quote:Originally posted by DevilBunny: [qb] Why shouldn't the environment be put above the poor?
It's not as if humans are an endangered species - unlike some of the animals affected by DDT.
Yeah, let em die. The world doesn't need any more poor african children we already have enough. Right?!?
Yes. You are correct. The world does not need more starving children. We have far too many already.
You might as well argue that a starving family should eat their seed grain. Yes, it will feed them...for now. And leave them in worse shape later.
By the time it has come to that level of desperation, it's too late. Eating the seed grain won't save any lives.
For many years, the world has been able to produce enough food the feed everybody. War and civil disruption have become the cause of world famine now.
quote:If you devastate the regions ecostructure by causing the exinction of birds -- including the birds who keep the mosquito population down -- then you will have more people dying of malaria.
Birds, while they can eat many mosquitoes, really don't eat enough to control a mosquito population. In the same vein, contrary to a common myth, neither do bats.
quote:DDT is not the answer. Nor is pouring oil into every pool of standing water, and draining all the swamps.
I hope you don't mind the soapbox, but a lot of people still think that this is the way things are done. There are many more, and environmentally safer, techniques in common use for controlling mosquitoes. As time goes on, the older techniques fall into disuse and newer means are adopted.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DevilBunny: Zachary: all your questions are easily answered if you assume that human life is not intrinsically worth more than any other kind of life.
Which is more how I used to think than how I think now. Somewhere along the line, I think I may have sold out. That saddens me, quite a lot.
Well, if it is any comfort, I don't think you should be sad or consider it to be selling out. IMO, human life is more valuable than animal life. Just because there are now an awful lot of us does not make any one human worth less, or indeed worthless.
Posts: 2370 | From: Arabia | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I wonder what the reaction will be when the DDT starts harming endandgered species and gets injested by livestock drinking from rivers where DDT gets washed into from rubble when buildings are torn down.
It's too easy to see the DDT being over used by people who aren't trained well enough or having desperate farmers use it on their crops. Africa has enough trouble with bad farming practices (people not rotating crops, dividing land between sons and so on), is it really a good idea to potentially give them another opertunity to mess things up further?
Posts: 824 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: For many years, the world has been able to produce enough food the feed everybody. War and civil disruption have become the cause of world famine now.
The world can feed itself...but many regions of the world cannot. The principal cause of famine is population growth beyond the carrying capacity of a specific region.
i.e., yes, all of Africa could be fed...if all of Europe, Asia, and the Americas grew food and donated it at far below cost.
And...if that were to happen...would the population of the starving areas stabilize...or would it continue to increase?
We're coming up on our seventh billion. Is there anyone here who thinks this is a good thing?
re birds and bats, I don't have any cites to offer, but I have always been taught that natural predation is the mechanism by which insect populations are prevented from exploding. If you kill off the natural predators, it is folly to imagine that the insects will not multiply.
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Exposed DDT on building walls breaks down readily and is less of an environmental hazard. DDT becomes persistant when in soil or water. There has been concerns about soil accumulation in dirt floor huts treated with DDT as an IRS. In previous posts on the subject, I've discussed other problems associated with DDT used in this way.
Misappropriation of DDT for crop use has been a major concern for years, especially in areas with poor institutional controls on how it is used.
Malaria is the most dangerous infectious disease we face, with hundreds of millions of cases and about 1-3 million fatalities per year. We should be using all of the tools at our disposal to fight this disease. Even with the serious problems associated with it, DDT still has a place when properly used and monitored, until it can be fully replaced. That process has been going on for several years as several different materials have been accepted that have fewer environmetnal adverse effects and can be applied at lower dosages of active ingredients. In my opinion, the recent change in the WHO program is a step backward, both in terms of environmental safety, and in long-term efficacy in fighting malaria.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: For many years, the world has been able to produce enough food the feed everybody. War and civil disruption have become the cause of world famine now.
The world can feed itself...but many regions of the world cannot. The principal cause of famine is population growth beyond the carrying capacity of a specific region.
i.e., yes, all of Africa could be fed...if all of Europe, Asia, and the Americas grew food and donated it at far below cost.
