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DDT Should it be used? Rate Topic: -----

#31 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 01:08 AM

Sounds delicious if a little deadly:)
There is an interseting site called Engrish.com.?:hihi:
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#32 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 21 September 2006 - 03:26 AM

A good news story
[QUOTE]Return of the brown pelican

By Dr. Robert A. Hedeen, Naturalist Print this page

“A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His beak can hold more than his beli can.

He can hold in his beak,

Enough food for a week

But I’m damned if I can see how the helican.”

—Dixon Lanier Merritt, 1910

Most of us know the story of how the eagle, osprey and other fish-eating birds were driven to the brink of extinction by the indiscriminate use of chlorinated hydrocarbon-type insecticides such as DDT and its analogs.
Few in the Midwest know that the magnificent brown pelican was included in that ecological disaster.

Though pelicans managed to eke out a precarious existence during the first two decades of massive DDT use, they were almost dealt a knockout blow in the 1960s by a government program to eradicate the fire ant from the south.

The U.S. Public Health Service launched an ill-advised program in the 1950s to eradicate the mosquito vector of yellow fever from the United States as it was feared the virus of “Yellowjack” was making its way toward this country from south of the border.
Not to be outdone by the USPHS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the early1960s decided it would get into the act and undertook a massive spraying program to eliminate the fire ant, a severe and sometimes dangerous pest spreading throughout the Southern U. S. Great amounts of the potent chlorinated hydrocarbons Dieldrin, Mirex, and Heptachlor (refined Chlordane) were dumped on vast areas of the south.
The program was not successful in eradicating the fire ant, but it almost eliminated the brown pelican.

By 1962, the brown pelican was considered to be wiped out west of Florida, with the exception of a few surviving in Galveston Bay, Texas.
The fire ant extermination program was terminated in the late 1960s by a red-faced Department of Agriculture, and the use of Dieldrin, Heptachlor, DDT, and other potent insecticides were banned for use in the U.S. From that time until the present, the brown pelican has staged a remarkable comeback that rivals the more celebrated resurgence of the bald eagle and the osprey[/quote][/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=23&id=14315[/url]
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#33 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 21 September 2006 - 05:35 PM

O well, the cocroaches were ment to rule the planet anyhow.
This is typical of dozens of articles appearing now.
Medicine San Frontiers must have some very dumb people in it to oppose DDT.

Quote

Bravo WHO! Please keep thinking right!

* Franklin Cudjoe | Posted: Friday, September 22, 2006

Until last Friday, September 15 2006, the single most pernicious suitor of female mosquitoes, DDT, had been discarded by the World Health Organization (WHO).

But just as it recently made frank remarks much to the annoyance of Oxfam and Medicine San Frontiers, that drug patents were not the main barriers to accessing essential medicines in poor countries, WHO has delivered yet another painful but effective pill.

This time the one-stop pill promises to end the endless pain and circus about the desirability of the single most effective weapon against the war on malaria- DDT.

Arctic marine ecosystem contamination.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....6&dopt=Citation


http://www.hancock.f...cs/chlorine.htm

Quote

3.3.10 Plankton. Suppression of photosynthesis in phytoplankton exposed to low levels of PCBs has been reported. 98 Chronic exposure to PCBs has the ability to alter populations of the marine microlayer through the disruption of egg and larvae development. 99 The microlayer is a film of natural fats and oils on the surface of the ocean - it is a highly productive ecosystem and under extreme threat of long term damage due to the fat-loving nature of organochlorines.

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#34 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 21 September 2006 - 08:55 PM

http://www.news.com....62-1702,00.html

Quote

Australians unaware of chemical risks: expert

By Tamara McLean

September 22, 2006 11:33am
Article from: AAP

AUSTRALIANS don't understand the dangers of toxic chemicals and the Government is not rectifying the "alarming" problem, an environmental health expert has warned.

Chemicals are everywhere in our modern environment but Dr Elizabeth Hanna will tell a national public health conference next week that they are widely misunderstood.

She said dangerous chemicals like lead, mercury, arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, and the pesticide DDT are found in a vast number of agricultural, industrial and household products.

"Australians tend to think that if they can purchase a chemical in their supermarket then it is safe but, in actual fact, there have been few tests on most of them," Dr Hanna said.

"People are being exposed to chemicals on a daily basis without any real comprehension of the dangers."

