Zika Emergency Crisis Due to Enviro Wackos

Every time I read about another mosquito bred epidemic I am reminded of the time I met the late author Michael Crichton in 2005 when he was given the Sound Science Award by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). Based in Manhattan, the ACSH publishes enlightening books and pamphlets that are invaluable in sorting out hype and hysteria from bona fide scientific research. It was Crichton's novel, "State of Fear" that provided me with information on the deadly results of the DDT ban in Africa, which has resulted in the deaths of millions of malaria victims. I am amazed that there is still so much ignorance about the harm that junk science can render on a fearful nation.

Patty Hearst, who survived kidnapping by Symbionese Liberation Army terrorists and a 21-month term in prison, once said, "We are a nation with the most frightened people on the planet." Perhaps the reason for this is explained by a character, Professor Hoffman, in Michael Crichton's best seller, "State of Fear." Mr. Hoffman claims that the primary driver of modern society is what he calls the PLM - the politico-legal-media complex. "Politicians need fear to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience," he says. I should also add the entertainment industry because of the fear mongering product they constantly spew out in films of zombies, apocalyptic doomsdays, and global warming natural disasters. Now it's Zika, before that it was SARS, Ebola and Asian bird flu.

In accepting his award, Dr. Crichton said, "Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the 20th-century history of America. We knew better and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn." DDT killed mosquitoes and presented no harm to humans but Rachel Carson, the goddess of the environmental militants, wrote a book, The Silent Spring, which alleged that DDT was a carcinogen and responsible for the thinning of bird's egg shells and the ban on DDT resulted from this overblown, debunked hype.

The Swiss scientist Paul Muller developed the synthetic pesticide DDT (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane), which proved to be a remarkably effective means of killing the mosquitoes responsible for malaria's transmission. It also killed flies that carry infectious diseases like typhus, yellow fever, sleeping sickness and even bubonic plague.

Whenever these diseases stay in the Third World, the media ignores the deaths of the millions but wakes up if it endangers their home base. Shouldn't we be calling that blatant 'racism'? It has been estimated that since the ban of DDT in 1972, 50 million people have died of malaria.

Former Surgeon General Harold M. Koenig, said, "[Rachel] Carson and those who joined her in the crusade against DDT have contributed to millions of preventable deaths. Used responsibly, DDT can be quite safe for man and the environment." In a letter to the Wall Street Journal in 2005, he wrote: "Many of the world's leading scientists predicted 30 years ago that Carson's crusade against DDT would allow some of the world's deadliest diseases to return with dreadful consequences. The truth of that prediction is now upon us . . . right on schedule. The real tragedy is that our squeamishness regarding DDT is the major reason millions die in poor countries year after year. This does not have to be the case as eradication of disease-carrying mosquitoes can be simple and effective through the safe and effective use of DDT. That some in Congress cling to the completely debunked notion that DDT is unsafe for fish, wildlife, birds and humans defies common sense."

Follow the money should always be the modus operandi when facing environmental issues. Who's paying for those surveys that allege environmental threats? What grants are being paid to those scientists that claim global warming is caused by humans? Who are the billionaires behind the Green Lobby responsible for denying a simple solution to a treatable disease?

I have no sympathy for the EU losing Britain. It is squarely in the pocket of the greenies. In February 2005 the European Union (EU) warned Uganda (where up to 100,000 people were dying of malaria each year) that EU member nations would stop importing Ugandan fish, flowers and cereals if that African country were to implement a DDT program to combat the disease.

Patrick Moore, Ph.D., co-founder of Greenpeace, served for 9 years as president of Greenpeace Canada and 7 years as a director of Greenpeace International. Of the five directors at G.I., he was the only one with a scientific background.

When I interviewed him in 2007, Mr. Moore told me that many of his colleagues were not interested in cooperation and rejected consensus in favor of continued confrontation, ever-increasing extremism, and left-wing politics. "Environmentalism has become anti-globalization and anti-industry," Mr. Moore says. "Activists have abandoned science in favor of sensationalism."

What Mr. Moore also revealed was the mindset of the bad environmentalists. He is highly critical of Greenpeace's campaign against biotechnology in general and genetic engineering in particular, which, he says, "exposes their intellectual and moral bankruptcy. If adding a daffodil gene to rice in order to produce a modified strain of rice that can prevent half a million children from going blind each year, we should move carefully to develop it," Mr. Moore says.

It is becoming clearer, however, that the environmentalists are essentially anti-science, anti-technology, and anti-human. Statements from some environmentalists about DDT reveal their arrogance in considering malaria victims as nature's collateral damage and the human culling in overpopulated areas. Club of Rome director Alexander King wrote in 1990: "My chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it greatly added to the population."

The Irish filmmaker Phelim McAleer, currently producing the Kermit Gosnell feature film, made an excellent documentary, "Mine Your own Business," which chronicled the damage that the eco frauds in the developing nations. He described their motives as wanting them to "stay as 'traditional peasants' forgetting all the while that the poor people desperately want progress and desperately want to enjoy the good, healthy and long life we in the West take for granted."

Mr. Crichton also warned us, "If you're going to be concerned about exposure to minute levels of pesticides, then you might want to start being concerned with the effects of excessive fear mongering."

I refuse to live in fear of mosquitoes. Years ago, I read in Vanity Fair an article on the making of Steel Magnolias, being filmed in Louisiana. The cast and crew were bombarded with mosquitoes so the producers ordered in cases of Avon's Skin So Soft. For some strange reason, the bugs can't stand the smell. Well I like it and it has always worked for me. Hope the Olympic athletes in Brazil have some.

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