And...if that were to happen...would the population of the starving areas stabilize...or would it continue to increase?
We're coming up on our seventh billion. Is there anyone here who thinks this is a good thing?
I agree that humans can expand beyond the local carrying capacity in local regions. We have the capacity to feed them now, and we should because it is the right thing to do.
You are correct that, long-term, the population needs to stablize. That will happen with economic stablization of the areas. Across different cultures, as economic condition improves and stablizes, so does population growth. In a way, you can view it as the upper end of the logistic growth curve.
quote:re birds and bats, I don't have any cites to offer, but I have always been taught that natural predation is the mechanism by which insect populations are prevented from exploding. If you kill off the natural predators, it is folly to imagine that the insects will not multiply.
Silas
Correct. However, the most effective natural predators are those that can reproductively respond in time with the prey. Birds and bats have reproductive rates are far too slow to respond to upsurges in mosquito populations. Besides, insectivorous birds and bats tend to be generalists in their prey range, eating whatever insect flies within range. Mosquitoes commonly account for only a tiny percentage of their diet. If you have enough birds or bats in an area to really control mosquitoes, they'll move onto other insects when the mosquitoes become scarce, including beneficial insects. After that, the birds and bats will migrate away or die off from starvation, allowing quick and easy recolonization by mosquitoes.
Natural mosquito populations are normally limited by natural predators with similarly timed life cycles, typically other insects or arthropods. Many of these can be harmed by DDT or other wide-spectrum insecticides, which is another reason why these are no longer used as area adulticides for mosquito control.
Even with these natural predators in place, mosquitoes have such a high reproductive capacity that they can outstrip even these natural control measures. Another thing to remember is that the mosquito population maintained by their natural predators will often be high enough to facilitate transmission of mosquito-borne illnesses. On top of that, there are hundreds of mosquito species, each with their own ecological niche and suite of natural predators. What works well against one species will not necessarily work well against others. Some important advances have been made using biological control, including the bacterial larvicides Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis and Bacillus sphaericus. These are highly specific, primarily affecting aquatic Diptera and have a very high safety margin.
I'll stop here before I get too long-winded, but I'll expand more if you want.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
What about an animal you don't know personally vs a human you don't know personally?
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: I agree that humans can expand beyond the local carrying capacity in local regions. We have the capacity to feed them now, and we should because it is the right thing to do.
Well, we're edging toward an agreement... I certainly agree that donating food to the starving is a good thing...but it saddens me when it becomes a source of dependency.
quote: You are correct that, long-term, the population needs to stablize. That will happen with economic stablization of the areas. Across different cultures, as economic condition improves and stablizes, so does population growth. In a way, you can view it as the upper end of the logistic growth curve.
This has been observed in the Western Industrialized nations; I've heard it called the "Industrialized Population Transformation," where the S curve levels off according to significant economic wealth.
And I have no objection whatever to the world becoming wealthy! This also tends to be accompanied by education, which is (in my opinion) even more necessary for global survival than food.
quote: I'll stop here before I get too long-winded, but I'll expand more if you want.
You clearly have a lot more eco-science under your belt than I do!
I just have to wish that, instead of returning to the use of DDT, we could find something else that is less likely to accumulate in the food chain.
(I believe it was National Geographic that had an article about a scientist who was going out and jabbing at whales with a mini-harpoon, to bring back samples -- less than 1 ml -- of blubber, from which he was measuring DDT levels. The results were not reassuring.)
Lead-based paint, Chlordane, Asbestos, CFCs...and DDT: in my mind, they are all ideas that may have been good at the time, but whose return would make me very uncomfortable.
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by DevilBunny: IMO, human life is more valuable than animal life.
Why?
When I value human life above animal it's pure selfishness; they're people I know and love. People I don't know don't matter to me in the slightest.
How ridiculous. Surely you can see that every single person who dies of malaria probably matters very much to someone else.
