Time Immortal

The guys who run this ostensibly humourous site are often too eerily good:

…the secret reason why all white people love socialized medicine is that they all love the idea of receiving without having a full-time job. This would allow them to work as a freelance designer/consultant/copywriter/photographer/blogger, open their own bookstore, stay at home with their kids, or be a part of an internet start-up without having to worry about a benefits package. Though many of them would never follow this path, they appreciate having the option.

If you need to impress a white person, merely mention how you got hurt on a recent trip Canada/England/Sweden and though you were a foreigner you received excellent and free health care. They will be very impressed and likely tell you about how powerful drug and health care lobbies are destroying everything.

Though their passion for national health care runs deep, it is important to remember that white people are most in favor of it when they are healthy. They love the idea of everyone have equal access to the resources that will keep them alive, that is until they have to wait in line for an MRI.

This is very similar to the way that white people express their support for public schools when they don?t have children.

Not that socialized health care is necessarily “free” — ever wonder why many European nations have exorbitantly high tax rates?

Ed Darrell writes in yet again, which I think might have earned him the dubious distinction of being my most regular correspondent. Maybe I should buy a carbon offset offset in his name as a prize.

At any rate, Here’s my last response to him, just for a refresher, since it has been a couple weeks since I’ve picked up and run with this discussion.

Toxicity, of course, is not the issue with birds. The question is what does DDT or DDE do to reproduction.

The chemicals are endocrine disruptors. They act as estrogen and other endocrine hormones in the wild.

By focusing on the toxicity studies, you do the same thing Milloy does dishonestly (though I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt — you probably haven’t figured this out). Toxicity is not the problem. Unless the chemicals are toxic, and they aren’t to larger animals simply because size makes the difference, they accumulate in fat tissues. This accumulation lets the chemicals operate in the animal for the rest of its life.

It won’t kill the bird, but it will kill the chick in the bird’s egg. It will thin the shell of the egg, too, so that should the chick manage not to die from estrogen poisoning, the egg will crack prematurely, and the chick will die from prematurity.

DDT’s dangers are not toxicity to larger animals. The dangers are reproductive interruptions and cancer. And while DDT is not a “proven” carcinogen for humans, it is listed as a suspected human carcinogen by every cancer fighting agency on Earth. We know it causes cancer in other mammals, and frankly, there are no known mammal carcinogens that shouldn’t be suspected of causing cancer in humans.

But it’s not humans or the environment that DDT advocates care about — it’s making half-witty remarks against Rachel Carson, scientists, and environmentalists. Who cares how many kids are killed because of misuse of DDT, if we can score points on a blog?

Ed is, of course, bending the truth again, as is befitting a biased activist. But because I’m in a very good, and somewhat charitable, mood, I’ll entertain him for a while.

Let me re-state something I wrote previously:

First, in an analysis of DDT and its derivatives, the International Programme on Chemical Safety found that “DDT and its derivatives DDE and TDE have moderate to low toxicity to birds when given as an acute oral dose or in the diet.” Moreover, it was found that there “is no obvious pattern of relative toxicity between the three compounds. In some species it is DDT that is the most toxic, while in other species it is TDE.” (and remember: what toxicity exists is rated as “moderate to low”) The study does not specifically address eagles, however, noting that in the wild, “the most severely affected species of birds are raptors at the top of food chains. There is little direct laboratory data on toxicity to these birds.”

That should begin to paint us an interesting picture, O Reader, one which I will come back to later. There is “little laboratory data” on the toxicity of DDT and its byproducts to high-level predatory birds like eagles. And yet some people assert with terrifying certainty (when is science ever certain?) that DDT is the causitive factor in the bald eagle’s near brush with extinction.

The study goes on to note that whether or not DDT exposure affected hatchability of eggs (particularly due to eggshell thinning) varied greatly between bird species — some were succeptible to it, some were not. Care must be taken in looking at the results, however, because some of the test birds were also fed a low-calcium diet, which would also negatively impact eggshell thickness. This was specifically being tested for, as earlier studies (most notably by Joel Bitman of the United States Department of Agriculture, in 1969) had exposed the test birds not only to DDT or one of its derivatives, but had also fed them a low-calcium diet.

The reduction of calcium in the diet of test birds was found to be a significant factor in the outcome of the studies (which shouldn’t come as a surprise): “In contrast to the earlier studies, there was no effect of either DDT or DDE on shell thickness or egg weight when dietary calcium was higher. There was an increased incidence of egg breakage in birds fed DDT and DDE, but this was less pronounced than with the low calcium diets.”

