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  • From: "Dan Durica" <dandurica@hotmail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] DDT still exported?
  • Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 06:52:51 -0800

I had always heard that the US still produced DDT for export to other countries.  I can do a little more research later (I only had a little time to do a google search) but this link says that 96 tons were exported in 1991.  I think it is true that many banned pesticides are still produced for export to countries that haven't banned them.

http://www.ghorganics.com/PIC%20Treaty%20Now%20Legally%20Binding.htm

Dan Durica
Madison WI
Zone 4/5

>From: Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>
>Reply-To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] DDT
>Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 21:54:22 -0600
>
>Bravo, Don.  A wonderfully written piece.
>Indeed the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, and a lot of the
>'science' that was put forward in the effort to ban DDT was, indeed
>'junk science' .
>At 09:20 PM 3/8/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>>1. Our politicians and regulators certainly rose up to smite DDT in
>>response to the public uproar of the 60's (provoked in large
>>measure by Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring"), but, as in so
>>many other cases, we threw out the babies with the bathwater.  For
>>not only did we prohibit the use of DDT in this country, we also
>>prohibited its export, and applied maximum pressure to
>>international development and lending institutions, as well as the
>>World Health Organization, to stop its use worldwide.  In this we
>>were quite successful.
>>
>>2. While the negative environmental effects of DDT when used in the
>>quantites and with the application methods of the 50's and 60's
>>seems to be a settled question, the effect on the human organism is
>>much less so.  DDT was, and remains, the best weapon against one of
>>the world's greatest killers: malaria.  But of course we didn't
>>have to worry about malaria because we had eliminated it in this
>>country.  Using DDT.
>>
>>3. Now, the weapons of choice against malaria are remedial, not
>>prophylactic, (which means you have to get the disease before you
>>can be treated), and it continues to kill nearly 3 million people
>>annually worldwide, more than one third of them in Africa,
>>disproportionately children under the age of 5.   And malaria is
>>making a strong comeback in many parts of the world where it was
>>nearly eliminated in the 1960's by using DDT.  If all those dead
>>children could speak, I wonder what they would have to say about
>>our environmental principles.  There is not much you can do to
>>enjoy the environment when you are buried under it.
>>
>>4. No one is advocating a return to the days of excessive and
>>indiscriminate application of DDT, only its use in and around the
>>huts and wikiups of people who stand a far greater chance of dying
>>from malaria than from even the most incidental effects of DDT.  
>>DDT is proven to be effective in reducing mosquito populations and
>>repelling their presence from treated areas, but now people in
>>carrier infested areas are offered netting to put over their beds.  
>>Good luck.
>>
>>5. I have had  some personal brushes with malaria, which color my
>>views.  I took chloroquine phosphate tablets for several years
>>while serving in lowland Ecuador and northeastern Brazil.  But I
>>was still cautious when traveling upcountry in the Amazon region,
>>and one of my close friends and colleagues did get malaria and has
>>it to this day.  I saw many people who were suffering from this
>>disease, and this was not even one of the worst parts of the world
>>for its effects.  Like AIDS, once you get malaria you have it for
>>life, and my friend still suffers from sporadic recurrences of the
>>disease that must be promptly treated.  Big, strong people like my
>>friend can fight off malaria, but children, especially weak and
>>poorly nourished children, cannot.
>>
>>6. I often wish we would apply our moralizing skills closer to home
>>rather than export them to places where they are neither needed nor
>>wanted.  Large, fire-breathing SUV's and 360 hp. sedans would be a
>>good place to start.  You don't see too many of those in Africa.
>>
>>7. Lucky's cows showed very poor judgment in busting into that shed
>>and eating DDT directly from the can.  I wonder what would happen
>>to them if they ate a case of Tylenol.
>>
>>Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
>>Barely a BA
>
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