Dr Hanna, convenor of the environmental health group at the Public Health Association of Australia, will tell 400 delegates at the association's annual conference that chemical exposure had grown exponentially since the 1940s.

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#35 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 25 September 2006 - 07:52 PM

How can you get this popular press hysteria and downright lies
[url]http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060924-085112-7380r.htm[/url]
[QUOTE] Rachel Carson kicked off DDT hysteria with her pseudoscientific 1962 book, "Silent Spring." Miss Carson materially misrepresented DDT science in order to advance her anti-pesticide agenda. Today she is hailed as having launched the global environmental movement. A Pennsylvania state office building, Maryland elementary school, Pittsburgh bridge and a Maryland state park are named for her. The Smithsonian Institution commemorates her work against DDT. She was even honored with a 1981 U.S. postage stamp. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of her birth. Many celebrations are planned.
It's quite a tribute for someone who was so dead wrong. At the very least, her name should be removed from public property and there should be no government-sponsored honors of Miss Carson.
The Audubon Society was a leader in the attack on DDT, including falsely accusing DDT defenders (who won a libel suit) of lying. Not wanting to jeopardize its nonprofit tax status, the Audubon Society formed the Environmental Defense Fund (now simply known as Environmental Defense) in 1967 to spearhead its anti-DDT efforts. Today the National Audubon Society takes in more than $100 million yearly and has assets worth more than $200 million. Environmental Defense takes in more than $65 million yearly with a net worth exceeding $73 million.
In a February 25, 1971, media release, the president of the Sierra Club said his organization wanted "a ban, not just a curb" on DDT, "even in the tropical countries where DDT has kept malaria under control. Today the Sierra Club rakes in more than $90 million per year and has more than $50 million in assets.
Business are often held liable and forced to pay monetary damages for defective products and false statements. Why shouldn't the National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club and other anti-DDT activist groups be held liable for the harm caused by their recklessly defective activism?[/QUOTE]
next to this in the scientific press?
[QUOTE]

[QUOTE] DDT
Recent studies have shown that pesticides are a significant form of waste product pollutant.
The most commonly known pesticide, DDT, was introduced to world agriculture after World War II. DDT proved to be extremely effective in controlling insects and was widely used.
It's estimated that over ten million tons of DDT were used in a thirty year span. Chemist George R.Harvey (1974) reported by the 1960's it was becoming apparent that the deleterious effects of this chemical lasted far longer than it took to kill the offending insects.
DDT began to show up in measurable quantities in both marine wildlife and the sea. The Gulf Breeze Laboratory of the EPA (1970) established that the life of DDT in natural sea water is about ten days. (p.18).
Finally, in 1972 the Federal Government virtually banned the use of DDT. Unfortunately, the use of DDT lives on in other parts of the world. Researchers have since found 3.6 million tons of DDT actively contaminating the earth and ocean.
In 1990 The International Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE) office of the National Science Foundation predicted they would find four times the legal(international law) amount of DDT and PCB in the open ocean. Instead, they found ten times that amount.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE] The surface microlayer of the ocean is always subject to direct assault by atmospheric pollution. Chlorinated hydrocarbons such as DDT and PCB have been polluting the surface of the sea at enormous rates for the last thirty-five years. Once the hydrocarbons move into organisms the toxicity produces effects down to microcellular levels. This is done by cytotoxins which disrupts cell division thereby producing lethal chromosomes. This process impedes the normal replication of DNA. Edward D. Goldberg, (1974) Professor of Chemistry at University of California, San Diego reported that one dramatic example of the harm done by DDT occurred on Anacapa Island of the coast of California. Researchers began detecting DDT pollution in sediments as early as 1952. During the years 1969 1972, the island's once populous Brown Pelican colony failed to reproduce. Although it still remains a threat to the marine environment, DDT is no longer found in large quantities. The same can not be said for PCB's.
Sea Turtles/Homepage[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~bpeters/save/djintro.html[/url]
Does anyone care?

