DDT is good for the world 

RICH LOWRY / King Features Syndicate 26aug02

SOMETIME in the 1970s, the pesticide DDT became the most loathed and feared three letters this side of KKK.

This was a coup for DDT scourge and "Silent Spring" author Rachel Carson, but not so wonderful for the world's poor, who have suffered thousands of needless deaths thanks to an exaggerated fear of DDT and other pesticides.

As the United States battles the mosquito-borne West Nile virus, this summer is a reminder of something that the rest of the world never had the luxury of for getting: Mosquitoes don't just buzz, bite and irritate - they, or at least the diseases they carry, can kill.

In the Third World, the plot of "Men in Black" isn't so fanciful: Man does battle with bugs, and if he loses, death and mayhem ensue. In 2000, malaria infected some 300 million people, and roughly a million died.

As Richard Tren and Roger Bate demonstrated in their work for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, DDT literally changed the course of human history - for the better.

Earlier this century, malaria was still prevalent in Europe and North America. In 1914, there were 600,000 cases in the United States. That all changed thanks to DDT, which Winston Churchill called "the excellent DDT powder." Malaria disappeared from Europe and North America, and seemed on the way out in the developing world as well.

Within 10 years of starting its DDT-spraying program in 1946, Sri Lanka cut its malaria cases from 3 million to 7,300. In 1964, when it thought the disease had been vanquished, it stopped spraying. By 1969, malaria cases had jumped from a handful to 500,000. 

Meanwhile, DDT hysteria in the United States was building. Carson demonstrated that DDT hurt birds - especially raptors like bald eagles - but there was no credible evidence of harm to humans. It was banned anyway in 1973.

DDT is so effective because of its "persistence." This creates trouble for raptors who eat other animals with DDT stored in their body fat. But it also means that sprayings do not have to be endlessly repeated in a way that is too expensive or too logistically difficult for poorer countries.

Nonetheless, Western environmentalists want to export DDT bans to the Third World through international agreements such as the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty and pressure from international-aid organizations.

Mosquito trouble for most enviros means finding one in their double skim latte. Elsewhere, the problem is much grimmer: Most who die from malaria are children and pregnant women.

DDT can save them. According to Roger Bate, as Latin America as a whole stopped using DDT in the 1980s and 1990s, its malaria cases soared, while Ecuador, which continued using the pesticide, saw its malaria rate fall.

It doesn't take much. In Africa, people spray a small amount of DDT on the walls inside their homes. This has no environmental effect (unless there are bald eagles in the attic), but, thanks to DDT's extraordinary "excito-repellency," it keeps mosquitoes away for six months to a year.

Enviros talk up other methods of mosquito control, including preventive ones such as draining swampy areas. As Donald Rumsfeld might put it, however, there's no substitute for killing the bastards, which means using pesticides.

Environmentalists would rather suffer a death of 1,000 mosquito bites than admit it, but the West Nile virus here and malaria worldwide demonstrate an inconvenient fact: Pesticides, and even DDT, are good, especially for the world's poor.

We need DDT to win vs. West Nile virus

STEVEN MILLOY / Commentary / Chicago Sun-Times 25aug02

West Nile virus has killed 14 people in the United States this year, including eight in Louisiana and one in Illinois. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says West Nile virus is in the United States to stay. The virus may now be found in 41 states, including every state from Texas to the Atlantic.

CDC director Julie Geberding called West Nile virus an ''emerging, infectious disease epidemic'' that could be spread all the way to the Pacific Coast by birds and mosquitoes.

Louisiana has been monitoring the virus since 2000 and has one of the most active mosquito-control programs in the country--and yet is the state with the highest death toll.

It's time to bring back the insecticide DDT.

Pesticides such as malathion, resmethrin and sumithrin can be effective in killing mosquitoes but are significantly limited because they don't persist in the environment after spraying.

DDT does. DDT lingers longer and so is more effective in mosquito control.

DDT's persistence, in fact, is often used as an argument against the insecticide. Though the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972, three decades later residue of its byproducts may still be found in our bodies and the environment. But there has never been any credible evidence that this residue has caused any harm.

Limiting DDT use solely to mosquito control would ensure that any such buildup would be dramatically lower than in the past.

Claims that mosquitoes eventually would develop resistance to DDT are off-base. While some mosquitoes may over time develop physiological mechanisms of resistance to DDT's lethal effects, it still provokes strong avoidance behavior so mosquitoes spend less time in areas where DDT has been applied. This reduces mosquito-human contact.

DDT also is less toxic to humans than the alternative chemicals. That should be a boon to those who believe they are sickened by the spraying of the alternatives.

No doubt anti-chemical and environmental activists would wage war on any effort to bring back DDT. Rachel Carson's attack on DDT in her 1962 book Silent Spring, after all, was the springboard of success for modern environmentalism.

But the activists don't like any of the chemicals used currently either. Tufts University anti-chemical activist-researcher Dr. Sheldon Krimsky said on ABC's ''World News Tonight,'' for example, ''The chemicals have not been adequately tested for their human health effects. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that they cause cancer in animal studies. They are hormone disrupters.''

It's a lot of balderdash, but more to the point, what alternatives do the environmentalists offer?

A Chicago-based group called the Safer Pest Control Project is calling on municipalities to abandon insecticides in favor of so-called ''ecological methods.'' The group wants to monitor mosquito populations by using traps and by checking ponds and sources of water for signs of mosquito larvae.

No problem. Just let me know which mud puddle is my responsibility.

It wants to eliminate breeding areas by draining areas of stagnant water and aerating ponds. Perhaps the Safer Pest Control Project has missed the last 30 years of enviromania that has succeeded in labeling virtually every standing body of water a ''wetland'' subject to onerous federal permitting and regulation. By the time permits were obtained, mosquito season would be over.

My favorite recommendation for mosquito control is stocking ornamental ponds with mosquito larvae-eating fish--but we need to make sure they don't ''threaten the ecology of natural areas by competing with native species for food.''

The pest project is ambivalent about vegetable-based horticultural oils, which are ''effective in killing larvae in water and sinking egg rafts on the surface . . . [but] can kill beneficial organisms, including some mosquito predators.''

''Ecological methods,'' it seems, is merely a euphemism for saying ''Shoo!''

Judicious use of DDT won't harm people or the environment. It will, however, kill mosquitoes--which is better than them killing us.

Steven Milloy is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001). E-mail: milloy@cais.com