DDT Should it be used?

[Michaelangelica]

US agency not supporting reintroduction of DDT

 

 

Publication Date: 08/15/2006

 

Bernard Muthaka, in his article in the Nation entitled, "Americans to fund DDT programmes" (Horizon magazine, August 10), claimed that USAID will fund indoor spraying with DDT in Kenya.

 

He also implied that USAID is encouraging Kenya to reintroduce the banned insecticide into its mosquito control programme. This is not accurate.

 

Malaria is the largest killer of children in Kenya. And the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), supports any activities meant to eliminate this disease. The agency thus helps the Ministry of Health to implement several components of the National Malaria Strategy.

 

These components in the ongoing campaign against the disease include case management, insecticide treated nets, and treating malaria during pregnancy. With increased funding from Washington, USAID/Kenya will now be able to assist the ministry more in its mosquito control efforts.

 

This assistance will be strictly in line with Kenyan Government regulations concerning chemicals permitted in spraying programmes. Kenyan regulations do not allow the use of DDT, so USAID-supported projects will not use DDT.

 

It is a fact that USAID is not encouraging Kenya to reintroduce DDT into its malaria programme. However, the agency does support efforts by Kenya to use the best, most cost-effective chemicals available, balancing public heath and environmental concerns as it battles this killer disease.

 

Stephen M. Haykin,

Director, USAID Kenya,

Nairobi.

 

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=23&newsid=79305

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/515422

 

DDT ban was scientific fraud

Wednesday, 16th August, 2006

 

By Adyeri Kanyaihe

 

In the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Vol 9, No 3, 2004), Prof J. Gordon Edwards dismisses the much-acclaimed Silent Spring by Rachel Carson as a scientific fraud. It is on the strength of this book alone that DDT was banned by order of one man � the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency. In his paper, �DDT: A case study in scientific fraud� Edward observes that fraud in science is a major problem. He came to this conclusion after reading a 2002 report published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 

It is good to know that God approves of DDT

(I hope he likes all the other CHs too)

http://www.evangelsociety.org/sherk/responsiblecreationcare2.html

Evangelical?

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Michael Francisco

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1 August 2005

Responsible Creation Care II:

Lessons from Past Environmental Crises

 

by James Sherk| email | print version

Many environmentalists believe human activity and development is morally evil. Consequently, they are predisposed to want to believe these activities also destroy the earth. If they did, that would give them the rationale needed to outlaw these activities. Historically, many environmentalists have embraced scientifically unsound arguments - intentionally or otherwise - without proper skepticism because these arguments reinforce what they already believe: that the government must dramatically curtail human activity. Thus most environmentalists embraced the acid rain, Ozone Hole, and DDT causes without the proper skepticism they should have displayed.

 

Christians do not share these presuppositions - we do not believe in the moral evil of human development - and so Christians should be skeptical of environmentalist claims which are motivated by profoundly non-Christian moral convictions about the evil of human activity itself. A rush to regulate human development often does nothing to care for God's creation and may interfere with other Christian responsibilities - such as our obligation to help the poor. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and similar organizations have an agenda that leads them to rush to judgment, no matter how weak the science. Christians do not share this agenda and should not promote it when it conflicts with other Christian duties.

 

I can't find

"American Physicians and Surgeons Vol 9 No 3 2004 Prof J Gordon Edwards"

anywhere on the web

[Michaelangelica]

Chlorinated Hydrocarbons make a sweetner?

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=70890

Another Country Finds Splenda Ads are Misleading Consumers; Australian Ad Authority Upholds Complaint Against Johnson & Johnson

 

8/17/2006 11:39:00 AM

 

To: National Desk

 

Contact: Lauren Poplawski, 202-496-1000 or [email protected]

 

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Advertising Claims Bureau of Australia has upheld a complaint against Johnson & Johnson for misleading consumers about the artificial chemical sweetener Splenda. According to the ruling, the advertisement "is likely to mislead or deceive consumers" because "reasonable members of the public viewing the advertisement are likely to conclude that a significant portion of the SPLENDA® products are comprised of a modified form of sugar."

