yes but we can no longer used it in a grand scale because it deformed an
eagle chick and killed three endangered whooping longredlegged cranes.
CRB
From: Henk Verhaar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [VFB] Ginger Allen/What is an Environmentalist Article
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 15:43:49 +0100
On 7 Feb, 2006, at 15:15, Mike Morris wrote:
Interesting that you bring up the DDT issue. I believe it was the WHO
who just last year published a report on DDT and malaria. DDT was used
extensively in the US to combat Malaria and that disease is now
virtually non existent in this country.
Yeah, but
1] your malaria is different from their malaria (Western Europe had
indigenous malaria too. The Plasmodium parasite found in temperate zones
is a different species with different disease properties than the
Plasmodium found in the tropics)
2] it wasn't so much DDT that eradicated temperate malaria but the
drainage and reclamation of extensive wetlands that formed the main refuge
for the mosquito vectors of the temperate Plasmodium.
The level we sprayed were
hundreds of times higher than were required. The 1960's mentality was
if a little kills most of them tons will kill all of them.
ANd this is/was the main problem with DDT. Indiscriminate use as a general
purpose/broad spectrum insecticide. And yes, DDT has some very nasty
properties, both toxicologically and environmental fate- wise. But, used
wisely, it can still be an effective agent in combating specific problems,
such as malaria in tropical settings. Besides, DDT is not very harmful to
large mammals.
To make this fishing related, how would you like to know that every time
you go to the stream to fish every bug bite could be fatal?
True, but statistics are needed to tell you what the magnitude of the risk
is. COmmon experience will tell you that it is pretty low ;-) In fact I
would think the risk of a fatal snake bite or septicemia from e.g. a thorn
is higher...
Cheers
Henk
=============================== ><(((((º> ===============================
| Dr. Henk J.M. Verhaar | e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| Ecotoxicoloog en vliegbinder | tel: 035 656 2128 |
| Stichts End 17 | mobiel: 06 26 136034 |
| NL-1244 PK Ankeveen | web: www.xs4all.nl/ ~flyrod |
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