It turns out that you do learn something new every day. This cartoon (and accompanying article) over at Cox & Forkum lays to rest a commonly held notion that the pesticide DDT is harmful to humans.
They quote several articles, but this one point, made by Lisa Makson in a FrontPageMagazine.com article, was particularly enlightening: “The scientific literature does not contain even one peer-reviewed, independently replicated study linking DDT exposures to any adverse health outcome [in humans].”
Wonderful. So the environmentalists want to save the environment at the expense of human health. Good thing the tree huggers are so benevolent.
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August 12th, 2003 at 4:03 pm
Oh finally an issue i know more about then pete does!
One of the science seminars i had to take dealt with ecology and Silent Spring was one of the books we had to read. The biggest problem with DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons is the excessive buildup over time. Also the interactions of multiple DDT-family pesticides increases the side effects hundred fold. To this day everything we eat (according to the FDA) has DDT, DDT relitive, or both, such that every human still stores DDT in quantites of 6-7ppm. 30 years after DDT was banned! But even though West Nile kills more humans (because obviouly we have a high tolerance for DDT) would u like to kill ALL WILDLIFE along with mosquitos. DDT was so effective cause it was as effective as napalm and agent orange at killing everything.
August 12th, 2003 at 6:52 pm
So the stuff builds up. BFD, right? That still doesn\’t negate the point that there haven\’t been any studies showing the stuff as harmful. That\’s like saying we have a huge build up of water in our bodies… no kidding. If it\’s not harmful, does it matter how big the build up is?
Sorry, but after seeing what some teachers/professors pass of as fact these days, I\’d just as soon see the study myself. With all the mosquito-borne diseases floating about, I\’d like to see them all dead.
August 13th, 2003 at 8:29 am
If everything humans eat (plants, anmials) contains DDT, and we now have a high tolerance for DDT, could it be possible that the plants/animals also have a tolerance for DDT? If they aren\’t dead and everything contains DDT, they must have some sort of tolerance.
I just don\’t see how it would be possible that humans wouldn\’t die but ALL WILDLIFE would die.
August 13th, 2003 at 8:36 am
Amy… what have I told you about using logic to dismantle the arguments of liberals?? I believe it had something to do with fish in a barrel.
August 13th, 2003 at 1:57 pm
Amy its called bio-magnification, concentrations of a substance increase expontentially as it travels up the food chain. So lets say a blade of grass has 2^4ppm of DDT in it, a rat eats that blade of grass and stores 2^8ppm DDT, now a cat eats that rat and stores 2^16ppm DDT, a dog eats that cat and stores 2^32ppm DDT, finally i go to the chinese store down the street and eat that dog, now i store 2^64ppm DDT. Also direct contact with DDT is even more potant because mixed with oil, like for crop spraying it can be absorbed through the skin. So if you reintroduce DDT you increase the levels at the bottom and by the time higher animals (humans, eagles, bears) consume it it can start making us sick. Also back then wildlife WAS dying, one of the origional issues with DDT was that eagles which built up high ammounts of DDT were laying eggs with thin shells, so when the eagle sat on her eggs they broke! Also it was getting (pure and consentrated) into public drinking water.
August 13th, 2003 at 1:59 pm
This liberal can use logic too!
August 13th, 2003 at 2:55 pm
Try again. So DDT is exponential? You get a square as many PPM by eating something than it actually had it in? So THAT’S why americans are so fat! Bio-magnification! A twinkie has 4 grams of fat in it, so when you eat it, you get 16 grams of fat in your system! Makes perfect sense… except not.
Besides, you’ve still not provided any solid evidence to support that DDT is harmful. Hearsay about some random eagle somewhere isn’t going to fly. (pun intended)
I’d also like to point out that your theory above has one critical flaw: by the end of the chain, somehow humans have absorbed 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 parts per million. Yep, that’s right, 18.4 million trillion parts per million.
August 13th, 2003 at 2:58 pm
Do I need to point out the strict mathematical impossibility of an exponential numerator in a 1-based proportional system?
August 13th, 2003 at 5:57 pm
This is all way over my head… you know, being a lberal just out of high school and having served on the international board of a Kiwanis organization… I\’ve got three strikes against me..,
but I would just like to say \”Hey farmers farmers, put away your DDT. I don\’t care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees.\” Shouldn\’t you know that one, Peter Pan?
August 13th, 2003 at 6:51 pm
Yeah yeah yeah… just because the Counting Crows took a Joni Mitchell song and made it good doesn\’t make the social commentary valid.
July 24th, 2004 at 5:14 pm
Did you know that West Nile is MUCH Less fatal than the common ordinary flu? Why worry?
I’d go through all those stats for ya… and everything… but suffice it to say, my virology notes are piled away in my crawl space gathering dust….