DDT...A Second Look...By Web Today Special Correspondent Ken Rasmussen

Once again, the truth is far from what we have been told. Dr. J GordonEdwards, Ph.D. And medical entomologist gave an eye opening presentation to the 200 attending the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness convention in Las Vegas 7/15/2001.

Opening with a rather gory report to remind the audience how horrible the disease of Malaria is, and how combating the disease with antibiotics is becoming more challenging due to the advance of more virulent strains, he proved the most effective way to fight all the strains is to kill the mosquitoes which carry all the strains.

Originally developed to combat the common clothes moth, it was soon discovered that DDT was extremely effective in controlling Malaria carrying mosquitoes. However, the extremist environmental groups, using their usual weapon of junk science, launched an attack on DDT in later years which has resulted in its ban virtually throughout the world.

But looking at specific charges, we see they are as unjustified as the Global Warming argument.

A Los Angeles Times article a while back claimed that a large quantity of DDT was discovered on the ocean floor between the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina Island. The article went on to claim that bottom feeding fish had become saturated with DDT. One of the favorite fish eaten by eagles living on Catalina Island is the White Croaker, a bottom dweller. The article finished by claiming that DDT was killing off the Catalina eagle population. When I brought this article to the attention of Dr. Edwards, he pointed out that scientific studies on birds of all sizes have not been able to determine a maximum exposure level for DDT. "We just can't kill them" (with
DDT) he told me. And regarding the claim of the ocean floor being covered with DDT, that has to be false since laboratory studies show that DDT disintegrates into DDE, a completely different compound, in the presence of salt water. In only 38 days, 90% of the DDT has completely transformed.

Another laboratory study, attempting to prove a relationship to cancer backfired on the experimenters. Using laboratory rats, identical cancerous tumors were surgically implanted into two groups. The control group was fed normal rat food and kept away from any DDT exposure. The second group was fed large dosages of DDT in addition to the normal diet. The group kept away from DDT all ultimately died. However something strange happened with the rats fed DDT. The tumors withered up, dissolved or dropped off, and the rats got healthier.

But as to human exposure to DDT, Dr. Edwards has been pictured on the cover of a national magazine eating DDT out of a box by the spoon full 200 times the claimed safe level of exposure. He has not had any side effect what so ever. Talking with him face to face, he appeared to me to be as healthy as anyone there.

This blatant misrepresentation of DDT by the militant environmental groups goes beyond merely removing somebody's brand of insecticide from the market. It kills people. And not just a few, this political attack on a proven safe product is killing people by the millions.

When DDT was originally used to combat the malaria carrying mosquito, its inventor was presented a Nobel prize for saving over 500 million lives. But now that DDT has been banned, its absence is costing at least that many lives in new cases of malaria alone, separate from other diseases combated by controlling mosquito populations. In the country of Salon, they were losing a million people a year to Malaria. When they first implemented DDT's use, the mortality rate dropped to 17 single cases a year. But after the ban, deaths soon came right back to the million a year rate.

Environmental extremism has gone on to stop other means of combating mosquitoes. Swamps can't be drained due to their insistence on keeping wetlands active. And existing wetlands can't be stocked with fish that eat mosquito larvae, because the fish also eat the eggs of a type of fresh water shrimp claimed to be endangered.

Dr. Gordon Edwards plans to release all his researched evidence in a book soon. I have only cited a few examples here in this column. If America does not wake up to start using this safe mosquito controlling agent again, Malaria could easily come back to our shores. With each mosquito bite injecting up to 50,000 parasitic eggs into one's bloodstream, all having a 48-hour life cycle to full maturity, it would not take long to start another mass genocide. But that appears to be just what the population control extremists want.

Specific information regarding any speakers at the convention or tapes of the actual lectures can be obtained at: http://www.oism.org/ddp/