No chemical in history has saved more lives than DDT, and few if any have a better safety record. The fears that the precedent established in banning this life-saving chemical would be carried to still more absurd extremes are now being realized.
The rationale is called the “Precautionary Principle.” On this basis, a proposed directive from the European Union would require companies to prove the safety of products before being allowed to market them. Under the new proposed standard called “Reach” (registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), more than 30,000 chemicals would have to be tested at a cost of nearly 6 billion eurodollars. This policy threatens about $20 billion in U.S. exports each year.
“What's at stake here goes far beyond the chemical industry,” writes radical environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin. “The EU is trying to establish a radical new approach to science and technology based on the principle of sustainable development and global stewardship of the Earth's environment” (Guardian 5/12/04).
This marks a great shift from a risk-taking to a risk-prevention era, Rifkin observes. “Risks of all kinds are now global in scale, open-ended in duration, incalculable in their consequences, and not compensational.” Examples include acid rain, “tears in the Earth's ozone layer,” the “spread of virtual and biological viruses,” and (one must suppose) global warming. Even the most dramatic benefits must be weighed against the risk of extinction.
The Precautionary Principle raises what Herbert Inhaber calls the “zero-infinity dilemma.” Zero multiplied by infinity gives an indeterminate result. But multiplying a finite number greater than zero, however small, by infinity still gives infinity. Such analysis, Inhaber notes, is applied to nuclear energy, where risk is assumed to be the equivalent of infinite even when hypothetical, but not to dams, failure of which has caused large numbers of actual casualties (Encyclopedia of Energy, vol. 5, Elsevier, 2004). It is applied to genetically engineered foods, but not to vaccines; to industry, but not to government policy.
One formulation gaining widespread currency is the so-called Wingspread Declaration, which is a license to bypass science-based risk analysis altogether: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not established scientifically” [emphasis added] (NCPA Brief Analysis #485, 9/17/204).
As Rifkin observes, the Precautionary Principle is “the most radical idea for rethinking humanity's relationship to the natural world since the 18th-century European Enlighten-ment.” Because of the current “scale of human intervention”–with man purportedly having the power to destroy the world–Enlightenment science is “too primitive.” Therefore, we need a “new scientific approach...that takes the whole world into consideration.”
The new hubris demands a very old regime, from the Age of Superstition, in which a global bureaucracy/priesthood rules by terror, minutely controlling every aspect of life.
When J. Gordon Edwards checked into a hotel, he pulled down the sheets and inspected the seams of the mattress cover for brown streaks signifying bedbugs. Finding some in a hotel in New York, he immediately checked out and slept on the floor of Grand Central Station. Recently, I found some brown spots in a drawer in a hotel room in Florida, and an associate staying in the same facility actually saw the bugs. The national headquarters of the hotel chain never answered my question about how they inspect for bedbugs, and what they do if they find evidence of them.
A survey by Orkin found that reports of bedbug infestations increased 300% between 2000 and 2001; 70% between 2001 and 2002; and 70% between 2002 and 2003. By the end of 2002, they had been reported in 28 states.
“[Bedbugs have] had an incredible impact on high-end hotels,” said Mike Lawton, an entomologist with Western Exterminator Co. of Irvine, Calif. “You've got to keep it hush-hush. If word gets out, it scares a lot of people away” (cbsnews.com 9/29/03).
Bedbugs feed only on blood, and not on roach bait. They can survive up to a year without a meal. They hide in tiny crevices in mattresses, furniture, and floors and behind wallpaper. A sickly sweet odor and specklike masses of dung containing blood elements are signs of their presence. Patients present with itchy welts, commonly in a linear pattern of three, called the “breakfast, lunch, and dinner” sign (Cortlandt Forum, October 2004).
The main clinical problem is the rash and an allergic reaction to it; a bite at a U.S. hotel caused a case of anaphylactic shock. Bedbugs have transmitted hepatitis b, and in endemic areas, American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease).
Bedbugs from a hotel are likely to hitch a ride home in your luggage. The infestation can be very difficult to eliminate. The problem was virtually eradicated in the U.S. when DDT was in widespread use: The comeback is not the result of global warming.
Likewise, outbreaks of other insect-borne diseases, even if they occur as predicted in the article “Global Warming: the Hidden Health Risk” in the July, 2002, Scientific American, cannot be attributed to climate change. Entomologist Paul Reiter, who crouched through storm sewers to count mosquitoes, reports that Culex pipiens, the vector of St. Louis encephalitis, survives just as well in bitterly cold winters. He also notes that the human toll from West Nile fever was much higher in Volvograd (formerly Stalingrad) than in New York, despite the much colder Russian winter (TWTW 10/18/03, www.sepp.org).
The advice from the American Red Cross in an earthquake is to “duck, cover, and hold on.” Many people who have e-mail have probably received contrary advice about the “Triangle of Life” from self-proclaimed rescue expert Doug Copp. This can be found on the internet by an altavista.com search on “Doug Copp, `Duck and Cover',” along with various responses, including www.cert-la.com/RejoinderToDougCopp.pdf.
Copp claims that there would be 0% survival with a duck-and-cover response, and 100% survival by following his advice, based on a Turkish experiment. This experiment, however, involved a building that was deliberately demolished by yanking out columns, causing the building to pancake. There was no lateral shaking.
While there is no foolproof advice, it is probably safer to be under something than next to a heavy appliance that may slide, tilt and fall on you, or where you may be hit with flying objects from kitchen cupboards or a hot stove. If you are in bed, you should stay there, rather than rolling out as Copp advises. It might be good advice to crouch down next to a sofa or large bulky object that may compress slightly but leave a void beside it. Copp is also correct in advising never to go near the stairs.
One general piece of good advice: The internet distributes many “urban legends.” It makes it possible to disseminate unpopular truths, but also to promulgate charlatanry. Fortunately, with due diligence, you can ferret out both sides of the story.
DDP has selected the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV, as the site for its 23rd annual meeting. Call (800) 675-3267 for reservations. Be sure to mention the “DDP Annual Meeting” to receive our group rates of $49 (7/14/04), $99 (7/15, 7/16), and $59 (7/17, 7/18). Do not miss out on our tour to the Nevada Test Site on Monday, July 18!
Tapes and CD-ROMs from previous meetings are still available at www.oism.org/ddp.
DDP, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd. Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716, (520)325-2680, www.oism.org/ddp