Is this why we don't want a ban on Chlorinated hydrocabons?
[QUOTE]CHLORINE INTERMEDIATES ARE VERY USEFUL IN REACTION PATHWAYS LEADING TO MANY NONCHLORINATED PRODUCTS, SUCH AS SILICON FOR ELECTRONIC CHIPS OR EPOXY RESINS. ALMOST 85% OF THE PHARMACEUTICALS MANUFACTURED I

Author(s): HILEMAN, BETTE[/QUOTE] [url]http://quanterion.com/RIAC/Library/Library.asp?ArgVal=157032[/url]
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#36 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 26 September 2006 - 09:51 PM

This is ironic
India is a major manufacturer of DDT

Quote

`DDT failed to check malaria in India'

Special Correspondent

Toxics Link shocked over WHO's clean chit to DDT

# `Overriding chemical dependency, without managing how DDT is currently used, is the reason we have more malaria'
# The global toxics treaty, adopted by 129 countries, calls for a phase out of DDT

NEW DELHI: Joining growing international criticism of the clean chit given by the World Health Organisation to Dichlorodiphenyl Trichloroethane (DDT), Toxics Link on Tuesday expressed regret over this turnaround by the world health body. It said the pesticide had failed as an effective anti-malaria strategy in India besides creating chemical dependency and causing adverse health and environmental impact.

Ravi Agarwal, Director, Toxics Link, said: ``Overriding chemical dependency, without managing how DDT is currently used, is the reason we have more malaria. Lack of DDT quality control leading to resistance, unsafe spraying practices, lack of storage, leakage to agriculture, and poor disposal of waste are major unaddressed issues. Besides, any new assessment needs to be made public before WHO pushes DDT at this time, when there is already a persistent organic pollutants (POPs) global agreement to phase it out."
http://www.hindu.com...92701891500.htm
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#37 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 27 September 2006 - 11:12 PM

http://www.rockriver...&cat=4&id=14369

Quote

The environmental crusade against DDT began with Rachel Carson’s antipesticide diatribe Silent Spring, published in 1962 at the height of the worldwide antimalaria campaign. The widespread spraying of DDT had caused a spectacular drop in malaria incidence—Sri Lanka, for example, reported 2.8 million malaria victims in 1948, but by 1963 it had only 17. Yet, Carson’s book made no mention of this. It said nothing of DDT’s crucial role in eradicating malaria in industrialized countries, or of the tens of millions of lives saved by its use.

Instead, Carson filled her book with misinformation—alleging, among other claims, that DDT causes cancer. Her unsubstantiated assertion that continued DDT use would unleash a cancer epidemic generated a panicked fear of the pesticide that endures as public opinion to this day. (Editor’s note: Several recent studies indicate that there is a link between DDT exposure and breast cancer rates.)

But the scientific case against DDT was, and still is, nonexistent. Almost 60 years have passed since the malaria-spraying campaigns began—with hundreds of millions of people exposed to large concentrations of DDT—yet, according to international health scholar Amir Attaran, the scientific literature “has not even one peer reviewed, independently replicated study linking exposure to DDT with any adverse health outcome.” Indeed, in a 1956 study, human volunteers ate DDT every day for more than two years with no ill effects then or since.


Was Carson wrong?
http://www.rachel.or...use%20cancer%22

Quote

If you
look at a list of the top 200 chemicals found at hazardous waste
sites, you quickly see that these dozen are representative: a few
metals, and many chlorinated compounds made from petroleum.
Petroleum products and chlorine can be combined in a host of
interesting ways to make "chlorinated hydrocarbons," which do not
ordinarily occur in nature, which tend to be toxic, which tend to
persist in the environment once they are created, and which enter
food chains and concentrate as they move from small plants to
small animals and then into bigger animals. In general, the bigger
the animal (fish, bird, or mammal), the more chlorinated
hydrocarbons can be found in its flesh.
It seems natural, therefore, to ask ourselves what is known about
health effects from exposure to hydrocarbons (petroleum products)
and especially to chlorinated hydrocarbons.
A study[2] of 8418 white male workers in rubber factories in Akron,
Ohio, revealed an excess of deaths from cancers of the stomach, the
respiratory system, the lymph system (lymphosarcomas), and
leukemias (cancer of the blood-forming cells). In addition, the
researchers found excess deaths from diabetes (a disorder of the
immune system), cerebrovascular disease (stroke), arteriosclerosis
(hardening of the arteries), and suicide.
A study[3] of 1015 male workers at a Canadian oil refinery revealed
an excess of cancers of the brain, bone, skin, kidneys, lymph
system, and blood-forming cells (leukemia), as well as fatal
diseases, including cancer, of the digestive tract.
A study[4] of 2509 active and retired workers at three oil refineries
in Beaumont/Port Arthur, Texas, revealed an excess of brain cancer,
stomach cancer, leukemia, multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone
marrow) and lymphomas.
A study[5] of 1099 white males exposed to tetrachloroethane in the
manufacture of clothing to protect soldiers against mustard gas in
World War II revealed an overall cancer rate 26% higher than
among the general populace of white males of the same ages.
A study[6] of British pathologists revealed an excess of deaths by
suicide, and brain cancers which the authors of the study attributed
to exposure to solvents, or possibly to an infectious agent.
A study[7] of 501 North Carolina men who died of non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma showed an increased risk associated with occupation in
the rubber, plastics and synthetic chemicals industries.
A study[8] of 184,641 people listed in the New Jersey cancer
registry between 1979 and 1984 found several associations between
specific cancers and specific occupations. For example, in the
printing industry where people are exposed to ink (carbon black and