Even if you can't, saying that immediate human suffering is not worth stopping is despicable, IMO. Letting people starve or die in wars or of malaria because you think the world is overpopulated is callousness of the worst kind. Typical Western liberalism. Every human being does deserve to live a comfortable, happy life, even if they live in an overpopulated region. Perhaps DDT is not the ideal means to achieve that, but it is worth achieving.
-------------------- Officially Heartless Posts: 3065 | From: The Montgomery County of the West Coast- Berkeley, CA | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ThistleSquall: Every human being does deserve to live a comfortable, happy life, even if they live in an overpopulated region. Perhaps DDT is not the ideal means to achieve that, but it is worth achieving.
What if the costs of that full and happy life include ecological degradation, leading to future starvation and misery?
Eat the seed grain; cut down the forests; this may make one generation happy, but will harm those that follow.
Everyone deserves a chance at a good life; seven billion of us, however, not only do not *deserve* such a chance (because the costs would prohibit posterity from the same chance) but cannot possibly *have* that chance, since the resources do not exist. We can feed the world...but we can't give everyone a car and 40 feet of roads and freeways.
(Actually, I was quite surprised to learn that there are only 4 million miles of public roads in the U.S., which is very roughly 40 feet of road per citizen; I would have guessed the number to be much higher.)
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by DevilBunny: When I value human life above animal it's pure selfishness; they're people I know and love. People I don't know don't matter to me in the slightest.
DevilBunny, you are living under several misconceptions.
First, people who are impaired by recurrant malaria (and if you don't die from it, it tends to come back again and again) will not generate the wealth needed to protect the environment. While there are many reasons that most of Africa is poor, malaria certainly is one. A healthier and richer Africa would be better able to combat poachers, and to enforce laws against air and water pollution.
Second, DDT reasonably used does not kill wildlife. You may be under the spell of the most destructive person ever to come out of my state, the model junk scientist, Rachel Carson.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Steve Eisenberg: You may be under the spell of the most destructive person ever to come out of my state, the model junk scientist, Rachel Carson.
Woah. "Most destructive person"? That's a pretty hefty accusation, considering that I'm sure your state has had its share of mass murderers and other hateful people. Even supposing that her science wasn't correct (I don't really know), she certianly raised people's awareness to the possibility of a problem. I'd say that awareness more than makes up for whatever "destruction" her ideas have made (even as dubious as that claim is).
ETA - I'll tell you what really ticks me off about your accusation. "Junk science" means science without the evidence to back it up. Yet you throw out this accusation of "most destructive person" without any evidence that is is even close to being true and without any hope of ever proving it. That, IMO, is "junk politics" of the most hypocritical kind.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ganzfeld: Woah. "Most destructive person"? That's a pretty hefty accusation, considering that I'm sure your state has had its share of mass murderers and other hateful people. Even supposing that her science wasn't correct (I don't really know), she certianly raised people's awareness to the possibility of a problem.
quote:Carson either did not read DeWitt's article, or she deliberately lied about the results of DeWitt's experiments on pheasants, which were published on the same page. The "controls" hatched only 57.4 percent of their eggs, while the DDT-fed pheasants, (dosed with 50 ppm of DDT in all of their food during the entire year) hatched 80.6 percent of theirs. After two weeks, the DDT chicks had 100 percent survival, while the control chicks only had 94.8 percent survival, and after 8 weeks the DDT chicks had 93.3 percent survival while the control chicks only had 89.7 percent survival. It was false reporting such as this that caused so many leading scientists in the United States to take Rachel Carson to task.
As for the destructiveness of serial killers, I believe that Carson's scientific misdeeds are indirectly responsible for millions of deaths from malaria. This, by the way, is why she was so much more harmful than today's intelligent designers, even though you can find similar misuse of the scientific studies they cite.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Steve Eisenberg: As for the destructiveness of serial killers, I believe that Carson's scientific misdeeds are indirectly responsible for millions of deaths from malaria. This, by the way, is why she was so much more harmful than today's intelligent designers, even though you can find similar misuse of the scientific studies they cite.
Urgh. I don't know why I should even have to counter such nonsense. You're saying that her science was responsible for people's deaths?! That's absurd. (And it certainly makes a lot of mass murderers out of innocent scientists and engineers.) But, since you insist: please show me one place in any of her articles or papers where she advocated a total ban on the use of DDT (or any other pesticide, for that matter).
