Rachel Carson - deadlier than Stalin?

The quest of honest scientists and interested laymen (like Your Humble Servant) to destroy the lies of this ignorant cow who is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of poor people of color continues apace.

The bottom line, kiddies? The lives of all the animals that have ever lived are not worth as much a single human life, not even the most evil and depraved human life. Not even Hitler's.

Bring on the glorious DDT! Save the baby humans!

From Robert Matthews of The First Post:

Her ideology has led to more deaths than Stalin's purges, and brought misery to hundreds of millions more. But now, over 40 years after her death, her grip on the fate of countless developing nations may finally be at an end.

As the founder of the modern ecological movement, the American naturalist Rachel Carson is not an obvious candidate for the pantheon of evil. Her best-selling book Silent Spring, published in 1963, is widely credited with putting the interconnectedness of nature on the political agenda, and led to international bans on the use of the pesticide DDT, which she claimed was causing ecological disaster. Yet while her actions may have been motivated by the best of intentions, the consequences in human terms have been catastrophic. The ban on DDT robbed developing nations of a cheap, safe and effective means of combating malaria, which kills two million people each year.

That tots up to at least 50 million deaths since the bans took effect in the early 1970s. And for what? Even at the time, Carson's claims that DDT was responsible for everything from the thinning of eggshells to cancer in humans looked shaky. By the mid-1980s they had been utterly discredited. Yet by then Carson's claims had achieved the status of holy writ among environmentalists - and among right-on officials in government ministries. Third World nations were threatened with trade sanctions if they even suggested using DDT in fields or homes.

Now, finally, the giant US Agency for International Development is supporting the widespread use of DDT in Africa to combat malaria. The effect is likely to be quite simply breathtaking, for DDT is truly a miracle cure for this deadly mosquito-borne scourge. When it was first used in developing nations in the early 1960s the effect was like flicking a switch. In 1948, Sri Lanka had 2.8 millioncases of malaria; in 1963, following the introduction of DDT, the number had fallen to just 17.

Tragically, the effect of the bans on its use in the wake of Carson's claims were no less dramatic. Within just five years of banning DDT, the number of malaria cases in Sri Lanka had risen from those 17 cases back up to 500,000. Today, around 400 million people are infected each year.

The economic impact of reintroducing DDT is likely to be no less impressive. According to the UN, malaria costs Africa around £7 billion annually - about 40 per cent of what the continent spends on health.

In years to come, the ban on DDT will be seen for what it is: a scandalous example of half-baked ecological concerns being put above the needs of humans. That realisation will come too late for the tens of millions who paid for this folly with their lives. (Thanks to the conservatives' favorite serial adulterer and Viagra addict for the heads up.)