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#38 User is offline   Mohit Pandey 

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Posted 28 September 2006 - 03:19 AM

Michaelangelica said:

This is ironic
India is a major manufacturer of DDT
http://www.hindu.com...92701891500.htm

He is absolutely correct.
Student
IISER, Kolkata ( India)

Chinese Proverb:He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
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#39 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 29 September 2006 - 12:02 AM

http://www.newvision.../D/8/220/523847

Quote

Exports risk EU ban over DDT, says envoy
Thursday, 28th September, 2006

By Stephen Ilungole
in Brussels

THE European Union (EU) will ban exports from Uganda if the proposed use of DDT as a malaria preventive measure goes ahead, Uganda�s envoy to Belgium has said.

Katenta Apuuli said in an interview that taking the World Health Organisaition�s HO) directive at face value could cause an economic set-back.

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#40 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 29 September 2006 - 04:35 AM

The hope
http://www.abc.net.a...es/s1745882.htm

Quote

BLANCH : Maryanne Demasi, talking to Brisbane scientist, Professor Michael Good, from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, where they've developed a malaria vaccine which is safe, effective and financially viable.

They expect to begin human trials within the year.

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#41 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 29 September 2006 - 04:09 PM

http://www.thewest.c...&ContentID=8183

Quote

Vegies and fruit to be tested for cancer risk
29th September 2006, 7:00 WST

In a big win for WA consumers, the State Government has agreed to introduce testing of fruit and vegetables for dangerous, cancer-causing pesticides, including DDT, which are banned in Australia.
Click here to find out more!


The move comes after a controversial parliamentary report warned six months ago that chemical screening of fresh fruit and vegetables in WA was woefully inadequate given the volumes being imported from countries which continued to use pesticides banned here.

Quote

Breast cancer cases rise 80% since Seventies
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 29 September 2006

It is the disease women fear more than any other, and its incidence is soaring. Breast cancer cases have hit a new record, official figures show, and the increase shows no sign of slowing.

A total of 36,939 women were diagnosed in England in 2004, an 81 per cent increase in incidence of the cancer since 1971, after statistical adjustment for the ageing of the population. Over the year, 41,000 cases were diagnosed in the UK.

Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in the UK, even though it principally affects only one gender (there are a few hundred cases each year in men).
It accounts for one in three of all newly diagnosed cases of cancer in females.

The age-standardised incidence in 2004 was 120.8 per 100,000 population, the highest figure on record, up from 66.9 in 1971. The figures are in Cancer Registrations, the annual statistical report issued by the Office for National Statistics, published yesterday.
Cancer is a disease of the elderly and most cancers, including breast cancer, are commoner in older age groups.
But breast cancer is increasing in every age group. Among those aged 20 to 34, the disease, though rare, increased by 50 per cent in the three decades from 1971 to 2001. In the 45 to 49 age group it rose by 41 per cent over the same period. The biggest increases have been in the 50 to 64 age group, in which the incidence has more than doubled after introduction of breast-screening which detects tumours too small to be picked up by a doctor performing a clinical examination..

They are all minor factors but taken together they mean a general trend up."

Better diagnosis through screening and improved recording of cases in local cancer registries had also contributed to the increase, Professor Peto added. He dismissed as "rubbish" suggestions that exposure to pesticides or other chemicals was fuelling the disease. "There isn't any good evidence [for other causes] over and above changes in lifestyle and improvements in diagnosis and registration," he said.

