William Campbell Douglass II, MD has raised the issue (again) of West Nile Virus’ spread in the USA (see the entire essay at the bottom of this page) and the fact that DDT, an effective and safe means of insect control (read: mosquitoes) has been banned in this country since 1972. There is a lot of information to support Dr. Douglass’ assertions, some of which are posted below…..in a parallel story - - it just goes to show you that the leftist rise of the environmental movement that today is putting the livelihood of 80,000 plus people in central California’s fruit/vegetable basket over a two-three inch fish (delta smelt) is beyond belief. Farms are being denied water, necessary to irrigate their farms over this stupid fish since its future may be affected by the movement of the water. What about all of the farmers? What about the affect on food availability and prices? Oh that’s right, we can buy safe food from that trusted trade partner, China.

The safe disposal of bugs that makes our lives miserable during the Summer months and protecting a smelt over farmers is another example of animals and bugs over humans and the use of false science….gee, kinda reminds me of Global Warming and the left. Seems like all this crazy stuff comes from the left.

Please read the article below

Junk Science Week: DDT, the banned lifesaver

Death from malaria means convulsions and delirium, retching and diarrhea, joint and abdominal pain so excruciating that coma can be a blessing. The parasitic infection destroys the body’s red blood cells and clogs its capillaries, depriving vital organs and the brain of blood. That malaria strikes some 300 million people annually — and kills an African child every 30 seconds — is all the more tragic given how preventable it is. But modern environmental ideology simply doesn’t permit the use of DDT, the most effective means of eradicating the ghastly disease

From JunkScience.com: 100 things you should know about DDT

Most of us recall the hullabaloo surrounding the terrible effect that DDT had on our national symbol, the Bald Eagle during hearings 1971-1972, which ultimately resulted in the ban of DDT. I remember having personal concerns over the steep decline in the numbers of Bald Eagles specifically attributable to DDT, or so I thought. Our children have been taught that DDT is one of the worse chemicals ever created by man…it’s almost as bad as Agent Orange!! BULLFEATHERS!! From the junkscience.com list found some very interesting information about the real reasons of Eagle decline….read on.

VII. Bald eagles

DDT was blamed for the decline in the bald eagle population.

- Bald eagles were reportedly threatened with extinction in 1921 — 25 years before widespread use of DDT.

[Van Name, WG. 1921. Ecology 2:76]

- Alaska paid over $100,000 in bounties for 115,000 bald eagles between 1917 and 1942.

[Anon. Science News Letter, July 3, 1943]

- The bald eagle had vanished from New England by 1937.

[Bent, AC. 1937. Raptorial Birds of America. US National Museum Bull 167:321-349]

- After 15 years of heavy and widespread usage of DDT, Audubon Society ornithologists counted 25 percent more eagles per observer in 1960 than during the pre-DDT 1941 bird census.

[Marvin, PH. 1964 Birds on the rise. Bull Entomol Soc Amer 10(3):184-186; Wurster, CF. 1969 Congressional Record S4599, May 5, 1969; Anon. 1942. The 42nd Annual Christmas Bird Census. Audubon Magazine 44:1-75 (Jan/Feb 1942; Cruickshank, AD (Editor). 1961. The 61st Annual Christmas Bird Census. Audubon Field Notes 15(2):84-300; White-Stevens, R.. 1972. Statistical analyses of Audubon Christmas Bird censuses. Letter to New York Times, August 15, 1972]

- No significant correlation between DDE residues and shell thickness was reported in a large series of bald eagle eggs.

[Postupalsky, S. 1971. (DDE residues and shell thickness). Canadian Wildlife Service manuscript, April 8, 1971]

- Thickness of eggshells from Florida, Maine and Wisconsin was found to not be correlated with DDT residues.

From Dr. Douglass: West Nile virus continues to spread

Dear Friend,

Every summer, it’s like clockwork: the weather gets warmer, the mosquitoes come out, and the West Nile Virus fears are back with a vengeance. And when there’s particularly wet weather, like there has been in various parts of the country in recent weeks, the corresponding boom in the mosquito population makes these fears well founded.

But in one of the country’s major population centers, the danger could be even greater this year. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has said that budget issues could seriously reduce the state’s mosquito-killing program. And that’s in spite of the fact that Pennsylvania had 14 confirmed cases of West Nile last year — one of which was fatal.

I’ve kept you up to date on the growing West Nile Virus issue since it first popped up here in the U.S. during a 1999 outbreak. West Nile is a group of mosquito-borne diseases that originated in Africa. They are spread by mosquitoes but carried by all manner of birds. The mosquitoes contract the disease from infected birds, and then pass it on to people. When West Nile is contracted by a human, it causes a brain infection, which leads to encephalitis (swelling of the brain) and, sometimes, death.

Bureaucrats in the Pennsylvania State Senate slashed the state’s successful insecticide program which had been in operation since 2003. The program had been effective at dropping the number of West Nile cases and had effectively reduced the number of West Nile cases from a high of 237 (including nine deaths) in the year before the program launched, to a mere handful.

That’s right: the desk jockey politicians probably blunted the only effective program that the state government had ever put into motion.

In spite of the fact that 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the appearance of this awful Third World disease on American shores, local and state governments continue to wrestle with the solution to the problem: wiping out as many mosquitoes as possible. It seems devastatingly simple. And yet… there seems to be no easy solution.

And if you ask me, the cause of all of our woes with West Nile can be traced back to the DDT ban of 1972. DDT, a ruthlessly effective pesticide, was used with great effect to kill crop-eating pests, as well as mosquitoes until the book Silent Spring cited DDT as the prime example of the overuse of pesticides. The battle to ban DDT was one of the earliest fights in the environmental movement — and also that movement’s first significant victory.

But because of the largely baseless fears raised against pesticides like DDT, states and municipalities are charged with killing mosquitoes to keep the populace safe from diseases like West Nile… but they are often condemned for using pesticides to do the job. It’s an absurd catch-22.

In Delaware last summer, the mosquito problem became so out of control that the state DEP shifted from spraying insecticide from trucks, to spraying from low-flying planes to cover more ground. Residents were outraged, and feared that the spray would harm pets, plants and people. And now, in spite of the fact that these insecticides must be applied quickly to keep mosquitoes from breeding, there are state-mandated waiting periods of up to three days before spraying can be conducted — so the residents have time to leave the area (to avoid a nonexistent threat).

Meanwhile, the real danger — West Nile Virus — goes unchecked. But perfectly safe, environmentally sound, and economical DDT rides the bench. And this is in spite of the fact that DDT had been employed for decades before its needless ban — with no ill effects.

But I guess, in the end, this is what the environmentalists really want… after all, West Nile Virus is a naturally occurring part of the environment.