Suicide prevention experts sometimes talk of suicide as a long term solution to a short term problem. Nicholas Kristof believes
(It's Time to Spray DDT) we should allow the use of DDT to prevent malaria. He admits that it doesn't work equally well in all locations, but doesn't take the next step and discuss how it's effectiveness doesn't last because mosquitos build up tolerance. He makes the same sort of straw-man argument that the chemical industry always has in saying that "American children played in the spray" and "80,000 tons a year were sprayed on crops," implying that it must then be safe, although "it could lead to premature births."
"Toxic Breast Milk?" appeared in the NY Times the day after Kristof's editorial. While it mostly covered PDBE, a new bioaccumulative hazard, one line struck me: "...if human milk were sold at the local Piggly Wiggly, some stock would exceed federal food-safety levels for DDT residues and PCB's."
The issue is that DDT never goes away....(more)
DDT didn't weaken birds' eggshells because it was sprayed on them, but because it accumulated in the food chain, reaching levels that interfered with the birds' ability to form shells.
It is in our food too, still. In EPA and CDC studies, while the amounts of DDT and its byproducts in the bloodstream are declining, the fact is that most people still have DDT in their tissues, in spite of the fact that DDT hasn't been used in this country for decades.
And the risk from DDT is directly proportional to the amount consumed. In populations that get large amounts of their diet from seafood "Various biological effects as well as clinical effects have been seen on the immune system and the brain development of exposed children. More recently, these compounds have been found to possess endocrine properties and have been associated in animals and humans with male fertility problems."
One long term study in primates looking for cancer causes found signs of liver, brain and spinal cord damage.
Shall we start using DDT again? Do we really want to go back to causing long term problems with a short-sighted solution?