That position was reversed, and playing silly little language games only points to your inability to comment on the larger issue, that a potential tool for saving human life was rejected for 30 years for very dubious reasons.

I will agree that "save the birds" was the motto under which DDT was banned in the US, but the way it was SOLD was that DDT was killing our little babies, giving pregnant mothers hemmhoroids, making Coca Cola taste better than Pepsi, and preventing the Vikings from winning a Super Bowl.

It's much the same as with the current issue of the Himalayan Glaciers: manifestly inaccurate claims were made that served solely political ends.

The mark of a little mind is an inability to deal with larger issues.

Here is your own text: "Although we provide evidence to suggest that DDT and DDE may pose a risk to human health, we also highlight the lack of knowledge about human exposure and health effects in communities where DDT is currently being sprayed for malaria control. We recommend research to address this gap and to develop safe and effective alternatives to DDT."

We know it kills mosquitoes very well when not used indiscriminately. We know this leads to reduced death from malaria, which you don't have to worry about since it's been eliminated in the US. With DDT.

We don't know, even now, if it causes illness in humans, or even in birds. Self evidently, the histrionicists–if I may be permitted a neologism–have a profound emotional committment to the validity of decisions they fought for 30 years ago. This does not mean wishing can be turned into scientific reality.

Since eagles seem to be Ed’s thing, I’ll probably get 3-4 of those, if this works.

I’m curious to see the DeWitt pieces, to see if there is any gap between the abstract and the actual research.

And I'd still like to see Rich Trzupek, the author, correct the factual errors he propagates in this article. "The World Health Organization rolled back its ban on using DDT in 2006…." W R O N G. WHO never had banned DDT, as the references I cited in earlier comments definitively demonstrate.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC27370…

All that shows is that Milloy will make any claim no matter what science says, if it follows his political skew.

The stuff is poison. Cancer isn't the only result of poisons. Among other, perhaps more dangerous effects of DDT on large mammals like humans, it messes up reproductive systems. The first daughter product of DDT is DDE, and DDE especially mimics estrogen in humans and all other animals. Look up "endocrine disruption" and you'll get a libraryful of bad health effects for everything but the possible exception of plants and algae.

DDT is particularly deadly to fish and anything else that lives in water. Indoor spraying, we hope, doesn't get into waterways. There is a record of massive fish kills in Africa similar to the massive fish kills in the U.S., in Austin, Texas, and Oklahoma, and several other places.

Plus, DDT isn't all that effective as a pesticide, especially absent a lot of money to upgrade health care systems.

The debate on DDT itself is a diversion from the task of beating malaria.

Interstate commerce in poisons is squarely in the purview of the commerce clause — under English common law and its American counterpart after 1787, use of DDT would probably be absolutely prohibited as a nuisance to neighbors. Be careful what you wish for if you wish for an end to commerce clause regulation of business.

Yet on your own site you admit to only having looked up 3 citations. You then "wagered" that the rest were lies. The two claims cannot be reconciled. You are citing as research what is manifestly simple assumption.

You claim "I got DeWitt's paper, and it concludes that DDT is harmful to all birds. Generally DDT killed the chicks in the eggs before they could hatch".

According to the citation we are both looking at, that simply isn't true. Carson may have made that claim, but that is not what the citation says. I view that as evidence that you are CLAIMING to have read the paper, when in fact you are simply taking Carson's word for it.

I am well familiar with the Commerce Clause. It's abuse has been endemic at least since FDR. My question remains. Simply creating a legal chain of precedents–as was done in Roe v. Wade, is nothing other than clever fraud, rather than clumsy fraud.

As mentioned, I will dig up a number of the citations, and report on them. This is more than you have been willing to do. Whatever they say, I will report faithfully.

One last question, actually: how many of the citation need to be accurate for you to retract the insults you have leveled at Milloy? All of them? I will grant that Edwards did not get number 10 right, at least based on the abstract. I'm not fully convinced that political use has not been made even of that–so I will get the full article and read it–but what if all the rest–or most of them–say exactly what they are claimed to have said?

In the meantime, two questions:

1) Manifestly, the purported carcinogenicity of DDT was one of the key elements in the PR campaign led by the environmentalists who eventually got DDT banned for most uses in the US. Are you willing to concede that there is no moral or professional difference between overstating the effects on humans relative to understating them with respect to wildlife? That a lie is a lie no matter who tells it?

You have already demonstrated you are a liar, here, by claiming exhaustive knowledge of the citations Milloy put out there, when in fact you have done a half-assed job of reading no more than 3 of them, at most.

I'm not apologizing, for the simple reason that, even if you are right, it is not as a result of doing the work you claim you have done. When I say I've read something, I've read it, and will reread as often as needed to get it right.

As I said, I will continue to do the work you claim to have done, but manifestly haven't.

You are not quoting Dewitt accurately, despite your claim to have read him. That means you haven't read him, or you are stupid. You don't appear to be stupid, so that makes you a liar.

That is the accurate word, your own narcisstic conceits to the contrary. You're not in friendly territory, and you won't get passes on blatant BS.

I should have the piece some time next week. Apparently my libary card expired, and I have to go in and revalidate it. Once that is done, though, I can get a steady stream of citations. If I were you, and were trying to evaluate this honestly, that's what I would do, too.

But of course, honest evaluation is not the task which you have set yourself.

But the link YOU posted, and which I have reposted twice, says, explicitly, that DDT did NOT affect reproduction. It DOES say that the mortality rates of the chicks were affected in a very negative manner.

Why on earth are you dilating on a point where you are PATENTLY, DEMONSTRABLE WRONG, when you have data which supports the point you want to make?

This directly contradicts your statement "But DDT also damaged the reproductive organs of the seed eaters. "

How is that complicated? Are you so silly that you are conflating DDT with the other tested pesticides? The evidence is right there.

On the left, they chose to overemphasize the carcinogenic part of it so as to scare people. This enabled them to accomplish two things: get regulatory control that was greater than they had had before (not altogether bad, necessarily, since some poisons WERE in the enviroment, and DID need to be removed, like mercury), and to protect birds the world over. And if this meant increased human death in the then Third World, so be it.

Except that carcinogenicity was a weak indication in 1962, and in 1972. DDT was not banned because it was considered to be carcinogenic. DDT was banned because it was a hazard when used as a pesticide, a hazard to beneficial insects, birds, amphibians, lizards, snakes and reptiles, and mammals. There was no "overemphasis" of carcinogenicity until Edwards and Milloy got into the act. When they say 'DDT was banned, but it was never proven to be carcinogenic,' most people won't stop to understand how that statement is misleading: DDT was banned for toxicity to wildlife and disruption of wild and domestic animal and plant life, not for causing cancer. It would be like saying 'DDT was banned, but it was never proven to cause explosions in the gas tanks of the Ford Pinto.' Exactly the same meaning, ignoring the reason that DDT was banned for use on agricultural crops.

Is it clear, Constitutionally, that the Federal Government even HAS the power to regulate things like DDT?

See the commerce clause, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3. You would do well to look up the litigation on DDT, I would think. Or take a look at the here.)