So . . . the fact that chlorinated hydrocarbons accumulate in fat (breast tissue) are only expelled by the human body in mother's milk, is bio-accumulative, has been shown to disrupt maternal instincts in other mammals (like seals when giving birth) has nothing to do with it.
I am sure we could make an interesting correlation between increased use of chlorinated hydrocarbons and the instance of breast cancer over the last 50 years.
But correlations prove nothing. Do they?
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#42 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 08 October 2006 - 08:46 PM

A technical, but interesting, web site
http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0147.htm
A sample

Quote

_II.A.2. Human Carcinogenicity Data

Inadequate. The existing epidemiological data are inadequate. Autopsy studies relating tissue levels of DDT to cancer incidence have yielded conflicting results. Three studies reported that tissue levels of DDT and DDE were higher in cancer victims than in those dying of other diseases (Casarett et al., 1968; Dacre and Jennings, 1970; Wasserman et al., 1976). In other studies no such relationship was seen (Maier-Bode, 1960; Robinson et al., 1965; Hoffman et al., 1967). Studies of occupationally exposed workers and volunteers have been of insufficient duration to be useful in assessment of the carcinogenicity of DDT to humans.
__II.A.3. Animal Carcinogenicity Data

Sufficient. Twenty-five animal carcinogenicity assays have been reviewed for DDT. Nine feeding studies, including two multigenerational studies, have been conducted in the following mouse strains: BALB/C, CF-1, A strain, Swiss/Bombay and (C57B1)x(C3HxAkR). Only one of these studies, conducted for 78 weeks, showed no indication of DDT tumorigenicity (NCI, 1978). Both hepatocellular adenomas and carcinomas were observed in six mouse liver tumor studies (Walker et al., 1973; Thorpe and Walker, 1973; Kashyap et al., 1977; Innes et al., 1969; Terracini et al., 1973; Turusov et al., 1973). Both benign and malignant lung tumors were observed in two studies wherein mice were exposed both in utero and throughout their lifetime (Shabad et al., 1973; Tarjan and Kemeny, 1969). Doses producing increased tumor incidence ranged from 0.15-37.5 mg/kg/day.

Three studies using Wistar, MRC Porton and Osborne-Mendel rats and doses from 25-40 mg/kg/day produced increased incidence of benign liver tumors (Rossi et al., 1977; Cabral et al., 1982; Fitzhugh and Nelson, 1946). Another study wherein Osborne-Mendel rats were exposed in this dietary dose range for 78 weeks was negative (NCI, 1978) as were three additional assays in which lower doses were given.

Tests of DDT in hamsters have not resulted in increased tumor incidence. Unlike mice and humans, hamsters accumulate DDT in tissue but do not metabolize it to DDD or DDE. Studies of DDT in dogs (Lehman, 1951, 1965) and monkeys (Adamson and Sieber, 1979, 1983) have not shown a carcinogenic effect. However, the length of these studies (approximately 30% of the animals' lifetimes) was insufficient to assess the carcinogenicity of DDT. DDT has been shown to produce hepatomas in trout (Halver, 1967).
__II.A.4. Supporting Data for Carcinogenicity

DDT has been shown to act as a liver tumor promoter in rats initiated with 2-acetylaminofluorene, 2-acetamidophenanthrene or trans-4-acetylaminostilbene (Peraino et al., 1975; Scribner and Mottet, 1981; Hilpert et al., 1983).

DDT has produced both negative and positive responses in tests for genotoxicity. Positive responses have been noted in V79 mutation assays, for chromosome aberrations in cultured human lymphocytes, and for sister chromatid exchanges in V79 and CHO cells (Bradley et al., 1981; Rabello et al., 1975; Preston et al., 1981; Ray-Chaudhuri et al., 1982). In one study, DDT was reported to interact directly with DNA; this result was not confirmed in the absence of a metabolizing system (Kubinski et al., 1981; Griffin and Hill, 1978).

DDT is structurally related to the following chemicals which produce liver tumors in mice: DDE, DDD, dicofol and chlorobenzilate.




Some history

http://www.boston.co...ller_of_a_cure/

Quote

JEFF JACOBY
Chemist's killer of a cure

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | October 15, 2006

THE 2006 Nobel laureates are in the spotlight, but a recent piece of news -- an announcement from the World Health Organization -- calls to mind a Nobel laureate of an earlier era.

