|
Five people in Louisiana had died from WNF at that point and the score is up
to seven as this is being written. A second death has been reported in
Mississippi. Simply stated, WNF is a full-scale epidemic that is likely to
reach California within another year or so. It has been found in 37 States to
date.
Most people think of the Audubon Society as just a bunch of bird lovers who
publish lovely calendars and books. Wrong! The Audubon Society has been one
of the leading opponents of the use of pesticides to protect the health of
human beings.
In the September/October edition of Audubon Magazine, there's an article by
Ted Williams titled "Out of Control." Williams, the conservation editor of
Fly Rod & Reel magazine, repeats all the usual Green arguments against the
use of pesticides while ignoring the real threat of disease and death. "The
least safe and effective measure is spraying poisons; 'adulticiding' as
mosquito-control bureaucracies call it." This is false.
As entomologist Joe Conlon of the American Mosquito Control Association
points out, "The extremely small droplet aerosols utilized in adult mosquito
control are designed to impact primarily on adult mosquitoes that are on the
wing at the time of application. Degradation of these small droplets is
rapid, leaving little or no residue in the target area at ground level." In
plain English, the mosquitoes die, but humans and other animal species don't.
Williams' solution for dealing with millions of adult mosquitoes is to apply
a repellent. As for West Nile Fever, Williams says, "occasionally, it kills
people" but most people recover from it. Well isn't that reassuring?
Typically, the Greens response to people needlessly dying from WNF or Malaria
is that it's just too bad, but making sure that they don't have the
pesticides to protect them is more important.
Conlon points out that, "well over 2,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies in
various national and international refereed journals since 1980 have
documented the safety and efficacy of these public health insecticides at
label rates in addition to their application techniques. Despite intense
pressures to eliminate the use of public health insecticides, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and other public
health organizations agree that it is essential that these products remain
available for disease prevention."
Among those applying "intense pressures" to eliminate the use of pesticides
is the Audubon Society. The truth means nothing to these people because,
between 1941 and 1961, their own bird counts had shown an increase in bird
populations. In 1963, Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", was published and
became a bestseller with the claim that bird populations were endangered and
called for a ban on DDT. This pesticide, universally recognized as the best
defense against the mosquito population that spreads Malaria, Yellow Fever
and other diseases, had been in use in the US since 1945! In 1972 it was
banned by the Environmental Protection Agency despite 9,000 pages of
testimony stating it posed no health threat.
Here's where the news turns really grim. The other most effective way to kill
mosquitoes is the use of larvicides, i.e., killing the mosquitoes before they
emerge from ponds, wetlands, and puddles to become adults. Now there is an
effort to require permits for any mosquito control program using larvicides.
This will force most mosquito control programs to stop using them as the cost
will be prohibitive. The reason is that the water monitoring equipment
required, along with the man-hours, will put the use of larvicides beyond the
budgets of virtually every Mosquito District program in the US.
The result of this anti-pesticide effort will be more dead people. Worldwide,
an estimated two million people die from Malaria every year, most of them
pregnant women and children under the age of five. This is nothing less than
Green genocide masquerading behind attacks on pesticides.
Alan Caruba is the author of "The United Nations Vs. The United States", for sale from the Internet site of The National Anxiety
Center, a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2002
Published by permission.
|