ETA -- What's this intelligent design smokescreen? Best Non-sequitur of the Week Award.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ganzfeld: But, since you insist: please show me one place in any of her articles or papers where she advocated a total ban on the use of DDT (or any other pesticide, for that matter).
When she died in 1964, this was politically inconceivable. By the time I read Silent Spring in the early 1970's (not understanding until years later that it was a prevaricating polemic), what was possible had changed. If Carson had lived, would she have opposed the 1972 US DDT ban, and similar bans in most other countries? If so, she would have been seen as abandoning the movement she pioneered.
As for me insisting, I don't recall insisting that you criticize me for something I didn't say (that Carson came out for a DDT ban). If you really want to indulge me, look at one of the Carson citations the late J. Gordon Edwards states were distorted and show me how Carson was right.
A Carson whopper:
quote:"Like the robin, another American bird seems to be on the verge of extinction. This is the national symbol, the eagle."
Robin on verge of extinction? Was I looking out the window once in a while? How could I have been so naive to read that sentence and not know what she was doing?
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Steve Eisenberg: When she died in 1964, this was politically inconceivable. By the time I read Silent Spring in the early 1970's (not understanding until years later that it was a prevaricating polemic), what was possible had changed. If Carson had lived, would she have opposed the 1972 US DDT ban, and similar bans in most other countries? If so, she would have been seen as abandoning the movement she pioneered.
WTF? You're accusing her of something she might have done if she had lived? This is new territory for me. I have to study my Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass to tackle this logic. This is even dumber than accusing a scientist of indirect murder because of a recommendation about a pesticide -- which, as I pointed out, she never made!
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ganzfeld: This is even dumber than accusing a scientist of indirect murder because of a recommendation about a pesticide -- which, as I pointed out, she never made!
She said that pesticides, especially DDT, were destroying the birds. It wasn't a scientific recommendation, it was a political polemic designed to make people hate pesticides. And it worked.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Steve Eisenberg: She said that pesticides, especially DDT, were destroying the birds. It wasn't a scientific recommendation, it was a political polemic designed to make people hate pesticides. And it worked.
Just as yours is a polemic designed to make people hate environmentalists.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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A healthier and richer Africa would be better able to combat poachers, and to enforce laws against air and water pollution.
Because all the existing rich countries of the world are doing so well at that. I reckon a richer Africa will lead to more pollution. Meet back here in fifty years to see who's right?
ThistleSquall:
How ridiculous. Surely you can see that every single person who dies of malaria probably matters very much to someone else.
I'm sure they do. And that's why I called my preferential regard for those I love 'selfish'. It's in opposition to the belief that I hold that the excess of humanity is destroying this planet. The rest of your post assumes that I view humans as intrinsically more valuable than other animals; I don't.
GenYus: What about an animal you don't know personally vs a human you don't know personally?
That's a very good question
If it was a human I didn't know personally against an endangered animal, I'd go for the animal.
If it was a human I didn't know personally against a cute ickle kittykat, it would be more of a dilemma.
On the one hand, cats ain't exactly endangered. On the other hand, I have cute ickle kittykats of my own. On the third hand, I'm as much a slave to social pressure as the next woman, and choosing the cat above the human would pretty much lead to my being reviled...
I suspect that in practice, I'd Unresponsive Bystander until the question was moot. And I wouldn't feel good about that, either.
It's been said that the more rabid environmentalists don't so much love animals as hate people, and you know, I think that's actually true. The way I'm portraying myself in this thread is an outbreak of my more rabid past, which was from a time when, well, humans other than my immediate family had largely failed to give me any particular reason to value them. Developing a large social network has happened at much the same time as a softening of my views, and I don't think that's coincidental.
The problem is, every time I look at it reasonably, setting aside my emotional attachments, I still come to the conclusion that my original viewpoint was right.
-------------------- "For God has seven thousand names, and one of them is bastard" Posts: 420 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2002
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When it comes to DDT, the name says it all. IMO, it is junk science. It selectively uses some information and selectively ignores much more, and recent, scientific information.