Moreover, “Robson et al. (1976) studied the effects of DDE and DDT fed to Japanese quail in two different diets containing adequate or low calcium. DDT was fed at 100 mg/kg diet, whereas DDE was given at 0, 199, or 300 mg/kg diet, and the two calcium levels were 0.5% and 3%.

DDE at 300 mg/kg was detrimental to adult body weight, fertility, and survivability. There was no effect of either DDT or of DDE at up to 100 mg/kg diet on adult body weight, food consumption, egg production, egg weight, fertility, hatchability, cracking of eggs, or eggshell thickness. Low dietary calcium had the effect of reducing the thickness of eggshells, increasing the incidence of cracked shells and decreasing egg production and hatchability.” In other words, DDT and its derivatives (DDE is the most common — it is formed when DDT sheds a hydrogen cholride molecule) did not have at all the same effect on eggshell thickness in test birds as it was found to have in previous studies, because those studies had also involved feeding the birds a calcim-deficient diet, something they probably wouldn’t have been exposed to as frequently in the wild.

It’s not just the Bitman study that is thrown into doubt, either — researchers from the University of Alberta, writing to Nature Magazine, also question the findings of Wiemeyer and Porter’s work with American kestrels, pointing out that in the Wiemeyeer/Porter study, it was the control group of birds who had the thinnest eggshells. This was written in response to an article in Nature Magazine by Blus, Gish, Belisle and Prouty in 1972. The U of A researchers, in their letter, note that to “support their conclusions, the authors [Blus, Gish, Belisle and Prouty] state that concentrations of residues in the female determine shell thickness, a claim which is unreferenced, largely hypothetical, and without consideration of contradictory experimental evidence.”

Now, I’m not sure exactly how Ed jumped from reading the above, which I have excerpted directly from the article linked in the opening paragraph, to concluding that I chose only to focus on the toxicity of DDT and its derivatives whilst demonstrating utter neglect of the issue of the effect of those chemicals on avian reproduction. As the Reader can plainly see, the issue of egg cracking is directly discussed, and the studies I link to suggest that eggshell thickness varies not only in relation to DDT/DDE concentration, but to bird species as well — some birds seem succeptible, others do not. And indeed, the validity of the initial studies of eggshell thickness relative to DDT/DDE concentration are called into doubt because of the fact that the test birds were fed a low-calcium diet, which had a very obvious detrimental effect on eggshell thickness wholly apart from any DDT/DDE exposure.

(Tangentially, I wonder if Ed is as concerned about the estrogen imbalances and the effect they have on reproduction and offspring viability in human women, specifically in regard to birth control?)

Ed remarks that “while DDT is not a “proven” carcinogen for humans, it is listed as a suspected human carcinogen by every cancer fighting agency on Earth. We know it causes cancer in other mammals, and frankly, there are no known mammal carcinogens that shouldn’t be suspected of causing cancer in humans.” I admire his youthful idealism, of course, but he seems unable to accept the fact that cancer-fighting agencies could succumb to political pressures, or could act — on occasion — out of political, and then less than noble, motives. Yes, DDT is listed as a possible carcinogen in humans, and yet repeated studies have demonstrated no tangible connection between the development rates of various cancers and DDT/DDE exposure in humans. One would think that in the thirty or so years that we’ve been researching this matter, some kind of connection might have been demonstrated or observed…and yet, time and again, this is shown not to be the case.

Documented cases of people dying from DDT exposure are not exactly common either (in fact, they are rare); documented cases of people dying from malaria spread by resurgent mosquito populations as a result of the DDT ban are, unfortunately, very common, to the tune of (well) over a million per year.

Ed and I are both trying to framework our arguments, in part, around the issue of death tolls inflicted on real human beings. But whereas Ed is more repulsed by the fact that a chemical agent might cause cancer (although more and more studies seem to be showing no tangible link between DDT, or any of its derivatives, and cancer rates) in a few human beings, and in so doing kill them, I choose to be more repulsed by the fact that discontinuing the use of DDT was directly responsible for the re-increase in rates of malaria infections in many countries around the world, causing millions of deaths. Ed is chasing phantoms and decrying shadows; I prefer to deal with somewhat harsher and more concrete realities.

What’s really unfortunate, though, is that this whole discussion emerged out of nothing more than a throwaway comment I made in an article that was primarily focused on how the production of biofuel — another obsession of environmentalists — was forcing the prices of food staples, grains especially, to skyrocket world-wide.

