A bit of
personal history; in the 1980s I was engaged by the U.S. producer of a
pesticide called Ficam to develop case histories about its use.
Ficam is
applied with water and it killed off
a wide range of common insect pests. There is no odor and there is no hazard to
humans when correctly applied, but at some point the Environmental Protection
Agency told the producer it would have to go through the entire process of re-registering
it for use. Since that would have cost several millions of dollars, the decision was
made to cease selling it in the U.S. As a result, it was essentially banned
from use in America. Today it is still in wide use in other nations.
The 1980s
was a period of extensive propaganda by environmental organizations about any
use of any pesticide. It had begun two decades earlier with the publication of
Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring”, that falsely claimed that DDT posed a
threat to bird populations and to humans. The book created the hysteria about
DDT that got it banned in the U.S.in 1972 and subsequently in many other
nations.
In a
recent commentary, “Environmental Fear-Mongering Isn’t Just Silly, it Kills People”, by Walter E. Williams, he quoted an article by Dr. Henry Miller, a
senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Gregory Conko, a senior fellow at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute who said the ban was responsible for the
loss of “tens of millions of human lives—mostly children in poor, tropical
countries—having been traded for the possibility of slightly improved fertility
in raptors (birds). This remains one of the monumental human tragedies of the
last century.”
Williams
noted that “In 1970, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences wrote: “To
only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as DDT…In little more than
two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths due to malaria that
otherwise would have been inevitable.” These days, the World Health
Organization estimates that malaria infects at least 200 million people, of
which more than half die, each year. Most malaria victims are African
children.” Four decades later, millions continue to needlessly die because of
the DDT ban.
DDT killed
billions of mosquitoes, the transmitters of malaria. Ficam, when it was used in
America, killed billions of disease vectors such as cockroaches that are known to
spread Salmonella, Gastroenteritis, Leprosy, Dysentery, and Typhoid fever,
among others.
The EPA didn’t
care about this when it banned DDT or forced Ficam off the U.S. market. The
environmental organizations that continue to attack pesticides don’t care that
insect pests spread disease or that termites annually cause billions of dollars
in property damage.
In an
Investors Business article, Paul Driessen, a senior advisor to CFACT, the
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, debunked the scare campaigns surrounding
die-offs of bee colonies. Greens are currently spreading lies about “neonics”,
a pesticide derived from naturally-occurring nicotine plant compounds, saying
they are responsible for the bee die-offs, but such colony collapses were first
reported in 1869 and to this day scientists are still unable to identify why
they occur. Typically, the laboratory studies expose bees to doses “far above
what a realistic field dose exposure would be”, according to a study by Dr.
Cynthia Scott-Dupres, an environmental biology professor at the University of
Guelph in Ontario, Canada. In layman’s terms, there is no connection between neonics
and the current bee die-off.
Since
1986, I have been the public relations counselor for a pest management
association, writing and disseminating press releases about seasonal pest
problems. The June release addresses Lyme disease, spread by ticks, and West
Nile Fever, spread by mosquitos.
The outbreak of West Nile Fever in 1990 reawakened public
awareness of the need for effective mosquito control, By 2007 it had spread to
forty-six states and that year it was responsible for 115 deaths according the
Centers for Disease Control. It is a form of Encephalitis.
In my home state the Department of Health fact sheet on Lyme
disease notes that “In New Jersey, the most commonly infected tick is the deer
tick. Immature ticks become infected by feeding on infected white-footed mice
and other small mammals, such as deer and meadow voles. Deer ticks can also
spread other tick-borne diseases. Humans can be infected by more than one
tick-borne disease at a time.” If untreated, weeks to months later some people may
also have arthritis, nervous system and heart problems. If treated early,
antibiotic therapy for three to four weeks is generally effective.
There is probably no way to put an exact number of people in
my home state and around the nation who will be infected by Lyme disease and
West Nile Fever this year, but there are steps people can take to avoid being
infected. Pest control is about protecting lives and property.
In New Jersey, organized mosquito control work began in the early 1900s following the discovery that mosquitoes were directly responsible for the transmission of some of the most deadly diseases known to man and animals. Today the Mosquito Control Commission maintains programs to kill these pests while overseeing programs at every level of government, ranging from seasonal programs at the municipal and federal levels, to year-round programs administered by county and state agencies.
Unless pest populations are kept in check the diseases for
which they are famous will spread. They also protect billions of dollars’ worth
of crops that feed millions here in the U.S. and around the world.
The next time you read a newspaper article or watch some
report on television declaring that pesticides are a hazard, keep in mind that
pest management professionals are trained in their proper use and the
pesticides are all registered with the Environmental Protection Agency. The
rest of us need to read and heed the label!
Malaria is still killing millions in Africa. Elsewhere in
the world, diseases like Dengue Fever have a similar impact. The extraordinary
advances that could protect humans continue to be under attack by environmental
organizations, more interested in “saving the Earth” than they are in saving
lives.
If you ban all the pesticides, all that is left are the
pests.
© Alan Caruba, 2013
1 comment:
Deer ticks can also spread other tick-borne diseases. Humans can be infected by more than one tick-borne disease at a time
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