I've covered much of the background on DDT in other threads, but I'll give a quick repeat.
Yes, the science about birds that was used in the US ban on DDT was bad. However, that does not nullify all the subsequent information that points to the serious problems with the widespread use of DDT. Contrary to common myth, in the US, DDT use for mosquito control had peaked in the 50s and had dropped to very low levels by the 1972. It wouldn't have met re-registration requirements under FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act) if it had ever come up for review.
Most of the current objections to the ban on DDT rely on looking at the old data and/or scapegoating Racheal Carlson and rarely look at newer information. Nobody scientifically doubts that DDT is a persistant organic pollutant and can bioaccumulate.
DDT is a broad-spectrum insecticide that kills many different arthropods, including many nontargets and beneficials. Resistance to DDT has been reported throughout it's use as an area spray (which extended in the developing world well past the US 1972 ban, which some people erroneously assume was a world-wide ban). The mosquito control literature continued to have articles on DDT-resistance well into the 90s.
DDT is not a magic bullet for malaria, and it never was. It's main claim to fame was that it was the first mass-produced synthetic insecticide. DDT alone was never part of a successful anti-malaria program, but as part of a multi-pronged approach. And, there are many newer, and safer, materials that have replaced it.
The current, and only, approved use is as an Interior Repellent Spray (IRS), one of about 10 or 12 chemicals recommended by WHOPES (WHO Pesticide Evaluation Scheme). In that role, it really is not the best material to use overall, but it can be the best choice under the proper conditions.
1. It's what can be brought on scene and used in time at the start of an outbreak. Timing is important with IRS applications to prevent the early spread of malaria during an epidemic. or 2. When personnel shortages mean that reapplications cannot be reliablely made in less than six months. DDT is among the longest-lasting of the approved IRS sprays. or 3. When the local Anopheles popluation is resistance to the other materials available for use, like orthophosphates or synthetic pyrethroids.
Incidently, in areas that already have DDT-resistant mosquitoes, it won't work well as an IRS. The WHOPES recommendations for IRS applications include specific instructions on resistance management, which the current initiative seems to be ignoring.
As a reference point, there is debate within the professional mosquito control community about the level of DDT use for IRS sprays. However, there is little debate about any kind of wider use, because the scientific evidence is so much against it.
DDT is a controversial subject and there is a lot of misinformation out there on both sides of the issue.
Malaria is a complex disease, with four different Plasmodium species as pathogens vectored by dozens of Anopheles mosquito species. History has shown that it can only be managed by applying efforts to all stages of the vector and disease species. Removing or reducing man-made larval habitats, using newer larval control methods on natural habitats. Using newer adult control sprays for general adult control. Residence denial, via IRS sprays, bed nets or window screening. Medical prophylaxis of exposed populations, and finally, proper medical care of those infected.
quote:Originally posted by Ganzfeld: This is even dumber than accusing a scientist of indirect murder because of a recommendation about a pesticide -- which, as I pointed out, she never made!
She said that pesticides, especially DDT, were destroying the birds. It wasn't a scientific recommendation, it was a political polemic designed to make people hate pesticides. And it worked.
A cut and paste of my response in a prior discussion (the John Stossel thread in Politics). ----------- Intersting article from the NY Times when looked at in comparison to the LA Times article above:
From the LA Times article:
quote:"DDT is the answer to our problems," said Dr. John Rwakimari, head of the national malaria program in Uganda, where malaria rates over the last 15 years have increased fivefold. "We must do something."
From the NY Times article:
quote:In Uganda, population 28 million, not one of the 1.8 million nets approved more than two years ago by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has yet arrived.
quote:Still, the Ugandan government has not yet bought the nets the fund approved more than two years ago. "Oh, my dear, there are a lot of complications in procurement here," said John Rwakimari, who runs the country's malaria program.
