Politics aside, the reality at the time was that widespread use of cheap DDT in most of the regions affected by malaria had resulted in the emergence of resistant bugs. Thus, whatever its environmental consequences, the use of DDT simply made no sense anymore, since it wouldn't have worked. Millions did not die due to environmentalist fervor; millions died because of profligate misuse of pesticides. Perhaps enough time has elapsed since imposition of the ban to render mosquito populations less resistant, and so it might again be effective. But this will just start the cycle anew, because surely no one here is pollyannish enough to believe that DDT is about to be used responsibly.

surely no one here is pollyannish enough to believe that DDT is about to be used responsibly.

Yep. All us closet racists know that these Africans and Asians are too gosh-danged stupid to be taught the proper and responsible use of modern chemicals. Better to let them all die off from malaria and other insect borne illnesses so we can set up eco-parks and preserves for rich, urban and pampered (and white) Nature Lovers, as Mother Gaia intended.

M misses the point anyway--it needn't be used responsibly.

Right on Raoul!

Oh, please, Raoul. As if I implied that DDT would be used more reponsibly if it were deployed by Americans.

Then again, I suppose your aim was to ignore the point in favor of an ad hominem attack. Well done.

And OJ is more correct than he may know - the point is not to use DDT responsibly. It's to score a political victory against environmentalists. The actual efficacy of DDT in fighting pesticide-resistant mosquito populations really doesn't matter in such calculations.

M:

No, it's that irresponsible use is effective and harmless.

And here I thought your point was that for the environmentalists, politics is reality. Nice to see you walk that talk just as well.

Exactly. The reality is that DDT works against the bugs and does nothing to birds. People deny that for political reasons--Rachel Carson turned DDT into a fetish.

No, that's just wrong. The science behind a specific effect for the DDT metabolite DDE on raptors (but not a number of other types of birds) is pretty solid. Raptors in particular are extremely sensitive to DDE.

This is no balance to millions of deaths from malaria, many of which might have been avoided in the absence of a DDT ban. To categorically state that all of these deaths are attributable to DDT bans, however, is an oversimplification. The emergence of DDT-resistant mosquitoes in several locales, notably Sri Lanka, rendered it useless. Sri Lanka actually resumed DDT spraying in the 70's to combat new outbreaks of malaria, but unlike a decade previous, this accomplished little. The outbreak was defeated only when they switched to malathion.

People deny all of this for political reasons too. Little of the argument, at least in this country, has anything to do with saving lives. On both sides, it's about scoring points against the opposition, regardless of the evidence.

No, they were sensitive to hunters.

You illustrate the point nicely.

Science demonstrates the point--I merely note it.

You apparently don't know the science.

There's never been a scientific study demonstrating that DDT caused the decline in raptors. There is a powerful faith on the Left that's what must have happened.

LINCER, J. 1975. DDE induced eggshell thinning in the American kestrel; a comparison of the field situation and the laboratory results. Journal of Applied Ecology 12: 16–21.

Couple this with the close correlation between the imposition of DDT bans and recovery of raptor populations of all sorts and at uniform rates. This is not the expected pattern if the original decline was entirely a function of hunting and poaching; it is the expected pattern if levels of DDE in raptors and their environment are gradually decreasing with time.

The point is not that DDT use has no effect on raptor populations. It does. The point is that decimation of raptor populations will be a predictable effect of generalized DDT spraying, but that this is a price we are likely to be wiiling to pay - assuming that mosquito populations in the areas involved are not resistant, and thus that DDT will truly save thousands of lives.

No, raptor populations came back when hunting of them was banned. If we allowed hunting of eagles again they'd disappear again. You're looking past the obvious for needless subtleties, which is what all conspiracy theories and hoaxes depend on.

If this is a conspiracy theory, it's the only one I've ever heard of with hard science behind it. Hunters certainly had an effect. And the coincidence in timing of cessation of DDT spraying and enforcement of hunting bans on eagles makes determining the relative contributions of either more difficult. But not too difficult: some other raptor species have not been subject to intensive hunting, or bans one way or the other, and yet their populations also crashed during the era of DDT spraying and have come back since. Regardless, there's a lot you have to ignore to claim that hunting bans are the whole story.

What you refer to as "needless subtleties" are neither needless nor subtle. It is apparently not enough for you, or for most of the other "conservatives" beating the drum against environmentalists, to trump the general good of protecting the environment with the greater good of saving human lives. You must also deny that they ever did any good at all. That's not a scientific calculation, but a political one, and one with little bearing on reality. DDT is often not the best, or even an effective, remedy even if you don't bother to consider its environmental effects. The willful ignorance of the history of DDT use and emergent resistance in mosquito populations, and the lack of any mention of tests that might indicate the status of mosquito populations in areas now slated for generalized DDT spraying, is a clear sign that the argument has nothing to do with practical strategies for saving lives, and everything to do with exploiting those lives for the sole purpose of spitting on Rachel Carson's grave.

If this is a conspiracy theory, it's the only one I've ever heard of with hard science behind it. Hunters certainly had an effect. And the coincidence in timing of cessation of DDT spraying and enforcement of hunting bans on eagles makes determining the relative contributions of either more difficult. But not too difficult: some other raptor species have not been subject to intensive hunting, or bans one way or the other, and yet their populations also crashed during the era of DDT spraying and have come back since. Regardless, there's a lot you have to ignore to claim that hunting bans are the whole story.

What you refer to as "needless subtleties" are neither needless nor subtle. It is apparently not enough for you, or for most of the other "conservatives" beating the drum against environmentalists, to trump the general good of protecting the environment with the greater good of saving human lives. You must also deny that they ever did any good at all. That's not a scientific calculation, but a political one, and one with little bearing on reality. DDT is often not the best, or even an effective, remedy even if you don't bother to consider its environmental effects. The willful ignorance of the history of DDT use and emergent resistance in mosquito populations, and the lack of any mention of tests that might indicate the status of mosquito populations in areas now slated for generalized DDT spraying, is a clear sign that the argument has nothing to do with practical strategies for saving lives, and everything to do with exploiting those lives for the sole purpose of spitting on Rachel Carson's grave.

M:

Bingo! It's about a "general good" not the facts. The environment is a fetish of yours on the Left. That's fine. On the Right our fetish is humans.

Don't paint me with that brush. I characterize environmentalism as a general good, and human life as a greater good. I just don't believe the DDT debate involves the greater good, on either side.

Your own considerations of how to achieve the greater good are blinkered by your need to participate in the anti-environmentalist pissing match. Meanwhile, the rest of us will wait for the inevitable moment when DDT is given up for some other (and likely more expensive) pesticide because it isn't working - meaning thousands of people dead from malaria in the interim. And selected species of birds decimated for no reason. My priorities on those two scores are in line with yours, but will you link to that article when it's written?

Lie down with the Malthusians....

Here's a rudimentary enough thought experiment that no amount of ideological blindness will likely prevent you from following it:

There are 22 nesting pairs of bald eagles in NH today. If we declared open season on bald eagles how many would there be in the wild two years from now?

That's a non sequitur. Just because unleashing hunters on 22 nesting pairs of eagles would likely wipe them out in a short time doesn't mean that the thousands of eagles that existed 50-60 years ago weren't affected by DDT (among other factors, including hunting), or for that matter that profligate spraying with DDT in NH now wouldn't have the same effect on those 22 pairs over a wider timeframe.

So you've conceded the point.

By the way, bald eagles were extinct here by the '30s.

I have not conceded any point that would read: "The reality is that DDT works against the bugs and does nothing to birds." Because that wouldn't be true.

"Just because"