Myth: DDT is harmful to humans and the environment

Myth: DDT is harmful to humans and the environment

It's ironic that one of the first crusades in the liberal attempt to save the world through environmentally friendly action turned out to be a horrific calamity that killed millions. But that's exactly what happened.

Just as a little background: DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) was the first modern pesticide developed during WWII to kill mosquitoes carrying malaria, typhus and other insect-born diseases, and it was very effective. Paul Muller of Switzerland was even given the Nobel Prize in 1948 "for the discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against arthropods." After WWII, DDT was used successfully to combat malaria all over the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where 1 in 20 children die from the disease.

Now, many of you are out there thinking, Well, Dylan, this sounds great! Mosquitoes are dying, children are being saved, what could possibly have gone wrong?

Patience, my friends. In keeping with their natural inclination to snatch failure from the jaws of success, the left sprung into action. You see, liberal environmentalists have this wacky notion that any man-made action on nature is inherently evil. This is the same mentality that leads to laws preventing people from clearing brush out of forests even though this leads to forest fires. So pesticides, or more appropriately pesticide manufacturers, became public enemy #1.

In 1962 biologist Rachel Carson came out with her book Silent Spring. In it, she charged that DDT harmed bird reproduction and caused cancer in humans. Carson wrote "Doctor (James) DeWitt's now classic experiments show that exposure to DDT even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously effect reproduction. Quail, into whose diet DDT was introduced, throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But, few of the eggs hatched."

The only problem with this was that it was absolute garbage! Doctor DeWitt's research showed no notable difference in egg hatching between the birds fed DDT and the birds not fed DDT. Carson also claimed that we were on the verge of a cancer epidemic that could infect "practically 100%" of humanity! So, why aren't we all dead? According to biostatistician Steven Milloy of the CATO institute, Carson's research "was based on a 1961 epidemic of liver cancer in middle-aged rainbow trout, later attributed to aflatoxin."

The environmental wackos then took the matter to court where finally an EPA administrative law judge ruled, "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man...DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard. The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on fresh water fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wild life."

Now that really should have been the end of it. A well meaning, if yet misguided, biologist writes a book with some bad science in it, judge overrules it, no harm done.

But, as is usually the case, that wasn't good enough for the left. Taking matters into his own hands, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus overruled the judge and banned DDT. You see, liberals love to wax eloquent about judicial independence and the unimpeachable wisdom of the judiciary when it serves their purpose, but when the ruling goes the other way; they put on their best Stalin impersonation.

What was the result of the DDT ban? It really wasn't all that bad, unless, of course, you were a poor black kid in a malaria-ridden third world country.

According to research from Thomas Sowell, the country of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) had 2.8 million people infected with malaria in 1948 before DDT was used. After they started using DDT, by 1962, they had less than 100 cases. But, then, reported cases shot back up to 2.5 million after DDT was banned. Overall, more than 50 million people-mostly children-have died from Malaria since DDT was banned. African scientists Amir Attaran described the DDT ban this was "If it's DDT it must be awful. And that's fine, if you're a rich, white environmentalist. It's not so fine if you are a poor black kid who is about to lose his life from malaria."

So why did millions die unnecessarily? According to Charles Wurster, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, which led the fight for the DDT ban, "If environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before. In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT."

Apparently the lives of 50 million people didn't factor into that equation.

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