If he can't be trusted to obtain free bed nets, how can this guy be trusted to properly supervise a DDT interior repellent spray program? -------
This man is now proudly displayed on the front page of the junkscience website, wearing their t-shirt.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:THE European Union (EU) will ban exports from Uganda if the proposed use of DDT as a malaria preventive measure goes ahead
Why should the EU bother about how Uganda solves their problems. It's their country, it's up to them to select a solution that fits them.
I'm unclear about the specific EU objections. My guess would be concern about diversion of DDT from IRS applications to agricultural use, but I would hazard no further than that.
My concern about he Uganda program has been the apparent push to very heavily use DDT as the primary control agent, a strategy I don't think I need to repeat my objections to. I am concerned about a malaria control director that has apparently become so enamored with one strategy that he is ignoring others, even when they are available at no charge to his program.
ETA: correction of embarassing spelling transposition.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by Troberg:
quote:3. You are both wrong and the world will continue as is.
Nah, that's just plain wierd.
quote:THE European Union (EU) will ban exports from Uganda if the proposed use of DDT as a malaria preventive measure goes ahead
Why should the EU bother about how Uganda solves their problems. It's their country, it's up to them to select a solution that fits them.
From the article:
quote:Over 80% of Uganda’s major exports of fish, cut flowers and coffee are to the EU market.
These are predominantly agricultural products, and could conceivably be contaminated by the use of a banned pesticide.
It may well be the case that the dangers of DDT have been grossly overstated, but the EU are still perfectly within their rights to legislate against contaminants.
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by ThistleSquall: Every human being does deserve to live a comfortable, happy life, even if they live in an overpopulated region. Perhaps DDT is not the ideal means to achieve that, but it is worth achieving.
What if the costs of that full and happy life include ecological degradation, leading to future starvation and misery?
What if we could figure out a way to end current misery without mortgaging the future? Some applications of DDT are not terribly harmful to the environment, you know.
quote:Eat the seed grain; cut down the forests; this may make one generation happy, but will harm those that follow.
If everyone in Africa dies of malaria there will be no following generations.
quote:Everyone deserves a chance at a good life; seven billion of us, however, not only do not *deserve* such a chance (because the costs would prohibit posterity from the same chance) but cannot possibly *have* that chance, since the resources do not exist. We can feed the world...but we can't give everyone a car and 40 feet of roads and freeways.
What makes you think I'm advocating that everyone live the overconsumptive life of a Westerner? There's a mile wide line between dying of preventable diseases or starvation and having a car and a three bedroom house. All I'm advocating is the responsibility I think we all share to prevent human suffering. You'll notice that I said DDT may not be the best answer, but the answer is definitely not to just let Africans die off because no one in the developed world cares about them as individuals.
Preventing suffering and raising the quality of life in the developing world will improve the ability of the developing world to care for the environment.
-------------------- Officially Heartless Posts: 3065 | From: The Montgomery County of the West Coast- Berkeley, CA | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:THE European Union (EU) will ban exports from Uganda if the proposed use of DDT as a malaria preventive measure goes ahead
Why should the EU bother about how Uganda solves their problems. It's their country, it's up to them to select a solution that fits them.
1) They can't interfere in Uganda's internal affairs, but are under no obligation to cooperate. This is an appropriate method of protest (so long as it applies to all countries equally, to avoid WTO involvement.)
2) If DDT is harmful, which the EU believes (as do I) then Uganda's use of it may lead to contamination of water, and rivers, and down-river land, and the world's seas.
(Was Chernobyl solely a "Russian" problem?)
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Troberg: This is one of the rare occasions where I and Steve Eisenberg are on the same side of a political issue.
Almost as disconcerting, I find myself on roughly the same side as a UN agency, the World Health Organization.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: (incidently, DDT use for mosquito control peaked in the mid-50s and was already in sharp decline by the time Silent Spring was published)
The decline was in the US and Europe, and here's the reason:
quote:The program consisted primarily of DDT application to the interior surfaces of rural homes or entire premises in counties where malaria was reported to have been prevalent in recent years. By the end of 1949, over 4,650,000 house spray applications had been made. Total elimination of transmission was slowly achieved. By 1951, CDC gradually withdrew from active participation in the operational phases of the program and shifted to its interest to surveillance, and in 1952, CDC participation in operations ceased altogether.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: We should be using all of the tools at our disposal to fight this disease.