A significant contributor to the problem - one estimate puts it at 30 per cent of the problem - is the growing reliance on biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. Last year, 20 per cent of the U.S. corn crop was used to produce ethanol; this year, it is expected to reach as high as one-third.

Biofuels have been pursued as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions while enabling the world to maintain its reliance on the internal combustion engine. In theory, they are carbon neutral because the carbon they produce when burned is offset by the amount they absorb while growing. But because of the carbon produced when they are harvested, refined and transported, the picture is not so rosy.

Further, ethanol is seen as desirable because it can locate fuel production in the Western world, rather than in countries seen as politically less reliable.

The result of this shift to biofuels can be catastrophic. In Mexico, for example, the shift in the use of maize to ethanol has been a major cause of the astronomical increase in the cost of a staple food.

That the world would sacrifice land needed for food production to produce more fuel for private transportation shows how crazy our addiction to fossil fuels has become. We would place the lives and well being of hundreds of millions of people in jeopardy in order to maintain our way of life.

If the price of bread triples in Canada, most of us will still be able to get by. Six dollars might seem a lot to pay for bread, admittedly, but most Canadians (not all, though) can still survive such an increase. Poor people in Canada, and the majority of the people living in poor and developing nations, however, cannot weather such steep food price increases. And out of a selfish desire to live the most “carbon neutral” lifestyle possible, the rich liberals of the West think nothing of how their thirst for biofuel forces starvation upon many in the third world.

Funnily, Ed didn’t seem to have any comment on that larger issue, preferring instead to sidetrack the discussion into a topic of a battle his side has already won, more or less — DDT. I wonder what Ed thinks about biofuels? He seems so passionate about protecting the environment, and at least feigns passion (he might be sincere, but of this I am less certain) where preventing the deaths of human beings is concerned. I honestly wonder if he advocates for the increased use of biofuels, even though such an increase would condemn many people world-wide to deeper poverty and/or starvation? After all, when the issue becomes — very directly — a tradeoff between comparatively minor environmental harm and a massive human death toll, Ed comes down in favour of a massive human death toll where DDT usage is concerned. Biofuel is another issue in which a very minor (if at all existant) environmental impact conflicts directly with the well-being and survivability of what could be millions of human beings. Why did Ed choose to sidetrack the discussion in the first place, and what is his stance on biofuel?

One is not inclined to be all that hopeful in one’s assumptions in this regard.

Ed Darrell just can’t get enough, I guess. Not satisfied with my most recent response to him, he returns to this “frustrating”, “not the place to carry on a discussion” blog to ask for more information.

Ed claims that there are a thousand studies that confirm Carson’s claims. Personally, I don’t see them — certainly Ed doesn’t link to all of them (in fact, between the two incredibly lengthy articles of his that I have now linked to, he links to very few studies indeed).

But then, you can’t find a single link to any study which contradicts anything Carson wrote. You criticize me for pointing to the studies that do exist, while Milloy functions on misrepresentation, outright falsehood, and non-existent studies.

I challenge you again: Find a study that says eagles were not harmed by DDT. Don’t cite a third-hand, hearsay piece from Milloy: Cite the study.

Go to Discovery Magazine and looke at the number of studies they cite. Milloy doesn’t offer numbers of studies, only misquotes from a few — Discover counted those that corroborated Carson’s work. 1,000 to how many? Count ‘em, if you can find ‘em.

When your side is down 1,000 to one, it’s an expected tactic for you to call me a liar. Shame on you.

I’m not actually threatened by the prospect of being “down” a thousand to one, so long as the one that I do have is correct. It’s like John da Fiesole always asks: but is it true? So long as I have one that’s true, the other side is welcome to their thousand.

For example, the reason I’m calling Ed a liar is because I caught him in a lie by demonstrating that a statement which he made is false. Predictably, in keeping with the general modus operandi of a biased activist, Ed has not yet retracted his erroneous statement — a crime he accuses Steven Milloy of being guilty of, mind — but has instead persisted in saying that nothing out there exists which challenges Rachel Carson’s writings.

Ed insists I cite the study. Okay, fine, I can cite the study. But Milloy cites studies as well, and Ed doesn’t accept those — some he dismisses as non-existent, others he dismisses as invalid for a host of nebulous reasons. Perhaps, dishonestly, Ed only accepts as valid those studies which agree with his biases? That would certainly be typical of a biased activist, wouldn’t it, O Reader?

But to humour his demands one more time, here’s a few things I was able to cobble together in the 20 or so minutes I had left in the day when this latest bit of correspondence from Ed arrived in my mailbox. Just to be clear: every article or study I link to here, I found online within twenty minutes. Given a day, or a week, and both the internet and a comprehensive database of old articles on microfiche, how many other gems might I find?

