Not only is it not a cancer risk, but it could help save 3 million Africans a year with its use. Why do the WHO and other aid organizations refuse to spend money on such a beneficial pesticide?
Please don't start with the demise of bird life... it has been shown that if DDT is used in proper/small amounts around villages and areas where there are humans it will decrease malaria dramatically. The bird issue was due to the fact that we sprayed DDT on EVERYTHING all the time, even picnicking human beings.
2006-07-26 07:25:52 · 6 answers · asked by Goose&Tonic 6 in Politics & Government ➔ Other - Politics & Government
Some points:
1. None of 35 workers heavily exposed to DDT (600 times the average U.S. exposure for 9 to 19 years) developed cancer.
[Laws, ER. 1967. Arch Env Health 15:766-775]
2. Men who voluntarily ingested 35 mgs of DDT daily for nearly two years were carefully examined for years and "developed no adverse effects."
[Hayes, W. 1956. JAMA 162:890-897]
3. The environmental movement used DDT as a means to increase their power. Charles Wurster, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, commented, "If the 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."
[Seattle Times, October 5, 1969]
4. William Ruckelshaus, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who made the ultimate decision to ban DDT in 1972, was a member of the Environmental Defense Fund. Ruckelshaus solicited donations for EDF on his personal stationery that read "EDF's scientists blew the whistle on DDT by showing it to be a cancer hazard, and three years later, when the dust had cleared, EDF had won."
5. Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."
[Sweeney, EM. 1972. EPA Hearing Examiner's recommendations and findings concerning DDT hearings, April 25, 1972 (40 CFR 164.32, 113 pages). Summarized in Barrons (May 1, 1972) and Oregonian (April 26, 1972)]
6. Overruling the EPA hearing examiner, EPA administrator Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckelshaus' aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT.
[Santa Ana Register, April 25, 1972]
7. After reversing the EPA hearing examiner's decision, Ruckelshaus refused to release materials upon which his ban was based. Ruckelshaus rebuffed USDA efforts to obtain those materials through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming that they were just "internal memos." Scientists were therefore prevented from refuting the false allegations in the Ruckelshaus' "Opinion and Order on DDT."
and 93 other points
2006-07-26 08:35:13 · answer #1 · answered by JB 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Did you know that DDT doesn't break down, so over time it builds up in the ecosystem. Also, higher order consumers are the ones that the toxins build up in the fastest. We are higher order consumers!
Also, over time the pests become immune to the pesticide, so pesticide models are only a quick-fix. They don't solve the long term issues. Money is better spent on research for cures to ailments like Malaria.
There are more negative side effects from chemicals than just cancer too.
2006-07-26 07:32:29 · answer #2 · answered by Loulabelle 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Unlike other pesticides DDT takes decades to break down. And like all other pesticides repeated application means the insects develop resistance.
The down side is it's cumulative effects over long periods of time are well documented. Probably this may be the only time I'll agree with the WHO.
2006-07-26 07:32:31 · answer #3 · answered by namsaev 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It causes many diseases in lots of animals not just birds and humans, and why use that when we can introduce a natural predator to mosquitoes? Such as predatory fish that feed on mosqito larvae, killifish, minnows.
2006-07-26 07:29:14 · answer #4 · answered by RATM 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
DDT is destructive to ecosystems even in small amounts. to discount its negative environmental effects is simply short-sided.
2006-07-26 07:27:43 · answer #5 · answered by Billy W 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I agree!
There's no telling how many people have died from malaria b/c of the hysteria surrounding this pesticide.
You rock, my friend.
2006-07-26 07:27:53 · answer #6 · answered by Vosot 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