When the Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded the prize in medicine in 1948, he was hailed ``as a benefactor of mankind of such stature" that he would require ``the humility of a saint" to inoculate himself against hubris. Fortunately, Muller was not given to arrogance. He described his great discovery as merely ``a first foundation stone" in the ``puzzling and apparently endless domain" of pest-borne plague.
It had come as a surprise to him, he said modestly, to have discovered a chemical formula ``so useful in the fight against diseases in human beings."

``Useful" hardly began to describe it. As Time magazine noted, Muller's chemical ``kills the mosquitoes that carry malaria, the flies that carry cholera, the lice that carry typhus, the fleas that carry the plague, the sand flies that carry kalaazar and other tropical disease."

The name of this miracle formula? Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane -- better known as DDT.

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#43 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 15 October 2006 - 02:27 AM

Quote

Chemist's killer of a cure

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | October 15, 2006

THE 2006 Nobel laureates are in the spotlight, but a recent piece of news -- an announcement from the World Health Organization -- calls to mind a Nobel laureate of an earlier era.

When the Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded the prize in medicine in 1948, he was hailed ``as a benefactor of mankind of such stature" that he would require ``the humility of a saint" to inoculate himself against hubris. Fortunately, Muller was not given to arrogance. He described his great discovery as merely ``a first foundation stone" in the ``puzzling and apparently endless domain" of pest-borne plague. It had come as a surprise to him, he said modestly, to have discovered a chemical formula ``so useful in the fight against diseases in human beings."

``Useful" hardly began to describe it. As Time magazine noted, Muller's chemical ``kills the mosquitoes that carry malaria, the flies that carry cholera, the lice that carry typhus, the fleas that carry the plague, the sand flies that carry kalaazar and other tropical disease."

The name of this miracle formula? Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane -- better known as DDT.


http://www.boston.co...ller_of_a_cure/
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#44 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 17 October 2006 - 03:09 PM

A sane article trying to present both sides of the debate
http://www.poconorec...EWS01/610160303

Quote

Today, two dozen countries — including Mozambique and nine other African nations — permit the use of small amounts of DDT for controlling specific insect-borne diseases, including malaria.

Malaria kills 1 million people, including 800,000 African children, every year. Dr. Arata Kochi, leader of the World Health Organization's global malaria program, strongly advocates using DDT to fight malaria, claiming that it poses little or no health risk when sprayed in small amounts on the inner walls of people's homes.

"Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of infections caused by malaria-carrying mosquitoes "¦ and presents no health risk when used properly," agrees Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO's assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Asamoa-Baah insists that DDT's public health benefits far outweigh its risks.

Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, disagrees and advocates for techniques that do not rely on pesticides like DDT.

"The international community has a social responsibility to reject the use of this chemical and to practice sound and safe pest management practices," he says.
Feldman cites a recent study showing South African women living in DDT-treated dwellings to have 77 times the internationally accepted limit of the chemical in their breast milk. Researchers postulate that large amounts of DDT may have contaminated drinking water, exposing entire villages.

Also
An interesting link to an organisation called "Beyond Pesticides"
http://www.beyondpes....org/index.html
and
Also this disturbing link
http://www.dailymail...in_page_id=1774

Quote

Chemical cocktail blamed for soaring breast cancer rate
By FIONA McRAE Last updated at 00:01am on 18th October 2006

Breast cancer: The number of cases has almost doubled in just a generation
Health news

Cocktails of gender-bending chemicals, found in everyday products from CD cases to babies' bottles, may be to blame for soaring rates of breast cancer, scientists have warned.

Experts fear the chemicals, used in pesticides, cosmetics, electrical goods and plastics, have the power to trigger the cancer which claims the lives of more than 1,000 British women a month.

The warning follows official figures which show the number of cases of breast cancer has almost doubled in a generation.

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#45 User is offline   Michaelangelica 

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Posted 19 October 2006 - 03:24 AM

http://pediatrics.aa...tract/118/1/233

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CONCLUSIONS. Prenatal exposure to DDT, and to a lesser extent DDE, was associated with neurodevelopmental delays during early childhood, although breastfeeding was found to be beneficial even among women with high levels of exposure. Countries considering the use of DDT should weigh its benefit in eradicating malaria against the negative associations found in this first report on DDT and human neurodevelopment.

"Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden."
~Orson Scott Card
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