Remember also Ed’s claim that nothing has been published which refutes Carson’s claims. All I need is one.

First, in an analysis of DDT and its derivatives, the International Programme on Chemical Safety found that “DDT and its derivatives DDE and TDE have moderate to low toxicity to birds when given as an acute oral dose or in the diet.” Moreover, it was found that there “is no obvious pattern of relative toxicity between the three compounds. In some species it is DDT that is the most toxic, while in other species it is TDE.” (and remember: what toxicity exists is rated as “moderate to low”) The study does not specifically address eagles, however, noting that in the wild, “the most severely affected species of birds are raptors at the top of food chains. There is little direct laboratory data on toxicity to these birds.”

That should begin to paint us an interesting picture, O Reader, one which I will come back to later. There is “little laboratory data” on the toxicity of DDT and its byproducts to high-level predatory birds like eagles. And yet some people assert with terrifying certainty (when is science ever certain?) that DDT is the causitive factor in the bald eagle’s near brush with extinction.

The study goes on to note that whether or not DDT exposure affected hatchability of eggs (particularly due to eggshell thinning) varied greatly between bird species — some were succeptible to it, some were not. Care must be taken in looking at the results, however, because some of the test birds were also fed a low-calcium diet, which would also negatively impact eggshell thickness. This was specifically being tested for, as earlier studies (most notably by Joel Bitman of the United States Department of Agriculture, in 1969) had exposed the test birds not only to DDT or one of its derivatives, but had also fed them a low-calcium diet.

The reduction of calcium in the diet of test birds was found to be a significant factor in the outcome of the studies (which shouldn’t come as a surprise): “In contrast to the earlier studies, there was no effect of either DDT or DDE on shell thickness or egg weight when dietary calcium was higher. There was an increased incidence of egg breakage in birds fed DDT and DDE, but this was less pronounced than with the low calcium diets.”

Moreover, “Robson et al. (1976) studied the effects of DDE and DDT fed to Japanese quail in two different diets containing adequate or low calcium. DDT was fed at 100 mg/kg diet, whereas DDE was given at 0, 199, or 300 mg/kg diet, and the two calcium levels were 0.5% and 3%.

DDE at 300 mg/kg was detrimental to adult body weight, fertility, and survivability. There was no effect of either DDT or of DDE at up to 100 mg/kg diet on adult body weight, food consumption, egg production, egg weight, fertility, hatchability, cracking of eggs, or eggshell thickness. Low dietary calcium had the effect of reducing the thickness of eggshells, increasing the incidence of cracked shells and decreasing egg production and hatchability.” In other words, DDT and its derivatives (DDE is the most common — it is formed when DDT sheds a hydrogen cholride molecule) did not have at all the same effect on eggshell thickness in test birds as it was found to have in previous studies, because those studies had also involved feeding the birds a calcim-deficient diet, something they probably wouldn’t have been exposed to as frequently in the wild.

It’s not just the Bitman study that is thrown into doubt, either — researchers from the University of Alberta, writing to Nature Magazine, also question the findings of Wiemeyer and Porter’s work with American kestrels, pointing out that in the Wiemeyeer/Porter study, it was the control group of birds who had the thinnest eggshells. This was written in response to an article in Nature Magazine by Blus, Gish, Belisle and Prouty in 1972. The U of A researchers, in their letter, note that to “support their conclusions, the authors [Blus, Gish, Belisle and Prouty] state that concentrations of residues in the female determine shell thickness, a claim which is unreferenced, largely hypothetical, and without consideration of contradictory experimental evidence.”

Now, when one does even as little as a Google search for DDT and eagles, one finds a lot of different articles alleging that there is a connection between DDT usage and the decline in the eagle population. Keeping in mind that there isn’t that much laboratory data available on high-end predatory raptors, most of these studies and articles tend to cite earlier studies, such as those by Bitman or Wiemeyer and Porter, in support of their conclusions. Certainly, that was the case in the Nature Magazine article mentioned above (Nature, 235, 376 (1972)). In that specific case, it was shown, quickly and rather easily, that the authors of the article not only incorrectly interpreted the evidence that they considered, but also that they ignored evidence which contradicted their conclusions.

Ed asserts that there are a thousand studies done. I see a number of studies, to be sure, but I also see a number of articles drawing upon the same pool of studies. Perhaps I’m in error to suspect this, but if we assume that Ed’s hyperbolic claim of a thousand studies is actually an accurate number, how many of those studies are unique inquiries, and how many are follow-up articles in scientific publications which draw upon the same pool of earlier research data? And how many of those ignored contrary evidence? Was it just the writers at Nature, or were some of the writers at, say, Discovery also guilty of sweeping under the rug later studies which contradicted some of their conclusions?

