WhackyNation

Have we forgotten so soon? Two years ago, University of Washington researchers working in Africa, produced a new study, published in the journal, Science, that gave dynamic support to my contention and the contention of many scientists that the greatest mistake made by the U.S. and foreign nations in the 20^th Century was the decision to ban the miracle pesticide and insecticide, DDT.

The U.W. study, reported by the Associated Press, told us that malaria

is fueling the spread of AIDS in Africa by boosting the HIV in people’s bodies for weeks at a time, pinning down the deadly interplay between the dual scourges. It’s a vicious cycle, as people weakened by HIV are, in turn, more vulnerable to malaria.

It’s necessary to repeat some history. The new pesticide, DDT, was created by scientists to combat malaria primarily, and it soon proved its worth when it was introduced in the 1930s, not only in the U.S. but also in those countries with climates and conditions conducive to promoting malaria in mosquito-laden swamplands.

At the time, the total number of deaths attributed to malaria was approximately 3,000,000 a year! After the application of DDT in swamplands everywhere, the number of malaria cases dropped to a few hundred and by mid-century was headed for total elimination! It was a remarkable achievement, one that has never been matched in the world.

Then, along came Rachel Carson’s scientifically inaccurate book, Silent Spring, which sparked extremists in the new environmental movement to demand that DDT be banned everywhere, because, they said, they had discovered it was harmful to the eggs of eagles. It was not only a ridiculous assumption but one which eventually would cost the lives of millions of people, most of them babies and children.

After the extremists succeeded in forcing the U.S. to order its ban on DDT, many nations the world over followed suit. And the “malaria holocaust,” as I would hasten to call it, began. A terrible disease, which had neared its worldwide elimination, thanks to DDT, returned to plague the earth once again — and deaths from malaria annually have climbed back toward the 3,000,000 figure!

My longtime colleague, the late Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, detailed the remarkable DDT story in our second book, Environmental Overkill. But, despite that story and the entreaties of many scientists, no action has been taken by Congress or other nations to reinstate DDT as the greatest antidote to malaria ever developed.

Today, with the scary news from the U.W. study that malaria and AIDS are linked and abet each other, it is doubly important that the U.S. and other nations launch a new movement to bring DDT back into worldwide use to save the lives of many millions of people each year.

When I referred to a “malaria holocaust,” I was intentionally referring to the Nazi holocaust that resulted in the murder of more than 6,000,000 Jews and millions more who defied Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. By my reckoning, the deaths from malaria since the ban on DDT has exceeded 100,000,000 — and that is undoubtedly a conservative estimate.

All this came about as a result of a silly charge that a few eagle eggs were supposedly harmed. Shouldn’t we be indicting the extremists for genocidal murder?

When will we learn? It has just been disclosed that fake malaria drugs that created havoc in Southeast Asia because they failed to check the disease have now had the same deadly effect in many African nations, including Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Kenya.

The disclosure was made by an organization called Africa Fighting Malaria, described as a prominent health-advocacy group by the Associated Press. One would have thought that the African nations and the health groups there would have stayed away from the fake drugs used in Southeast Asia. But they didn’t heed the dangers.

According to the Africa Fighting Malaria organization, a sampling of the fake drugs two years ago revealed that more than half the malaria drugs being used were substandard and ineffective in preventing the disease or healing the thousands who were afflicted with an alarming death rate.

Then, just recently, medical experts in Africa tested 195 packs of malaria drugs purchased at private pharmacies and discovered “that a third didn’t contain enough active ingredients or did not dissolve quickly enough to work,” as the Associated Press reported.

The medical team disclosed that “just a third of the packets contained artemisinin, the newest anti-malarial drug from China. Last year, the World Health Organization asked drug companies to stop selling it, except in multi-drug cocktails. Why the W.H.O.’s warning wasn’t heeded in the African nations is a mystery.

The medics also said that “nearly half the drugs made in Africa — assuming their packaging was legitimate — failed the tests. So did a third of those made in Asia.” This has the makings of an outrageous worldwide misuse of so-called malaria “cures,” and it should stir worldwide anger and action.

The most important action should be the restoration of DDT, the miracle pesticide that had begun to eliminate malaria throughout the world in the middle of the last century, until the misguided environmental extremists forced political action that halted the use of DDT on swamplands and all other areas with mosquito infestations.

I must say it once again. Rachel Carson and her terribly inaccurate book, Silent Spring, and all the environmental extremists who used it in their campaign to block the use of DDT are guilty of genocide. Malaria was killing 3,000,000 people a year, mostly children, before DDT was applied to the swamplands.

In a short time, DDT brought the annual death rate from malaria down to just a few hundred and would have eliminated the disease totally in time, if the extremists had not inflicted politicos worldwide with their anti-DDT messages. As soon as DDT was banned, the malaria death rate rose again quickly to the 3,000,000-a-year figure. What a tragedy!

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has done so much to combat AIDS and other diseases in Africa, should adopt as its No. 1 order of business a new movement to restore DDT as a desperately needed pesticide to end the malaria scourge.

It has taken an Irish rock-and-roll singer and experienced social activist to tell the truth about President Bush’s tremendous effort in the fight against disease and poverty in many nations of Africa — something the Liberal American news media have purposely ignored or refused to acknowledge.

James Taranto, the editor of the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” feature, detailed the remarks of the singer-activist, Bob Geldof, moments before a press conference that featured both the President and the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, in the Rwandan capital.

According to Taranto,

“Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the United States press for ignoring the achievement. ‘Mr. Bush,’ said Mr. Geldof, ‘has done more than any other President so far.’

’This is the triumph of American policy really. It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion. What’s in it for Mr. Bush? Absolutely nothing.’” Then, he added, “’The President has failed to articulate this to Americans.’”

‘Turning to the group of American reporters covering the President’s African trip, Geldof said in a venomous tone that he was “pissed off” at the press for failing to report “on this good news story.” In a finger-shaking reprimand of the reporters, he added finally, “You guys didn’t pay attention.”

I wish I could have been there to applaud Geldof, even though I’m no fan of rock-n-roll singers and musicians. As a performer, maybe he can publicize the tribute the American print and broadcast news media should have delivered. Maybe he can even do it in song and perhaps a recording.

Taranto added this finishing touch to the report:

“For the past two and a half years or so, we’ve been hearing endlessly that Americans hate President Bush, that even those who don’t hate him disapprove of him, that even those who don’t disapprove of him are tired of him, and that his presidency is an unqualified failure.

“Now comes a surprising dissent from that view, and hardly anyone pays attention. It’s a man-bites-dog story, but the press corps looks more like a herd of sheep.”

Amen I say to you, James Taranto. Amen. I think that a few years from now — after the Western World has successfully conducted and won the ongoing international terrorist war against the Islamofascists — historians will revise current press sour grapes and declare that President Bush was one of our best Presidents and a man who courageously led the fight against the brutal forces of Islam’s extremists.