I'm just trying to fortify the writeup above:
DDT was first introduced massively in
World War II. It helped stop
disease-carrying
insects and
protect crops. It was especially effective in protecting against
malaria,
typhus,
yellow fever,
river blindness, and
encephalitis. Malaria was
nearly eliminated by the late 1960s. India, which before the introduction of DDT had
over 75 million cases of
malaria, had less the a million by 1962, and by 1970 had
only 200,000.
The World Health Organization estimates that 100 million lives
were saved by DDT.
"Silent Spring" went so far as to
predict the
extinction of the
robin and other birds
of prey if the use of DDT was not
halted. It was argued that DDT would find its way
into fields and rivers,
accumulate in
fish, and from the fish, reach humans.
Environmentalists speculated that high levels of DDT in birds caused their eggshells
to thin, but where as there was hard proof that DDT was saving millions of lives,
there was no proof that their was any danger to the bird population. Of course, they
showed us examples of
damaged bird colonies as proof that DDT cause damage to
them, but every single example they showed were of birds that were exposed to DDT
and
PCB (which has been proven to cause damage to eggshells). Even three decades
after the ban on DDT, there is still no proof that DDT is harmful. Not only has there
been no proof that it causes any damage to birds, but also the bird population
increased in the period that DDT was in
mass production.
The Audubon field census found that bird populations from 1941 to 1960, the period
which saw the introduction of DDT, the peak of its use, and the beginning of its
decline, increased.
Swallow, robin, heron, and eagle populations all grew
over 20 years of the use of DDT. Other reports showed increasing
raptor
populations during that same period of time.
The bald eagle population
increased 25% over the years of 1942 to 1960.
DDT also destroyed
blood-sucking insects that pestered and killed blackbirds in
Kentucky. The birds also saw an abundance of
fruits and berries where the insects
had formerly ravaged the land. It created an ideal
habitat for birds in that
area.
Many also claim that DDT causes
disease in humans such as cancer, mutations and
hepatitis as typical results of ingestion. Studies were executed after the ban on adult
volunteers, After 18 months there were no ill effects reported on the test subjects. In
1981 in Tirana, Albania there was a
massive DDT spill which exposed villagers to
the highest level of ingestion of DDT ever recorded. No health effect was
reported. Other post-ban
research has concluded that DDT does not build up
in animal tissue. We now know that DDT does not cause any harm to humans or
animals and yet we still have not lifted the ban. We have the ability to create a
"miracle chemical" yet we still haven't reexamined the ban. This ban was the first in a
series of campaigns against
non-existent threats to
mother earth.
Sources: World Health Organization http://www.who.org ; Global Warming in a
Politically Correct Climate, M. Mihkel Mathiesen ; National Audobon Society
http://www.audobon.org