As recently as 2003, IBIS - the International Journal of Avian Science, published by the British Ornithologists Union, found that their revisiting of the DDE/eggshell thickness issue in American condors “revealed major problems in using the thickness or DDE content of shell fragments from eggs of unknown size to study contamination problems.” They urged that “future studies of the effects of DDE on shell thinning in any species be limited to whole-egg samples when possible. DDE analyses of shell fragments should be regarded as inherently suspect, unless they are run immediately after eggs are fragmented, and direct shell thickness measurements should always be interpreted in the light of egg-size effects on thickness. Studies in which egg size is neglected can miss potentially important effects of egg size on shell thickness and DDE on egg size.

The failure of many previous avian DDE studies to investigate potential DDE effects on egg size or egg-size effects on thinning does not necessarily invalidate any of these studies, especially if the species involved suffered no changes in egg size during periods of contamination. However, results with the California Condor suggest that re-analyses taking egg-size information into account might modify conclusions in some cases.”

Now, admittedly, none of these articles addresses bald eagles directly — but that is because there is very little lab data available on eagles to begin with. What the studies I have linked to do is point to a trend that calls into question earlier studies on the relationship between DDT or one of its derivatives and eggshell thickness in different bird species, especially in light of the suspect nature (see the IBIS article, above) of studies of eggshell thickness done on eggshell fragments that were not collected and analyzed at or very near the moment of fragmentation.

In Photography, there is a technique that shooters sometimes use which is called bracketing. Bracketing can mean many things, but in essence distills down to this: one aspect of the camera’s operation or image capture parameters is varied over a series of shots, while the subject of the picture is held constant. For example, let us say that one is taking a picture of someone who is backlit by a strong light source. One could use bracketing to take a series of pictures, varying the exposure each time, in order to try and capture an image that strikes a balance between overexposing the background and underexposing the subject in the foreground. Bracketing is used, in essence, to extract an optimal, if not a maximum, level of detail from a scene, especially a scene in which harsh conditions concerning dynamic range are present.

What does this have to do with eagles?

Science News, in 1998, noted that “[l]ong before DDT was a glimmer in a farmer’s eye, some other menace, as yet unknown, was sapping the strength of eggshells.” This could possibly have been a result of acidification as a result of early industrialization, but at any rate it was found that a thinning trend in the eggshell thickness of various bird species could be traced back as far as 1850, predating DDT by many decades (the same study noted that some bird species have “withstood eggshell declines of up to 15 percent”). The Reader will have to pardon the rather “dated” look of the Science News article archives — evidently, the changeover in format that has been done to their main site has not yet been bubbled down to all the old content.

Moreover, the American Council on Science and Health, in their Facts Versus Fears publication (Edition 3, June 1998 — an extract of the ACSH article can be found here) noted that “[i]n 1968 two researchers, Drs. Joseph J. Hickey and Daniel W. Anderson, reported that high concentrations of DDT were found in the eggs of wild raptor populations. The two concluded that increased eggshell fragility in peregrine falcons, bald eagles, and ospreys was due to DDT exposure. Dr. Joel Bitman and associates at the U.S. Department of Agriculture likewise determined that Japanese quail fed DDT produced eggs with thinner shells and lower calcium content.

In actuality, however, declines in bird populations either had occurred before DDT was present or had occured years after DDT’s use. A comparison of the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Counts between 1941 (pre-DDT) and 1960 (after DDT’s use had waned) reveals that at least 26 different kinds of birds became more numerous during those decades, the period of greatest DDT usage. The Audubon counts document an overall increase in birds seen per observer from 1941 to 1960, and statistical analyses of the Audubon data confirm the perceived increases. For example, only 197 bald eagles were documented in 1941; the number had increased to 891 in 1960.

At Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, teams of ornithologists made daily counts of migrating raptors for over 40 years. The counts — published annually by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association — reveal great increases in most kinds of hawks during the DDT years. The osprey counts increased as follows: in 1946, 191; in 1956, 288; in 1967, 457; and in 1972, 630.13 In 1942 Dr. Joseph Hickey — who in 1968 would blame DDT for bird population decline — reported that 70 per-cent of the eastern osprey population had been killed by pole traps around fish hatcheries. That same year, before DDT came into use, Hickey noted a decline in the population of peregrine falcons.

