Expat Texan

“The DDT story is one example of environmental activism taken to an extreme and horrific outcome. The model of environmental activism consisted of fabrications, selective use or outright misuse of science, legal actions, intimidation of scientists and corporations, civil disobedience, and an absolute conviction that all political, covert and unethical methods were justified in order to achieve a greater good. The same model is used today, even as the horrible consequences of environmental actions become increasingly apparent. Driessen is correct. It is high time that environmental organizations be held to standards already demanded of for-profit-corporations: namely, ethical conduct, respect for scientific accuracy, accountability and transparency.”

– Donald R. Roberts, PhD, professor of tropical public health

I suppose.

In spite of this evidence of widespread exposure and long-term storage, no adverse health effects have ever evolved. DDT was reported to cause liver tumors in laboratory animals (rats and mice) as early as 1947. Then a nationwide hysteria followed the publication of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring in 1962, in which she labeled DDT a dangerous chemical that might be causing cancer in humans. Experience and scientific studies have proven her wrong.  Carson, who was a vegetarian, blamed DDT for her own breast cancer.  She was wrong again. Carson resorted to the distortion of facts in her book in a campaign to condemn DDT.[3]

 

Lots of fun stuff in this little article.  Of course, it will have to be dismissed out of hand, even though it is authored by an emeritus professor of public health.  Lots and lots of interesting facts, such as:

Since the early 1970s the UN and the WHO have blackmailed developing countries, through the withholding of financial aid, to force them to discontinue the use of DDT. The result has been an upsurge in the number of cases of malaria. The South African government has reported that the annual number of deaths from malaria there have risen from 20,000 to 350,000 since the ban on DDT. Malaria currently kills about two million people each year, and the number is rising.

 

Fair use prevents me from just posting the entire article here - but take some time and go read it if you think I was unfair to Rachel Carson by including her book on my personal list of harmful books. 

Lies, damn lies, and environmental statistics.

Feeding primates more than 33,000 times the average daily human exposure to DDT (as estimated in 1969 and 1972) was “inconclusive with respect to a carcinogenic effect of DDT in nonhuman primates.”

[J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 1999;125(3-4):219-25]

Yeah, but what about real world human cancer patients?  Well, I’m glad you asked.

-A nested case-control study was conducted to examine the association between serum concentrations of DDE and PCBs and the development of breast cancer up to 20 years later. Cases (n = 346) and controls (n = 346) were selected from cohorts of women who donated blood in 1974, 1989, or both, and were matched on age, race, menopausal status, and month and year of blood donation. “Even after 20 years of follow-up, exposure to relatively high concentrations of DDE or PCBs showed no evidence of contributing to an increased risk of breast cancer.

[Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1999 Jun;8(6):525-32]

-”To prospectively evaluate relationships of organochlorine pesticides and PCBs with breast cancer, a case-control study nested in a cohort using the Columbia, Missouri Breast Cancer Serum Bank. Women donated blood in 1977- 87, and during up to 9.5 years follow-up, 105 donors who met the inclusion criteria for the current study were diagnosed with breast cancer. For each case, two controls matched on age and date of blood collection were selected. Five DDT analogs, 13 other organochlorine pesticides, and 27 PCBs were measured in serum. Results of this study do not support a role for organochlorine pesticides and PCBs in breast cancer etiology.

[Cancer Causes Control 1999 Feb;10(1):1-11]
-”We measured plasma levels of DDE and PCBs prospectively among 240 women who gave a blood sample in 1989 or 1990 and who were subsequently given a diagnosis of breast cancer before June 1, 1992. We compared these levels with those measured in matched control women in whom breast cancer did not develop. Data on DDE were available for 236 pairs, and data on PCBs were available for 230 pairs. Our data do not support the hypothesis that exposure to [DDT] and PCBs increases the risk of breast cancer.”

[N Engl J Med 1997;337:1253-8]

As you will see if you check out the JunkScience site - DDT has been blamed for a lot of things - only to have the science not support the preferred (predetermined) conclusion of environmentalists.

Don’t want to trust a site called JunkScience for information?  Well, perhaps go here and do your own search on DDT and breast cancer.  As with any epidemiological study looking for tenuous associations, you will find data for and against causality.  However, I found far more articles that found no association than those that did.  As always, be careful of any abstract that uses the word “trend” to describe its findings.  The word “trend” in a scientific paper means that the data didn’t show what we wanted it to, so we’re trying to make it sound significant, even though it’s not.  One of my graduate students or residents would receive an immediate EPIC FAIL if they tried to give me a manuscript of their research using the “T” word.