 

With this decision, Australia joins New Zealand in finding Splenda ads to be misleading, thus deceiving consumers. In July 2005, the New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority determined that a Splenda ad deceived consumers into thinking Splenda is all natural like sugar. Both the New Zealand and Australia rulings recommended the misleading ads be discontinued. Moreover, numerous lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. challenging Splenda's misleading advertising slogan "made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar."

 

The Australian decision validates yet again concerns that consumer advocates in the United States have been voicing for years. In a statement made in February 2004, Michael F. Jacobson, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a leading consumer rights group, remarked, "'Made from sugar' certainly sounds better than, say, 'made from chlorinated hydrocarbons.' He went on to say, "Splenda's artificiality may present a marketing challenge, but that's not an excuse to confuse consumers and lead them to believe that Splenda is natural or in any way related to sugar."

 

In fact, Splenda does not contain any sugar whatsoever. It is manufactured in a chemical plant in a process that uses chlorine. The sweetness of Splenda is due to the chlorocarbon chemical (sucralose) that contains three atoms of chlorine in every one of its molecules. Splenda is a chemical artificial sweetener; however, Johnson & Johnson would like consumers to believe it is somehow more natural than other artificial sweeteners…which it is obviously not.

 

"Consumers have the right to know what artificial sweeteners are in the foods they are buying at the grocery store and feeding their families," said Andy Briscoe, President of the Sugar Association. "Splenda ads are not honest about its chemical composition. Splenda is not natural in any way. There is no sugar in the final product of Splenda. Johnson & Johnson is spending millions of dollars to falsely advertise their product and they are responsible for misleading consumers. Just Google 'Splenda' and you will see consumers and doctors alike are speaking out about how they have been misled."

 

To learn more about the truth about Splenda, please contact Lauren Poplawski at Qorvis Communications at 202-496-1000 or [email protected] or visit the website http://www.truthaboutsplenda.com.

 

http://www.usnewswire.com/

 

-0-

 

/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3770802a11,00.html

Test food imports, say MPs

20 August 2006

By RUTH HILL

 

The Green Party is calling on the government to urgently implement testing of all imported foods after a Chinese study found high residues of toxic pesticides, known to cause cancer and birth defects, in some fruit and vegetables.

 

Last year New Zealand imported $84 million worth of food from China, including meat, fruit and vegetables.

 

Green MP and food safety campaigner Sue Kedgley said it was "outrageous" that New Zealand -unlike many other countries, including Australia - did not randomly test imported food.

 

"No wonder so many consumers here want country of origin labelling - that's the only way they can hope to avoid toxic residues," she said.

 

The tests, conducted by Greenpeace China between last November and April this year on produce grown in Guangdong province, found 86 per cent contained pesticide residues (14 per cent above the national standard), and 25 per cent had traces of illegal pesticides.

 

One tangerine contained a "toxic cocktail" of eight pesticides, including DDT and two other banned chemicals.

 

The illegal organochlorine Lindane - a known endocrine disrupter and possible carcinogen - was found in 70% of tomato samples.

[Michaelangelica]

for Science in the Public Interest, a leading consumer rights group, remarked, "'Made from sugar' certainly sounds better than, say, 'made from chlorinated hydrocarbons.' He went on to say, "Splenda's artificiality may present a marketing challenge, but that's not an excuse to confuse consumers and lead them to believe that Splenda is natural or in any way related to sugar."

 

So if Splenda is made from Chlorinated Hydrocarbons and the way the body deals with these is to wrap them in fat and store them this "Slimming Agent" could be making people fatter.?

[Ganoderma]

It is interesting about countries (new zealand as posted above) not listing chemicals. I know here in Taiwan animal and plant foods are sprayed, fertilized, and druged to the teeth. When I was living in Canada I do not remember seeing any warnings for residues and whatnot. I usually read the labels. from what i see, read, and hear from conversation, south-east asia is a lovely chemical soup. I often wonder if the people that go around looking like a B rate horror movie have such chemicals to blame for their defects.

 

 

 

 

 

One thing I noticed was they said that CFC's are four times heavier than air so they dont understand how they can get up into the atmosphere. The paragraph before that said that cfcs, when exposed to UV light, gave off chlorine which is what causes the ozone problem. Seemed like their paper was just like what they were accusing the environmentalists of...

 

http://www.evangelsociety.org/sherk/...tioncare2.html

Quote:

Evangelical?

