Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Natalie Sirkin , in an eye opening column on DDT, points out the difference between pop-science and the real thing. Africa is awash with preventable diseases because false science, in obedience to Grisham's law, has driven out real science. Roger Bate is a South African who has devoted himself for decades to promoting the use of DDT in the battle with malaria in Africa . Bate in his November 5 Wall Street Journal piece, “Last Chance for DDT,” tells how the use of DDT is being undermined by environmentalists and organizations selling alternatives to DDT. Environmentalists are scaring undeveloped nations telling them that DDT causes cancer or birth defects (totally false). European Union officials are suggesting their crops would be boycotted. Within national donor agencies, teams are writing anti-malaria literature while running No-Spray programs. The U.N. is hurting. Mozambique has run a successful indoor residual spraying program, but the media ignore the news. DDT is a miracle . ...

An eye-opener from Natalie Sirkin that might well be titled "How Environmentalists Facilitated Malaria Among the Poor In Africa." The summer of 1971 brought the Sirkins and the gypsy-moth infestation to Sherman and Connecticut. Environmental organizations told us not to spray. In those days, we were all environmentalists. We held out till we could bear it no longer. A few days later, even they gave up. In those days we still could have had DDT. The EPA public hearing which lasted eight months was still in progress. Its decision by Hearing Examiner Sweeney would vindicate DDT completely, but soon after EPA William Ruckelshaus would overrule Sweeney’s decision. Science could help, said Ruckelshaus , but this was a political decision, which put him in charge. He and Rachel Carson were the sources for the bad on DDT. Rachel Carson , nine years earlier, had started it all. Her book started the environmental movement. Pesticides were the problem, especially DDT, and her book, Si...