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Phony Research Led to Ban on DDT
THE ANGRY ENVIRONMENTALIST SPEAKS OUT
by `Fossil Bill' Kramer
{DDT took a bum rap!}
Does this shock you? It did me, but there is no doubt about the facts.
As a result of America's ban of this cheapest, most effective pesticide
ever developed, millions of people around the world have died of pest-borne
disease. And though few realize it, DDT's absence has adversely affected this
nation as well.
Who's to blame? In a measure, everyone who, 20 years ago, joined the
lockstep hysteria that brought this about.
Especially guilty are environmental leaders who shaped public attitudes,
the media who sensationalized their propaganda, and federal bureaucrats who
made the final decision.
Here I must acknowledge my own complicity. Only 18 months ago, I foolishly
published a column blaming DDT for the near-demise of bald eagles.
I was still marching lockstep with my eyes closed.
Now, however, I've examined the facts. It's been an eye-opener.
There's an old adage: ``Figures don't lie; but liars figure.''
Even so, it was appalling to learn that some scientists deliberately
falsified their research, did phony studies aimed at producing misleading
results, and then proclaimed truth revealed.
It's particularly evil that fraud was the basis for policies which caused
disaster to all sorts of people.
- The Allegations -
In 1972, the allegations against DDT were serious:
1. It was carcinogenic, and poisonous to humans.
2. It persisted in nature, continuing to kill for long periods.
3. It was driving bald eagles, brown pelicans, and other birds to
extinction, causing thin eggshells which broke before hatching. ``Birds are
laying omelettes instead of eggs,'' one report said.
4. Residues in the oceans threatened the algae which produce the planet's
oxygen.
And there were other, equally devastating charges. The truth, though, was
quite the opposite.
The first allegation was false. DDT is not carcinogenic. Nor is it
poisonous. To demonstrate this, people have publicly swallowed it by the
glassful.
``DDT hasn't killed anybody,'' says Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, professor of
entomology at San Jose State University.
``Even people that sprayed the DDT--130,000 spraymen every year--none of
them ever got sick,'' Edwards says.
Allegation Number 2 was likewise false. Dr. George Woodwell (co-founder of
the Environmental Defense Fund, which spearheaded the drive against DDT) was a
prime source of derogatory information. He reported that an ``average of 13
lbs. of DDT per acre'' had been found in the soil of a Long Island, N.Y.
marsh.
But he didn't report that, to ``discover'' such amounts, ``scientists''
deliberately sampled only ground where DDT was mixed, loaded into spray
trucks, and the sprayers tested.
- They Lied -
In public hearings, Woodwell conceded that his samplings were
``deliberately biased in order to find the highest residues we could find,
because at the time we wondered whether we could find any residues....''
EPA's hearing examiner, Edmund Sweeney, was irate. His report cited
``appalling instances'' such as ``publication of ... faulty information which
... was never corrected and apparently is still being relied upon.''
Meanwhile, ocean and soil studies by the Department of the Interior showed
that 90% of DDT residues disappeared within 40 days.
Sweened recommended against banning DDT, but was overruled. EPA Director
William Ruckelshaus in 1970 had declared ``carcinogenic claims concerning DDT
are unproved speculation,'' but in 1972 issued the order banning it.
Ruckelshaus later admitted the action was political.
The third allegation--thin eggshells--also turned out to be phony.
Shells were reported 40% thinner than normal. But ducks fed a diet laced
with DDT showed maximum shell thinning of 15% in one study, while in another,
conducted by the California Department of Fish and Game, they showed thicker
eggshells.
Meanwhile, another study was deliberately biased by researchers who fed
birds DDT but withheld calcium--and then reported eggshell thinning.
- And The Algae? -
Most frightening of all were claims that residues of this supposedly
long-lasting toxin in the oceans would kill the algae which create most of the
Earth's oxygen supply.
This was demonstrably false. Tests showed even saturated solutions of DDT
in ocean water had no effect on algae.
Many details could be given if space permitted. But from a world well on
the way to ridding itself of malaria through use of DDT, we now have a planet
where mosquitoes proliferate and perhaps 200 to 300 million cases of malaria
occur each year, killing several million people annually.
The question is, why do people perpetrate such frauds, and why do the rest
of us continue believing them?
While spreading phony charges against DDT, doomsayers also were having
highly publicized conniptions about an ``imminent ice age.''
Now the identical crowd that prophesied global cooling tells us global
warming is coming.
Are we going to believe them?
Let us know your answer. Write: Environmentalist, Box 146, Silver Bay,
Minn. 55614. We'll print the best responses.
reprinted with permission from
THE NEW FEDERALIST
subscriptions $35 per year
published weekly
P.O. box 889
Leesburg VA 22075
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