DDT (
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was first synthesized in 1877, but it was not until 1940 that a Swiss chemist discovered that it could be sprayed on walls and would cause any insect to die within the next six months, without any apparent toxicity to humans. DDT’s effectiveness, persistence, and low cost resulted in its being used in antimalarial efforts worldwide. It was introduced into widespread use during World War II and became the single most important pesticide responsible for maintaining human health through the next two decades. The scientist who discovered the insecticidal properties of DDT,
Dr. Paul Müller, was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Rachel Carson, who held a master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins, was a low-level researcher for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries when, in the late 1950s, she was recruited by the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Audubon Society to help make public the government's pest spraying practices. Carson began the four-year project of what would become a book, Silent Spring, by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT.
In 1962 Rachel Carson’s scientifically flawed book Silent Spring was released. The book argued eloquently but erroneously that pesticides, and especially DDT, were poisoning both wildlife and the environment and also endangering human health. Reasoned scientific discussion and sound data on the favorable human health effects of DDT were brushed aside by environmental alarmists who discounted DDT’s enormous benefits to world health with two allegations: (1) DDT was a carcinogen, and (2) it endangered the environment, particularly for certain birds.
In the frantic debate that followed, numerous scientists protested that the laboratory-animal studies purporting to show that DDT was a carcinogen flew in the face of epidemiology, given that DDT had been used widely during the preceding 25 years with no increase in liver cancer in any of the populations among whom it had been sprayed. And when the
World Health Organization (WHO) investigated the animal studies, scientists discovered that both cases and controls had developed a surprising number of tumors. Further investigation revealed that the foods fed to both mice groups were moldy and contained aflatoxin, a carcinogen.
When the animal studies were repeated using noncontaminated foods, neither group developed tumors. In 1970 the National Academy of Sciences declared, “In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths due to malaria, that would otherwise have been inevitable.” Additionally, the evidence regarding the effect of DDT on eggshell thinning among wild birds is contradictory at best. Later research refuted the original studies that had pointed to DDT as a cause for eggshell thinning. In the years preceding the DDT ban, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, the U.S. Surgeon General, the World Health Organization, and the Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations had been among those who spoke out in support of the continued use of DDT as a disease fighter and crop protectant.
In 1971 authority over pesticides was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. . . . The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. . . . The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.” Two months later EPA head William Ruckelshaus—who had never attended a single day’s session in the seven months of EPA hearings, and who admittedly had not even read the transcript of the hearings— overturned Judge Sweeney’s decision. Ruckelshaus declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.
EPA Director William Ruckelshaus
The ban on DDT was considered the first major victory for the environmentalist movement in the U.S.
The effect of the ban in other nations was less salutary, however. In Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) DDT spraying had reduced malaria cases from 2.8 million in 1948 to 17 in 1963. After spraying was stopped in 1964, malaria cases began to rise again and reached 2.5 million in 1969. The same pattern was repeated in many other tropical— and usually impoverished—regions of the world. In Zanzibar the prevalence of malaria among the populace dropped from 70 percent in 1958 to 5 percent in 1964. By 1984 it was back up to between 50 and 60 percent. The chief malaria expert for the U.S. Agency for International Development said that malaria would have been 98 percent eradicated had DDT continued to be used.
A 1978 National Cancer Institute report concluded—after two years of testing on several different strains of cancer- prone mice and rats—that DDT was not carcinogenic. In October 1997 the
New England Journal of Medicine published a large, well-designed study that found no evidence that exposure to DDT increases the risk of cancer.
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, the book that spearheaded the demonization of DDT, was dedicated to Albert Schweitzer, whom Carson quoted as saying '
Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.' This was falsely presented to Carson's readers as Albert Schweitzer's concern about DDT. The quotation in Silent Spring, however, was about Schweitzer's fear of nuclear weapons. Of Malaria Schweitzer actually said: 'How much labor and waste of time these wicked insects do cause us... but a ray of hope in the use of DDT, is now held out to us'.
The World Health Organization now estimates that there are between
300 and 500 million cases of malaria annually, causing approximately one million deaths. About 80% of those are young children, millions of whom could have been saved over the years with the regular application of DDT to their environments. The WHO has called on environmentalists “to help save African babies as you are helping to save the environment” and
endorsed increased use of DDT to fight malaria.
Read More:
Rachel Carson and William Ruckelshaus may be the two greatest mass-murders in history. Count their victims at: The Malaria Clock
Our series on famous health scares is submitted as a service to readers who tend to lend undeserved credence to the daily barrage of misinformation in the popular press concerning the latest “scientific” discovery of new threats to our safety. We’ve heard it all before. Have no fear.
Special thanks is due to research provided by The American Council on Science and Health, whose motto, borrowed from Adam Smith, is: “Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
Comments
Mostly a load of tripe. This article seriously distorts the history and science.
For example, there is not a single study done, anywhere, published in peer-review journals, that denies any piece of research Rachel Carson cited.
The false claims of Steven Milloy with regard to eagles are genuinely evil.
Come to Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, do a search for "DDT," and get started on the real information. You can find it easily on Google. Facts will not be suppressed
No, seriously: Come to Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, and get the facts.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?s=DDT
You wrote: <blockquote>"A 1978 National Cancer Institute report concluded—after two years of testing on several different strains of cancer- prone mice and rats—that DDT was not carcinogenic."</blockquote>
That's not true or accurate. NCI lists DDT as a "probable human carcinogen," as does EPA, and as does every cancer-fighting organization in the world including the American Cancer Society.
Who told you the false claims?
Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology
Edited by Hans-Olov Adami, David Hunter, and Dimitrios Trichopoulos. 599 pp. New York, Oxford University Press, 2002. $75. ISBN: 0-19-510969-4
"The authors also show that concern about some risk factors, such as saccharine, reserpine, coffee, dietary fat, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dichlorodiphenyltrichloro-ethane (DDT), has fallen by the wayside."
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200305153482026
Sorry, Mr. Darrell, but no laboratory animal study ever showed DDT to cause cancer.
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