Well, you might want to stay away from pyrethroid insecticides, since they have the worst aquired resistance problems (google for details).
Probably the most effective tool is draining swamps. Excuse me. Wetlands.
Draining marshy areas is what got rid of most of the malaria in the US, with DDT then finishing it off.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: (incidently, DDT use for mosquito control peaked in the mid-50s and was already in sharp decline by the time Silent Spring was published)
The decline was in the US and Europe, and here's the reason:
quote:The program consisted primarily of DDT application to the interior surfaces of rural homes or entire premises in counties where malaria was reported to have been prevalent in recent years. By the end of 1949, over 4,650,000 house spray applications had been made. Total elimination of transmission was slowly achieved. By 1951, CDC gradually withdrew from active participation in the operational phases of the program and shifted to its interest to surveillance, and in 1952, CDC participation in operations ceased altogether.
Also from the article:
quote:Control efforts conducted by the state and local health departments, supported by the federal government, resulted in the disease being eradicated by 1949. Such measures included drainage, removal of mosquito breeding sites, and spraying (occasionally from aircrafts) of insecticides
Correct, I was referring to the US, my error in not making the clarification. But, please see the above quote from the same article: Accent mine. Malaria eradication programs in the US started well before WWII and the availablity of DDT. The widespread adoption of window screening during the 30s was also a major component of malaria removal. DDT resistance was an important part of why it's use was reduced, with the first reports appearing by the late 40s. Remember, malaria is not the only mosquito borne illness we are concerned about in the US. So, it makes no sense to remove DDT from regular use for simply bringing one of them under control. Besides, DDT use for mosquito control increased after malaria was declared erraticated in 1951 to reach the peak use in the mi-50s, so successful malaria containment wasn't the reason for declining use of DDT for mosquito control.
ETA: Final sentence added to clarify point.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by RLobinske: We should be using all of the tools at our disposal to fight this disease.
Well, you might want to stay away from pyrethroid insecticides, since they have the worst aquired resistance problems (google for details).
Actually, I don't need to google search on the subject, I can directly check my journals. Yes, resistance can occur with pyrethroids. As I've stated many times before, resistance can occur with any regularly applied material and there are techniques available to reduce resistance risk. Those are actively used by many control programs, and should be used to keep materials we have effective. Back to my point, we should use all the tools we have at your disposal. The synthetic pyrethroids currently labeled in the US for adult mosquito control have some of the hightest nontarget safety margins available and are highly effective at very low volumes of active ingredient per area treated.
As a reference, there are currently five materials labeld by the EPA for general adult mosquito control in the US: the orthophosates malathion and dibrom, and the synthetic pyrethroids permethrin, resmethrin and sumithrin.
quote:Probably the most effective tool is draining swamps. Excuse me. Wetlands.
Draining marshy areas is what got rid of most of the malaria in the US, with DDT then finishing it off.
Gee, make up your mind. Was wetland draining the main tool or DDT, as you implied in your previous post? As I've also previously covered, the successful US program used many different components, such as source control, DDT sprays, screening and larviciding, to name a few. All were important to the overall effect. The same applies to the areas of the world that still have malaria. It will require an integrated approach. There is no magic bullet. There is no one answer.
Seriously, draining wetlands will only work for some mosquito species. Plenty of others survive and breed well in a wide variety of other habitats that can hold water. Many of these, it will never be practical to drain. Humans also produced plenty of mosquito habitat on their own. Including places like flooded rice fields. Education is another critical part of any malaria control program, to help those in the affected area to recognize the sources that they have under their control and to use that control.
We need to really look at the science involved and set aside our political and social prisms. Both sides of this debate too often seem to be operating from outdated information, either from still following the erroneous ideas of DDT toxicity like shell-thinning in raptors, or they look no further than the science that demonstrated the error of those earlier studies. Instead, what we really have is a much more complicated situation than either side presents.
Posts: 296 | From: Crawfordville, Florida | Registered: Dec 2005
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