Lloyd wrote:
>>"The discoverer of DDT 's usefulness as an insecticide received a Nobel
>>prize in 1948. Now we know better. Perhaps GM crops will be as big a
>>benefit
>>as DDT was or as big a mistake. Right now the only mistake is to hurry."
>
>I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel Prize.
Lloyd may think it was deserved, but it did not happen.
The convenient Britannica listing of Nobel prizes will prove that for you.
Where did the falsehood arise? Could the person who posted it tell us please?
>I have heard it said that no human ever died from DDT, despite the fact that
>persons' bodies were regularly sprayed with the stuff (to kill parasites).
Lloyd has been fed a misleading statement. We have known for
decades that DDT causes cancer, in lab mammals; whether it also causes
cancer in the human is not known for sure. The time-lags between exposure
to a carcinogen and the noticing of a human tumour are normally a decade or
several, and cancer has become so common that attribution of a given cancer
to any cause is usually impossible. So DDT may have been causing large
numbers of cancers without proof of cause. Low acute toxicity is no guide
whatever to a chemical's potency in causing cancer.
A good book for all this is: S S Epstein 'The Politics of Cancer'.
> How
>many millions of people were saved from death from Yellow Fever and Malaria?
>However, DDT was terribly misused and this led to environmental tragedies,
>from which we are just now recovering. DDT had to be banned in the US and
>most if not all developed countries, but it was a political decision, not a
>sound scientific decision.
It is not banned in some poor countries. The BBC just had a World
Service doco on the continuing use of DDT, featuring a US asst secy of
state for environmental affairs who hoped a complete ban would be achieved.
Anyhow, such questions are certainly not just scientific; they are
unavoidably political (using sound science, we hope!); what else could they
be? Governments have to decide such questions, and must do so on criteria
outside science, while taking due notice of scientific facts & reasoning.
> For many years thereafter it continued to be
>used in less-developed countries to save human lives, and I just hope it was
>used in manners safe to the environment.
fond hope
>I agree that there is no reason to "hurry" in the use of GM crops, but I
>also think that the decisions of whether or not to use these crops should be
>in the hands of the scientists and, perhaps, the public health authorities.
>IMHO, the use of GM crops should not become a political issue.
I cannot see that it could or should be anything else! Elected
governments must be the deciders on such matters.
>Obviously, there are those who disagree with me because they distrust the
>scientists and/or think that the public health authorities are ineffective,
>or for some other reason. I choose to agree with those who term these part
>of the "environmental left".
Here Lloyd has spotlighted a grievous mess. Paranoid nihilistic
groups such as Greepneace try to tear down without making positive
suggestions for alternative governmental procedures. Whether they are
accurately termed 'left' is another question.
DDT and its derivatives such as DDE are very persistent in the
environment, and concentrate up food-chains causing real harm. See
Ehrlich, Ehrlich & Holdren 'Ecoscience' for details. Less obnoxious
insecticides could be used, but are more expensive. To go on using DDT in
such circumstances is just another sordid item in the recent history of
Mammon-worship.
The relevance to GM is of course that if this more menacing
technology is not controlled MUCH better than DDT has been then we may
see much worse disasters with self-propagating pests. DDT persists, but it
does decay somewhat; a GM pest may multiply enormously.
R
-
Robt Mann
Mulgoon Professor emeritus of Environmental Studies, U of Auckland
consultant stirrer & motorcyclist
P O Box 28878, Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949
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