Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Ed Darrell is working is way through the inaccuracies in junkscience.com's "100 things you should know about DDT". He's up to the claim that DDT prevented 500 million deaths:
First, the mathematics are simply impossible: At about 1 million deaths per year, if we assume DDT could have prevented all of the deaths (which is not so), and had we assumed usage started in 1939 instead of 1946 (a spot of 7 years and 7 million deaths), we would have 69 million deaths prevented by 2008. As best I can determine, the 500 million death figure is a misreading from an early WHO report that noted about 500 million people are annually exposed to malaria, I'm guessing a bit at that conclusion -- that's the nicest way to attribute it to simple error and not malicious lie. It was 500 million exposures to malaria, not 500 million deaths. It's unfortunate that this erroneous figure found its way into a publication of the NAS -- I suppose it's the proof that anyone can err. ...
But the actual publication from the National Academy of Sciences suggests other issues that JunkScience.com would rather you not know about.
Importantly and specifically, the National Academy of Sciences is calling for broad research 1.) to avoid the problems that DDT presented (problems which Junk Science denies exist), and 2.) to combat the continuing evolution of the insect pests (evolution which Junk Science also denies), and 3.) to provide insecticides that hit specific targets to avoid the collateral damage of harming helpful insects, other animals and especially predators of the harmful insects (more problems that Junk Science pretends do not exist).
Darrell also takes the time debunk yet another repetition of the evil environmentalists banned DDT hoax, this time from Jay Ambrose. Who shows up in comments claiming to have a "long list of documented facts", but fails to deliver.
Comments
I am going to deliver the facts and make it clear that the anti-DDT killers are still on the loose. Hang on to your seat, pal.
Posted by: Jay Ambrose | August 10, 2007 6:36 PM
I was directed to junkscience by a denialist who claimed not to trust Real CLimate. The fact that all the junkscience graphs and data had big words on it saying it was from NASA and GISS and so on, seemed to have escaped them.
Posted by: guthrie | August 11, 2007 9:16 AM
Glad to hear it, Jay. I hope your facts will come from actual scientists, not folks like Crichton, Bate and Driessen.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | August 11, 2007 9:23 AM
I was listening to a interview with a man that worked as a doctor in Nepal, and the peasants loved when his group would show up with their DDT because the next day all the pest in the bedding would be dead.
The proposal that DDT should be returned to use as a spot treatment to fight malaria is a short term measure. There have to be better products developed since 1934. If there haven't, then the whole field of chemistry has been for naught.
Posted by: wildcardjack | August 11, 2007 11:32 PM
Be careful Jay. I myself tried to fight the anti-DDT killers, but they were respawning so fast that they quickly overwhelmed me. I had no choice but to retreat.
Of course Tim Lambert was remotely leading his army. We must destroy him, for like the Makron in Quake II & IV, he is the central node of the anti-DDT killers collective consciousness. Without him, they fall.
Godspeed.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | August 12, 2007 12:05 AM
Gee, Tyler. Ben Franklin was famous for having said that in a fair fight, truth wins. Like the U.S. GIs on the beaches of Normandy, the facts don't need a "central-node" in order to stand.
What's wrong with just sticking to the facts?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | August 13, 2007 4:06 PM
Ed, it's because they refuse to accept that, even for 1/12th of a second, that DDT isn't the best, safest, most effective pesticide in this or any other universe. They suffer from a malady well-recognized by video gamers as "fanboyism." Atari Jaguar fanatics and Final Fantasy 7 crazies are among the worst.
Posted by: Laser Potato | August 17, 2007 5:19 PM
"I was listening to a interview with a man that worked as a doctor in Nepal, and the peasants loved when his group would show up with their DDT because the next day all the pest in the bedding would be dead."
And yet, last week when I googled DDT and bedbug, I came up with four or five reliable sites, including a couple of peer reviewed papers, which referred to the excitatory action of DDT on pests such as bedbugs which makes people relucant to have DDT sprayed in their bedrooms, as though it were general knowledge. So I dutifully posted them all on Wikipedia.
Posted by: z | August 17, 2007 7:26 PM
"There have to be better products developed since 1934."
Indeed, some of the aforementioned articles discussed the advantages of pyrethrins, for instance, which being faster acting actually killed more mosquitoes, while the vaunted irritant action of DDT made them fly away to bite another day. Which I dutifully also stuck into Wikipedia.
Posted by: z | August 17, 2007 7:28 PM