Emergent?

 

 

Mission

Doctrine

History

Contact

 

 

Other Issues

 

Michael Francisco

Keith Miller

Derek Muller

Jeremy Rein

James Sherk

Dave Talcott

Chris Walker

Guest Authors

 

 

1 August 2005

Responsible Creation Care II:

Lessons from Past Environmental Crises

 

by James Sherk| email | print version

Many environmentalists believe human activity and development is morally evil. Consequently, they are predisposed to want to believe these activities also destroy the earth. If they did, that would give them the rationale needed to outlaw these activities. Historically, many environmentalists have embraced scientifically unsound arguments - intentionally or otherwise - without proper skepticism because these arguments reinforce what they already believe: that the government must dramatically curtail human activity. Thus most environmentalists embraced the acid rain, Ozone Hole, and DDT causes without the proper skepticism they should have displayed.

 

Christians do not share these presuppositions - we do not believe in the moral evil of human development - and so Christians should be skeptical of environmentalist claims which are motivated by profoundly non-Christian moral convictions about the evil of human activity itself. A rush to regulate human development often does nothing to care for God's creation and may interfere with other Christian responsibilities - such as our obligation to help the poor. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and similar organizations have an agenda that leads them to rush to judgment, no matter how weak the science. Christians do not share this agenda and should not promote it when it conflicts with other Christian duties.

[Michaelangelica]

It is interesting about countries (new zealand as posted above) not listing chemicals. I know here in Taiwan animal and plant foods are sprayed, fertilized, and druged to the teeth. When I was living in Canada I do not remember seeing any warnings for residues and whatnot. I usually read the labels. from what i see, read, and hear from conversation, south-east asia is a lovely chemical soup. I often wonder if the people that go around looking like a B rate horror movie have such chemicals to blame for their defects.

 

 

One thing I noticed was they said that CFC's are four times heavier than air so they dont understand how they can get up into the atmosphere. The paragraph before that said that cfcs, when exposed to UV light, gave off chlorine which is what causes the ozone problem. Seemed like their paper was just like what they were accusing the environmentalists of...

I had afriend a PHd chemist doing reseach at a local uni. He found some lettuces at his local fruit and veg shope that were covered in white powder. He took them back to the lab tested them and found masses of some chlorinated hydrocarbon.

So he thought he would report it. But just for interest he did it first as a"concerned citizen". He was given the brush off:

"Wash them they will be OK" was the reply by both the Health and Environmental Government Departments.

He then rang again and said he had detected XXX amount of CHs in lettuce he had purchased

"Who are you?" was The agitated reply "How do you know this?".

"I am Dr, J XXX from YYY University"

" I tested the lettuce with my Gas Chromatograph They had Xppm of CHs"

"Where did you buy the lettuces?"

Within 30 minutes all lettuces had been confiscated and taken off sale by the health department.

The "concerned citizen" just didn't cut mustard..

 

I just think no one wants to know. Especially Government Departments.

There was a recent scare about CH in the fish in Sydney Harbour (Near a Chemical (ICI?)plant that made Agent Orange for the Vietnam War). All fishing in Sydney harbour was banned yet the Health Dept refused to test fishermen for blood or fat pesticide levels. An environmental Dr (Dr Donahue ) arranged for the blood of one fisher family to be sent to Germany for testing. The whole family had shocking levels of CHs in their blood. Now we are told by the health Department that that is not a problem.Fishing is still banned in the Harbour.

 

I don't think any government dept does regular checks. I have tried to find the analysis of my local lake water on Government web-sites.

I know it has been done but all I can find is a few ocean sites where pollution levels were "acceptable" the raw data is buried.

 

 

I came across this article today.

I find it interesting because of the widespread belief among academics and journalists and the public that DDT has been banned. When it hasn't

http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n20_23082006.htm

‘Dirty dozen‘ fear after baboons die of lethal pesticide

 

By Melanie Gosling

 

Cape Town – Three young baboons that died here last week were poisoned with dieldrin, a lethal pesticide that is banned in South Africa and in 51 other countries because of its potentially devastating effects on human and environmental health.

 

Dieldrin, like DDT, is one of the “dirty dozen” poisons banned in countries that have signed the UN‘s Stockholm Convention.

