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How can you poison people with DDT? DDT is harmless to humans. It's been eaten in large doses to demonstrate this point. The only harm involved with DDT is the
by xenophanes 13y ago
How can you poison people with DDT? DDT is harmless to humans. It's been eaten in large doses to demonstrate this point.
The only harm involved with DDT is the millions of poor mostly-non-white people dead from malaria (including many children) because of the irrationality of some privileged wealthier mostly-white people (not including many children).
For more info start with http://industrialprogress.com/2012/01/26/the-story-of-ddt/ http://industrialprogress.com/2012/01/26/the-story-of-ddt/ and google.
- leoh 13y agoThis is simply not true. There are scads of studies that have established DDT's potential for human toxicity in diabetes and cancer. Not only that, DDT's LD50 is not particularly large. Salesmen used to drink large amounts of organophosphates to show farmers it was harmless -- now we know that class of peaticides cause serious neurological disorders.
- xenophanes 13y agoSource? Or more importantly, where is the evidence that exposure to much lower dosages of DDT causes more harms than millions dead of malaria?
- pella 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- brucefancher 13y agoYeah, but malaria mostly only kills (tens of millions of) children in poor countries in Africa and Asia so it's of no concern to right-thinking environmentalists in rich Western countries.
- Xylakant 13y agoYou're exaggerating. Malaria is a killer, but it's not tens of millions of children per year. The WHO estimates a number just shy of a million, about 50% children. That's still a sizable number and in principle you're right - most of them are in poor countries. However, the mechanisms that drive this are more complex. A grossly simplified version goes like this: Since the population that's hit worst has no buying power, no pharmaceutical company is interested in developing a vaccine or an effective, cheap treatment. Malaria is very much a poor peoples illness due to a variety of contributing factors: No access to effective treatment, no access to mosquito nets, no proper hygienic conditions, no enclosed living spaces that keep mosquitos out. Just spraying DDT on every swamp in Africa is not a solution to the problem. DDT accumulates in the food chain, mostly in fat and gets fed to the children you're trying to protect via the mothers milk. It is linked to an increased rate of stillborn and cancer. It's really not the kind of stuff you'd want to use if there's any alternative.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoAlex Epstein is the director of the Center for Industrial Progress, an organization he founded in 2011. Its mission is to "inspire Americans to embrace industrial progress as a cultural ideal." He is also a blogger at Master Resource, a "Free Market Energy Blog," and a past fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization that has received funding from the Koch Foundations including at least $50,000 between 2005 and 2010. http://www.desmogblog.com/alex-epstein http://www.desmogblog.com/alex-epstein Some of my favorite blog post titles of his: * Coal is Clean: http://industrialprogress.com/2012/03/12/coal-is-clean/ http://industrialprogress.com/2012/03/12/coal-is-clean/ * Keep Our "Addiction" to Oil, End Our Allergy to Self-Assertion: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr005=zvtlch4c22.app14b&page=NewsArticle&id=12743&news_iv_ctrl=2090 http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr005=zvtlch4... * Why We Should Love the Oil Companies: http://www.masterresource.org/2012/06/love-oil-companies-educate/ http://www.masterresource.org/2012/06/love-oil-companies-edu... (I think this might be my favorite for its shades of Dr. Strangelove's subtitle)