce malaria around the world, even eliminating it in places like Taiwan. But then the growing recognition of the harm DDT can cause in the environment - threatening the extinction of the bald eagle, for example - led DDT to be banned in the West and stigmatized worldwide. Ever since, malaria has been on the rise.

The poor countries that were able to keep malaria in check tend to be the same few that continued to use DDT, like Ecuador. Similarly, in Mexico, malaria rose and fell with the use of DDT. South Africa brought back DDT in 2000, after a switch to other pesticides had led to a surge in malaria, and now the disease is under control again. The evidence is overwhelming: DDT saves lives.

Reliapundit said...

continued:



But most Western aid agencies will not pay for anti-malarial programs that use DDT, and that pretty much ensures that DDT won't be used. Instead, the U.N. and Western donors encourage use of insecticide-treated bed nets and medicine to cure malaria.

Bed nets and medicines are critical tools in fighting malaria, but they're not enough. The existing anti-malaria strategy is an underfinanced failure, with malaria probably killing 2 million or 3 million people each year.

DDT doesn't work everywhere. It wasn't nearly as effective in West African savannah as it was in southern Africa, and it's hard to apply in remote villages. And some countries, like Vietnam, have managed to curb malaria without DDT.

But overall, one of the best ways to protect people is to spray the inside of a hut, about once a year, with DDT. This uses tiny amounts of DDT - 450,000 people can be protected with the same amount that was applied in the 1960's to a single 1,000-acre American cotton farm.

Is it safe? DDT was sprayed in America in the 1950's as children played in the spray, and up to 80,000 tons a year were sprayed on American crops. There is some research suggesting that it could lead to premature births, but humans are far better off exposed to DDT than exposed to malaria.

I called the World Wildlife Fund, thinking I would get a fight. But Richard Liroff, its expert on toxins, said he could accept the use of DDT when necessary in anti-malaria programs.

"South Africa was right to use DDT," he said. "If the alternatives to DDT aren't working, as they weren't in South Africa, geez, you've got to use it. In South Africa it prevented tens of thousands of malaria cases and saved lots of lives."

At Greenpeace, Rick Hind noted reasons to be wary of DDT, but added: "If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it."

So why do the U.N. and donor agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, generally avoid financing DDT programs? The main obstacle seems to be bureaucratic caution and inertia. President Bush should cut through that and lead an effort to fight malaria using all necessary tools - including DDT.

One of my most exhilarating moments with my children came when we were backpacking together and spotted a bald eagle. It was a tragedy that we nearly allowed DDT to wipe out such magnificent birds, and we should continue to ban DDT in the U.S.

But it's also tragic that our squeamishness about DDT is killing more people in poor countries, year in and year out, than even a once-in-a-century tsunami

Stogie said...

"the best way to save the most lives from ALL HARM is to eradicate leftism - green, red - all of it."

GOD,truer words were never spoken! Keep up the good fight brothers. I will return many times.

I've ordered the new book "Green Hell" on how the greens screw up our lives with their dogmatic, largely incorrect ideology. I can hardly wait to read it.

Reliapundit said...

THANKS STOGIE