There has been a lively debate in comments (that is, if a lib calling me a liar qualifies as “debate” :wink:), but I thought I would bring it to the fore if not for mere documentation efforts and for others who might be trying to distinguish truth from fiction.

Michael Crighton from Environmentalism as a religion:

I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn’t carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn’t give a damn.

And my buddy Luboš Motl from The Reference Frame:

This decision to ban DDT, that has already killed tens of millions of people, as he argues (he’s referring to the article linked and partially quoted above), mostly followed from a testimony of a “hysterical woman” called Rachel Carson who was apparently the Goddess of the environmentalist religion and the mother of junk science related to health.

Ms. Carson alleged that DDT was killing off all kinds of birds, especially seabirds, by causing eggshell thinning (thus the title of the book), and that it was a potent carcinogen in humans. She went on to predict that a cancer epidemic would hit practically 100% of the human population (probably based on a 1961 epidemic of liver cancer in trout that was later found to be caused by aflatoxin, a VERY potent NATURAL fungal toxin and carcinogen).

Edward Wheeler, Ph.D in chemistry noted biochemist in the food chemistry, cancer research, and toxicology:

In fact, DDT is not now and never was a carcinogen in humans, or even a cancer prone lab rat carcinogen. In contrast to its effect on bugs, it is remarkably non-toxic in humans, at least acutely. You can even drink the stuff and suffer no ill effects (no thanks anyway). Its indiscriminate spraying also, as a side effect, eliminated malaria in the U.S.

Josie Glausiusz at DISCOVER Magazine:

in more recent years, a conglomeration of critics from organizations as diverse as the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the civil rights group Congress of Racial Equality have charged that Carson overstated the dangers of DDT, that it is not a carcinogen, and that at moderate doses, it is not even harmful to birds. Above all, her opponents argue that the reduction in DDT use has led to a dramatic rise in mosquito-borne malaria cases in Africa and South America. Bring back DDT, they demand, and let it be sprayed on the inner walls of houses, where it would kill vectors of malaria and other insect-borne diseases like dengue and typhus.

Spokesmen for Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), activist environmental groups that have led the effort to ban worldwide use of the pesticide DDT, admitted to the New York Times that DDT may be necessary and desirable after all.

The January 8, 2005 New York Times essay by Nicholas Kristof where this is referenced is available online here. (registration required).

Steve Milloy’s writing on malaria and DDT are available online here and here.

The anti-DDT statements from World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace are available online here and here.

Medical scientists call DDT ban unethical

More than 370 medical researchers, including three Noble laureates, in 57 countries are urging the United Nations not to implement a proposed worldwide ban on the use of DDT. They have signed an open letter to diplomats involved in ongoing treaty negotiations, being conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program, aimed at eliminating so-called persistent organic pollutants. At the very least, the scientists want to allow the pesticide to be sprayed on the inside walls of homes, a proven method for repelling mosquitoes that carry malaria.

For more information on the Roll Back Malaria initiative and the malaria-DDT relationship, visit the Web site of the Malaria Foundation International The Open Letter to DDT Treaty Negotiators is available here and can be signed here.

And there’s another disease - West Nile Virus that is now beginning to raise its ugly head here in the US. I think it would be a good idea to keep mosquitos at bay around the world instead of inviting more problems.

Lord Monckton:

Thirty-five years ago the world decided to ban DDT, the only effective agent against malaria. Result: 40 million deaths in poor countries. The World Health Organization lifted the DDT ban on Sept. 15 last year. It now recommends the use of DDT to control malaria. Dr. Arata Kochi of the WHO said that politics could no longer be allowed to stand in the way of the science and the data. Amen to that.

With Lord Monckton’s permission from an email:

DDT is safe enough to eat, and there is little evidence that, even if used outdoors, it can cause harm to wildlife. However, the WHO’s recommendation is that it should be used for interior spraying only, so it cannot harm wildlife. It is the only effective agent against the malaria mosquito, and the now-reversed ban caused between 30 and 50 million deaths from malaria.
- M of B

Excerpts from “Facts Versus Fears” - Edition 3, June 1998.

In 1962 Rachel Carson’s lyrical yet scientifically flawed book Silent Spring was released. The book argued eloquently but erroneously that pesticides, and especially DDT, were poisoning both wildlife and the environment and also endangering human health. The emotional public reaction to Silent Spring launched the modern environmental movement.¹ DDT became the prime target of the growing anti-chemical and anti-pesticide movements during the 1960s. Reasoned scientific discussion and sound data on the favorable human health effects of DDT were brushed aside by environmental alarmists who discounted DDT’s enormous benefits to world health with two allegations: (1) DDT was a carcinogen, and (2) it endangered the environment, particularly for certain birds.

A 1978 National Cancer Institute report concluded—after two years of testing on several different strains of cancer-prone mice and rats—that DDT was not carcino-genic.² As for the DDT-caused eggshell thinning, it is unclear whether it did, in fact, occur and, if it did, whether the thinning was caused by DDT, by mercury, by PCBs, or by the effects of human encroachment.^{3 4} And as recently as 1998 researchers reported that thrush eggshells in Great Britain had been thinning at a steady rate 47 years before DDT hit the market; the researchers placed the blame on the early consequences of industrialization.

In a 1994 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers concluded that their data did not support an association between DDT and breast cancer.

In October 1997 the New England Journal of Medicine published a large, well-designed study that found no evidence that exposure to DDT and DDE increases the risk of breast cancer.

There is also information there on DDT’s nonexistent effect on bird populations, and DDT also has no effect on the thickness of their egg shells. The thickness of eggshells is directly proportionate to how much calcium is in the birds’ diet, even when the bird continues to eat or be exposed to DDT.

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1. Whelan E. Toxic Terror. 2nd ed. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books; 1993:96.[back]
2. Efron E. The Apocalyptics. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster; 1985:268.[back]
3. Beebe FL. The Myth of the Vanishing Peregrine. North Surrey, BC, Canada: Canadian Raptor Society Press; 1971.[back]
4. Jukes TH. Insecticides in health, agriculture and the environment. Die Naturwissensch. 1974; 61:6–16.[back]