[Ganoderma]

have any policies changed after the lettuce was recalled? I dont know about OZ but i assume it is at least similar to canada in that if you go down to teh government they will, by law, give you any information regarding such tests. I assume they are also liek canada in that they "misplace" some test results :)

 

**sorry!

[Chacmool]

Ganoderma, please rephrase, or the sentence containing the expletive may be deleted. These forums are viewed by youngsters as well, so we try to keep the language clean.

[HydrogenBond]

There is some inconsistencies of behavior. Anyone who uses drycleaning, wears cleanly pressed clothes containing chloro-carbons from the cleaning process residues. One may not be eating it, but one is still inhaling it. In this case, one does a personal risk analysis with someone else doing your clothes worth the risk of personal harm The same should be true of DDT. In some countries the risk may be worth it, in the short term. In other countries, the opposite may be true. It is not one size fits all.

 

For example, during the industrial revolution until the 1950's or so, advanced cultures did everything wrong with respect to the environment. This quick and easy approach may have allowed rapid progress. There was a penalty with respect to human and environmental health. But the easy path also made these cultures aware and wealthy enough to clean up the problem. The net result was an erasing of past mistakes, combined with continued prosperity. Evolving cultures could benefit by the easy path too, until the time they can reach enough prosperity and experience to accommodate the adjustments.

 

If the US went from 1800 to 2000 and skipped everything in the middle, this country would be far different than today. You can see this affect in fourth world countries, where foreign capitalists and corrupt politians run the countries. The majority have lost the benefit of the learning curve and have become fodder for the few running the show.

[Michaelangelica]

 

If the US went from 1800 to 2000 and skipped everything in the middle, this country would be far different than today. You can see this affect in fourth world countries, where foreign capitalists and corrupt politians run the countries. The majority have lost the benefit of the learning curve and have become fodder for the few running the show.

Yes. All very true.

(There is a fair amount of corruption and double standards in our own political shows - Human Rights for example).

 

It must appear to the Under-developed world that the West has double standards. But then we were ignorant about the effects of many new man-made chemicals, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons and ozone depleting gasses.

Can the world environment really cope with all the Chinese and Indians driving gas-guzzling Fords and making the same mistakes we did (again)?

 

Perhaps we need to foot the bill by paying for bi-degradable pesticides and funding Malaria research.(Surprisingly Bill Gates is helping)

World aid has been steadily decreasing as a % of GDP for decades.

 

Many Western companies set up in Under-developed countries because Environmental Laws are not so stringent. This sort of amoral corporate behaviour should not be allowed by the world community.

 

Are CHs used in Dry Cleaning? Seems an overkill.

[Michaelangelica]

Looks like America is happy to pay for the use of a pesticide it has banned it its own country:-

So much for paying for an organic alternative.

I guess they will end up importing it back eventually.

DDT makes a comeback in effort to halt malaria

By Scott Calvert

Sun foreign reporter

Originally published August 27, 2006

MAPHUNGWANE, Swaziland // Men in blue coveralls and white surgical masks began their annual trek into the countryside here last week. Methodically, they sprayed one home after another with a chemical most Americans probably thought disappeared from use long ago: DDT.

 

As villagers looked on, the workers doused inside and outside walls with a fine mist. It is a yearly effort to repel and kill mosquitoes that carry malaria - a disease that kills more than a million people a year, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

This small kingdom near South Africa is one of a handful of countries still using the pesticide, banned in the United States in 1972 because of its toxic effect on eagles and other wildlife.

 

But now DDT is poised for expansion in the developing world.

 

The influential World Health Organization plans to promote DDT as a cheap and effective tool against malaria. And the U.S. government has boosted its budget for malarial insecticide spraying in Africa twenty-fold, to $20 million next year

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.ddt27aug27,0,2856151.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

[Ganoderma]

her eis a tea shop in a nearby city. they name translated is "DDT Tea Taste/test"

 

[Michaelangelica]

Sounds delicious if a little deadly:)

There is an interseting site called Engrish.com.?:hihi:

[Michaelangelica]

A good news story

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

http://www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=23&id=14315

[Michaelangelica]

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.

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.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1514106&dopt=Citation

 

 

http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/docs/chlorine.htm

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.

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20457062-1702,00.html

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.