Other observers also documented that the great peregrine decline in the eastern United States occurred long before any DDT was present in the environment. In Canada peregrines were observed to be “reproducing normally” in the 1960s even though their tissues contained 30 times more DDT than did the tissues of the midwestern peregrines allegedly being extirpated by the chemical.18 And in Great Britain, in 1969, a three-year government study noted that the decline of peregrine falcons in Britain had ended in 1966 even though DDT levels were as abundant as ever. The British study concluded that “There is no close correlation between the decline in population of predatory birds, particularly the peregrine falcon and the sparrow hawk, and the use of DDT.

In addition, later research refuted the original studies that had pointed to DDT as a cause for eggshell thinning. After reassessing their findings using more modern methodology, Drs. Hickey and Anderson admitted that the egg extracts they had studied contained little or no DDT and said they were now pursuing PCBs, chemicals used as capacitor insulators, as the culprit.”

This is what I’m getting at, O Reader, when I talk about bracketing — looking at the data outside a single frame of reference. The fact is, eggshell thicknesses were already in decline by the time DDT usage became widespread, and that decline continued in some species well past the time when DDT began to fall out of use (the early 1960s), and well past the time when it was banned. To a truly critical mind, that detail, plus the fact that there is now grounds for doubt about the conclusions of many of the studies done demonstrating a direct correlation between DDT concentration and the welfare of various bird species, should be cause enough for a re-evaluation of whether or not the doom prophecies of Silent Spring were really all that correct in the first place.

Yes, nothing I have cited pertains directly to eagles…but given the studies that I have dug up, we must now diverge our thinking. Either eagles were uniquely succeptible to DDT and its derivatives, and were particularly vulnerable to it, or else they — like many other bird species — were already under pressure from a variety of other environmental factors at the same time. One cannot help but note that around the same time that DDT was falling out of use and heading toward its eventual banning, both automobiles and various industries were being subjected to steadily more strict environmental regulations, and were installing better emission control systems. How can the effects of those changes be measured separately from any perceived changes brought on by a reduction or cessation of DDT usage if, as may well be possible, acidification due to industrial pollution also had a detrimental effect on eggshell thickness?

And finally, there is one other consideration. “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.

In addition, from 1960 to 1974 WHO screened about 2,000 compounds for use as antimalarial insecticides. Only 30 were judged promising enough to warrant field trials. WHO found that none of those compounds had the persistence of DDT or was as safe as DDT. (Insecticides such as malathion and carbaryl, which are much more toxic than DDT, were used instead.) And—a very important factor for malaria control in less developed countries—all of the substitutes were considerably more expensive than DDT.”

Nearly three million people die every year (another of Ed’s lies was to claim that only 1 million people die each year from this disease — he has yet to retract that statement as well) from malaria. Perhaps it is callous of me to say so, but for some reason, I cannot bring myself — in the face of statistics that basically mean one malarial death every thirty seconds — to care more about eight hundred observed eagles as opposed to merely three hundred.

Ed mentions shame. Yes, it would be a shame if the bald eagle went extinct — but it’s a bigger shame that 2.7 million people die every year from a disease that was on the road to eradication at one point.

Ed will just have to forgive me if I don’t get all misty over the plight of a bird that isn’t even a food source for humans.

It took Ed Darrell a good half-dozen emails in which he has called Steven Milloy a liar to actually provide a concrete example within a piece of correspondence. The drought has now ended, however, and an example has been given.

Here, try this one; Milloy says:

6. “To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT… In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable.”

[National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy. 1970. The Life Sciences; Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs; The World of Biological Research; Requirements for the Future.]

Now, if you know anything about mathematics, that should get your hackles up. 500 million lives saved? Malaria kills about a million people a year by most estimates — that would be 500 years of deaths. It’s 250 years of deaths if we go for a doubling the usual death rate. Of course, DDT has been used for only 50 years. So Milloy is arguing that 10 million people a year die from malaria.

Obviously that figure is wrong. YOu can see it. Milloy knows it, too (since I sent him the math). But of course, he might rely on the NAS as a source — which he would, I’m sure, if he were an honorable man who gave a whit about the honor of a 14-year old Boy Scout — but
he doesn’t.

The publication is available on line. Sure enough, NAS goofed.

But you need to read the entire publication. Milloy presents it as the NAS agreeing with his view that Carson was in error. NAS takes the opposite position. They argue that Carson is right, and that she was right to urge more research to find a replacement for DDT, since,
in their estimation DDT use provided some value.

