It’s Time to Stop Malaria Now
Having seen the ravages of that disease first hand in Tanzania, I am pleased to see the US gov’t reverse it’s anti-DDT policy (link).
I am also dismayed at the anti-DDT propaganda that became environmentalist dogma - at the cost of tens of millions of lives.
There never was any scientific evidence that DDT posed a risk to humans or wildlife. An EPA administrative law judge said as much after seven months and 9,000 pages of testimony about DDT in 1972. DDT wasn’t responsible for the decline in bald eagle populations, didn’t cause bird egg shell-thinning and didn’t cause cancer in humans, the judge determined.
DDT was nonethless banned in the U.S. when then-EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus reversed without explanation the decision of the judge who actually heard all the DDT testimony – Ruckleshaus heard none of it and never read any of the transcript. As it was later revealed, Ruckleshaus was a member of the Audubon Society and raised money for the Environmental Defense Fund – the two activist groups that led the charge for the DDT ban.
The fix was in for DDT, as environmental activists subsequently exported the ban to the rest of the world – with horrific consequences, including tens of millions killed and billions made ill by malaria over time.
