A Stitch in Haste

I have long chronicled the insane policies of the World Health Organization and other governmental and quasi-government entities restricting the use of DDT to fight malaria — the number-four cause of death worldwide.

Well, a few decades and a few million lives late, common sense and the scientific method have finally scored a much-needed victory:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reversed a 30-year policy by endorsing the use of DDT for malaria control.
...
DDT has been banned globally for every use except fighting disease because of its environmental impacts and fears for human health.

WHO says there is no health risk, and DDT should rank with bednets and drugs as a tool for combating malaria, which kills more than one million each year.

Had the concerns of the 1970s about DDT (i.e., its alleged impact on the health of both birds and humans) actually had any validity, then it still would not have justified the death (and a quite horrible death) of millions upon millions of poor Africans — many of them children. I love bald eagles as much as anyone, but they're simply not worth almost a whole generation of almost a whole continent dead.

And the "DDT Scare" was a fraud anyway — a flat-out lie by a "dedicated public servant" (FDA Administrator William Ruckleshaus) conspiring with the dishonest "friend of the earth" author (Rachel Carson) of what became a genocidal book ("Silent Spring").

Madness. Sheer madness.

Thank goodness it's over.

More thoughts from Pragmatic Libertarian, Out of Control.

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On a somewhat related note, one cannot help but notice that the E.Coli spinach outbreak across the country has been traced to an "organic" produce processor. How I yearn for the days when "organic" meant "carbon-based" and not vacuous hippie gobbledygook at the supermarket.

This is not a suitable subject for Schadenfreude — a person is dead and many are ill — but I found this development, well, hilarious:

A lawsuit in the spinach E-coli case has been filed in Redwood City, California, by the Seattle law firm that handled Jack in the Box and Odwalla E-coli cases.
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Lawyer William Marler says seniors are less able to fight off foodborne illness and the food supplier should have made sure the food was safe.

Of course, the two demands:

1. Don't do anything to my food (i.e., keep it "organic").

2. Make sure the food is safe.

are inconsistent if not mutually exclusive. It would be akin to demanding that preservative-free food never spoil. But who cares? Sue them anyway. (Via Medpundit.)