You can read my criticism, with citations, here: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/fisking-junk-
sciences-campaign-against-ddt-point-6/

NAS calls DDT “the poster child” of chemcials that are hazardous.

Is that Milloy’s point?

All one needs to do is pay atetntion to the headlines. Milloy ignores them. I ask that you be more honest than Milloy. He’s a lost cause in my book.

President Kennedy’s Council of Science Advisors reveiwed Carson’s findings, and they recommended to Kennedy that he act sooner rather than waiting as Carson had proposed, because the chemicals including DDT were more dangerous than Carson had alleged.

Why doesn’t Milloy mention that? I don’t know.

But I think you are duty bound to act more honorably than Milloy. Why don’t you mention it? Why don’t you mention the 1,000 studies that verify Carson’s claims, and refute Milloy’s?

I’ve given you the pointers. Check the citations — not just to see if they exist, but to see if they verify what Milloy says. Lazy academics is equal to academic fraud in this case. Don’t be lazy about it.

First, let’s be clear — malarial death rates are on the order of approximately 2.7 million a year, not the 1 million Ed notes above. Of course, that is still far short of the 10 million a year that would be necessary to achieve the 500 million saved that the NAS erroneously quoted.

And yes, Milloy does quote the NAS report as a source, and so makes mention of the 500 million. Within that limited scope, Milloy is indeed incorrect, but only insofar as he quoted another source that was incorrect. And the scope of the error is likewise narrow; the 500 million figure could be dismissed as hyperbole, and the fact that it is not an accurate number in no way argues against what would seem to be the concrete fact that DDT usage, in its day, did prevent millions of malaria-related deaths.

And here we have to ask, I think, what Steven Milloy’s true intent in posting the quotation from the National Academy of Sciences study was; was he intending to hold up the 500 million number as accurate, or was he merely citing one more study which asserted that yes, DDT usage in an anti-malarial role saves many lives? I’m a charitable guy; I tend to believe that the latter possibility is Milloy’s probable rationale.

Ed does correctly point out that the NAS ultimately did side with Rachel Carson’s conclusions about a rollback in DDT usage, and I’ve said before that even I’m not in favour of willy-nilly use the stuff. But here’s an interesting question: can people, even when they start out well, still get things wrong? Richard Dawkins argues in favour of the theory of evolution, and I think he does very well at it; strictly on the science, I agree with him. But Richard Dawkins ultimately draws out of that otherwise very excellent science a conclusion that God is just a delusion, and that organized Religion is a form of child abuse. Is he still right, despite the fact that his science is impeccable?

No, of course he is not. So what I wonder is this: the NAS acknowledged that DDT played a valuable role in combatting malaria, and that it was because DDT was so damnably effective at killing or driving away mosquitos that millions of malarial deaths were being prevented world-wide thanks to its use. But in the end, they sided with Rachel Carson and argued in favour of diminishing the use of DDT. Could they too have made the transition from right-minded to wrong-minded somewhere? It’s certainly possible, isn’t it?

And maybe Steven Milloy had no other intent in quoting the NAS source than to suggest exactly that. Or maybe he had very malicious reasons. Ed certainly attributes malice to Milloy’s actions. But then, Ed is himself biased.

The fact is, the NAS is, I don’t think, correct in calling DDT the “poster child” of hazardous chemicals, first and foremost because that sort of statement is rhetorical, not academic. Certainly, it is not a scientific statement. And as some of the articles of Milloy’s that I found sources for note, the claim that DDT is über-harmful seems more and more questionable, as several studies have now demonstrated no identifiable connection between DDT concentration in the body and rates of cancer development.

Ed claims that there are a thousand studies that confirm Carson’s claims. Personally, I don’t see them — certainly Ed doesn’t link to all of them (in fact, between the two incredibly lengthy articles of his that I have now linked to, he links to very few studies indeed). I’ve found, within half an hour, eight studies that suggest that DDT isn’t as harmful, to humans at least, as was previously thought. Given more time, is it possible that I might find a hundred such articles? Or a thousand?

Do I need to find more than one article, as long as the article I find is right?

I notice that Ed has dropped his unfair accusation that I edit emails (probably in the face of the threat of being exposed as a fraud yet again — and yet I am the passive-aggressive one?), and I’m going to admit to making one edit to the above message from him; I changed none of the spelling, but I did turn the provided URL for his blog post into a proper hyperlink. That required adding an ‘a’ tag; none of Ed’s original text has been deleted.

