Thanks to [1] icecap.us:

Environmentalist fraud and manslaughter

In the name of banning DDT, GEF bureaucrats are consigning millions to death from malaria

Paul Driessen, 2011 o2 21

Many chemotherapy drugs for treating cancer have highly unpleasant side effects – hair loss, vomiting, intense joint pain, liver damage and fetal defects, to name just a few. But anyone trying to ban the drugs would be tarred, feathered and run out of town. And rightly so.

The drugs’ benefits vastly outweigh their risks. They save lives. We need to use chemo drugs carefully, but we need to use them.

The same commonsense reasoning should apply to the Third World equivalent of chemotherapy drugs: DDT and other insecticides to combat malaria. Up to half a billion people are infected annually by this vicious disease, nearly a million die, countless survivors are left with permanent brain damage, and 90% of this carnage is in sub-Saharan Africa, the most impoverished region on Earth.

These chemicals don’t cure malaria – they prevent it. Used properly, they are [2] effective, and safe. DDT is particularly important. Sprayed once or twice a year on the inside walls of homes, DDT keeps 80% of mosquitoes from entering, irritates those that do enter, so they leave without biting, and kills any that land. No other chemical, at any price, can do this.

[3] Full Story (27kB PDF file)

It has been estimated that more than 500 construction workers (not counting their wives and children) died of malaria during the construction of the Rideau Canal in Canada, in the early 1800s, long before the end of the Little Ice Age.

During the construction of the Rideau Canal, a temperate form of malaria, P. Vivax, was present. This was the form indigenous to southern Ontario at the time. It has two cycles, the normal short (weeks) malaria cycle and a much longer cycle where it would spend nine months or longer incubating in the liver of a human. This longer cycle allowed it to survive the harsh Canadian winter by staying inside a human until the mosquitoes were out and biting again. P. Vivax has a very low mortality rate (essentially 0%) since it infects far fewer red blood cells than other forms of malaria. One explanation for the 2 to 4% mortality rate on the Rideau is that those who died were either suffering from other illnesses of the day, or had health issues such as dysentery, and that getting infected with P.Vivax was the last straw. An alternate, but perhaps less likely explanation, is that P. falciparum, a more virulent tropical malaria, was also present. P. falciparum, introduced into the U.S. with the African slave trade, doesn’t have the ability to over-winter in Canada, so, if it was present, it must have been re-introduced each year. (From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age, Paul Reiter, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, San Juan, Puerto Rico, [4] http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol6no1/pdf/reiter.pdf (2000 01 20, 792 kB))

The extent to which environment- and DDT fanatics lack good and valid information and perspectives on such issues is illustrated by the current media debate on [5] the “pesticide” ban in many Canadian cities that is now being considered for Edmonton.  Let’s be clear on that what is being discussed under the “pesticide” designation is weed-control in lawns and parks.

Well, for all who discuss banning the use of pesticides for weed control, you should get your facts straight.

A [6] pesticide is used to control or kill pesky insects, so that is what you would use to keep mosquitoes at bay or kill head lice.  There is also [7] a definition of pesticide for English-learners, in case there is confusion about what constitutes a pest.  That definition states that a pesticide is “a chemical that is used to kill animals or insects that damage plants or crops.”  It is odd that a formidable source of information such as Merriam Webster does not identify that pesticides are used to kill insects that pester or kill humans.

Nevertheless, if you want to make sure that you chemically kill the dandelions or thistles in a lawn, you must use a [8] herbicide, but be careful that you pick the right one for the job.  Some herbicides kill grass, too.

People who don’t know the difference between pesticide and herbicide lack the necessary qualifications for discussing the merits of either.