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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
John Stossel :: Townhall.com Columnist
Hooray for DDT's life-saving comeback
by John Stossel
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WHO now calls DDT the "most effective" pesticide for indoor use. Some environmental groups have also changed their anti-DDT tune, including Greenpeace, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club. Last year, Greenpeace spokesman Rick Hind told the New York Times, "If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it."

That's easy to say now. But what about all the people who died when groups like Greenpeace dogmatically refused to budge on the ban? Might an apology be in order?

Junk-science debunker Steven Milloy, an adjunct scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wonders why the environmentalists took so long to change their minds.

"There are no new facts on DDT -- all the relevant science about DDT safety has been available since the 1960s," Milloy says.

Milloy adds: "It might be easy for some to dismiss the past 43 years of eco-hysteria over DDT with a simple 'never mind,' except for the blood of millions of people dripping from the hands of the WWF [World Wildlife Fund], Greenpeace, Rachel Carson, Environmental Defense Fund, and other junk science-fueled opponents of DDT."

Milloy reminds us that the same people who spread DDT hysteria are now pushing the global-warming scare. "If they and others could be so wrong about DDT, why should we trust them now?"

That's a fair question. For now, let's celebrate the coming elimination of malaria in Africa.
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About The Author
John Stossel blogs at http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/ is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
 
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Reply # 1
Date: Oct 12, 2006 - 7:14 PM EST
Scientific facts are undeniable!
Dennis, it looks you are a Tim Lambert’s fan. As such you will always deny scientific evidence. Birds fed huge doses of DDT (3000 higher than usual in the environment!) didn't show eggshell thinning. Only flawed studies did -but were debunked and ordered by law to be remade.

So your magnification up the food chain is not a good example.

The two main studies that linked DDT to eggshell thinning were: a) by ames DeWitt (1958), and b) Dr. Bitman. Both were used at the DDT hearings and both were shown and proved flawed. That’s why Judge Sweeney declared DDT innocent and free of toxicity, and not a carcinogen, or a teratogen, or a mutagen. The same scientific opinion was shared by all Scientific Academies on Earth, The American Cancer Society, the WHO, etc.

When you read DeWitt’s study you actually see that quails hatched more eggs when fed DDT than those control quails not eating DDT! When the flawed Bitman study was orederd by a court to be repeated, but this time feeding the birds with the appropriate calcium levels normally found in bird’s food (Bitman was providing half the normal amount!) the birds (hen) eating DDT produced eggs with thicker eggshells.

Then, the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary logs show that hawks and bald eagles grew in population during the DDT years. They had been in the brink of extinction from the early part of the 20th century, 40 years before DDT was invented. It is history, and undeniable facts. But burying your head in the sand won’t make you any wiser.
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Reply # 2
Date: Oct 12, 2006 - 3:43 PM EST
Why DDT didn't affect commercial eggs
Simple. Because chickens aren't top predators that feed on other predators (birds and fish).

DDT works like this:
1. Bugs eat DDT-contaminated crops. Bugs get a tiny amount of DDT.
2. Small fish or birds or mammals eat several hundred bugs in their lifetime. All the DDT those bugs ate accumulates in their fat.
3. Larger fish/birds/mammals eat those fish/birds/mammals, and accumulates together all those doses.
4. Finally, a bald eagle or falcon or pelican eats those fish/birds/mammals, and gets the sum total DDT load of all the hundreds of thousands of bugs that made up the base of the food chain. And that DDT made their eggshells thin.

What does a chicken eat? Feed. Probably only the amount of DDT tht one of the small fish/birds ate. Hence not enough to thin eggshells.

Basic biology. Beats off-the-cuff uneducated guesses (sometimes called "common sense") 9 times out of 10.
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