I notice that Ed’s article is supposed to be one in a series of entries fisking the DDT FAQ at Junk Science. I further notice that Ed hasn’t really addressed all that many of the points made in said FAQ, despite his stated goal of doing so, and despite the fact that it’s been half a year since he posted the article he provides a link to (above). What should this tell us, O Reader? Could it possibly be that Ed is being dishonest again and not admitting that some of Milloy’s points cannot be fisked, at least not by Ed Darrell?

So at this point, I turn it over to the reader. There’s been a fair bit of discussion on this blog about DDT over the last few days. We’re all intelligent people here; we can make our own decisions and draw our own conclusions.

Ed Darrell, who I thought had dismissed this blog as “not the place to carry on a discussion,” returns to…ah…carry on the discussion.

No, not just looking to see whether the citation goes anywhere - you really are not paying attention — check the citations to see that they verify the point Milloy is trying to make.

For example, he argues that eagles were never harmed frmo DDT. Discover Magazine noted last November that there are more than 1200 studies on the issue, all verifying Carson’s side of the story.

Are there citations in Milloy’s piece? Yes. Do any of them check out? No.

You could look at my blog to see.

Your passive-aggressive refusal to engage the material is most irritating.

I’m not engaging the material, O Reader, as much as I am engaging Ed Darrell who, I have noted, has been caught in a lie. Yes, there are studies — which he links to and discusses in some detail — that support Rachel Carson’s thesis. There are also studies, which folks like Steven Milloy have remarked upon, that argue against it. Some studies show that DDT is a carcinogen in animals; other studies show no correlation between DDT concentration and cancer development in humans.

In truth, I wasn’t just looking to see if a citation was “going anywhere,” nor was I necessarily looking to see if the point Milloy was making by citing the article was valid (in that the content of the article cited matched the point being made, although that is in fact what I found anyhow). I was looking to catch Ed in a lie, and did just that.

And just for reference, Ed has just told another lie — he states, above, that none of Milloy’s citations check out. And yet I found eight citations from Milloy that do check out; not only are they legitimate sources, from reasonably well-known publications, but they actually support Milloy’s assertions (for example: that there appears to be no correlation between DDT concentration in human beings and the onset of various cancers).

Steven Milloy may still be a liar as well; I don’t really know (although I’ve no doubt that Milloy has told a lie — he is human, after all, and we’re all sinners). Ed Darrell would seem to make a convincing case, but I cannot trust that Ed himself is unbiased; in fact, he seems, to me, to be heavily biased against DDT and those who advocate for its use. Since in the article of his that I link to, he dismisses one DDT advocate as a corporate stooge, it would be fair turnabout to dismiss Ed himself as an activist.

Interestingly, for all his complaining about citations, Ed himself sees no need to provide links to articles and studies when attempting to refute Milloy’s claims about, say, bald eagles and peregrine falcons. He quotes Milloy’s remarks on the matter, all of which are accompanied by citations in the online DDT FAQ that Milloy maintains, and then follows up the quotation by saying, in essence, “actually, it was like this.” Which is all well and good…but it’s rather disappointing to see that even the venerable Ed Darrell isn’t providing sources for his statements.

In other words, reading his article and stacking it against Milloy’s collected notes on the same issue, I’m left wondering: why should I be convinced by Ed’s unsourced statements rather than Milloy’s sourced statements? It’s a rather bold (read: stupid) move to make to accuse another person of academic fraud and suggest that the pudding with the proof in it is an article that turns out to have even fewer sources and citations than are present in the article being dismissed as fraudulent. Basically, having read both Ed’s article and Milloy’s article, I’m more inclined to believe that the bald eagle population was already in decline prior to the widespread use of DDT, because while I might have to go digging through microfiche to find the source for Milloy’s claim, I’ve got a better chance of finding Milloy’s source than I do Ed’s, since Ed didn’t even link to, or otherwise provide, a source.

And yet he has the temerity to accuse someone else of dishonest academic practices. Interesting. One would think a genuinely unbiased person would be more…cautious. So perhaps I will dismiss Ed as an activist after all — the tactics he employs would seem consistent with the tactics of others of that designation.

It’s a pity that Ed thinks me passive-aggressive, just as surely as it’s a pity that I think him a liar. But notice the shift that has happened, O Reader — faced with someone who will not simply cave in and accept his odd barrage of facts and rhetoric, Ed — as is often the case with far too many of a biased, activist bent — has shifted his tactics to include slander and name-calling.

That makes me doubt the veracity of his statements all the more, in addition to the doubt I already feel as a result of having caught him in a lie. And yet I must wonder at one thing: if all I am to him is a source of frustration, why does he continue to return? Who, I wonder, is really passive-aggressive here?