DDT loons strike again
In the wake of Katrina, the usual loons come out to advocate DDT spraying to combat mosquitos, using halfbaked arguments and outright lies to make their case. Tim Lambert explains why indiscrimenate DDT spraying is a problem:
You can tell the deeply ignorant pro-DDT articles because the authors don?t mention or even seem aware that mosquitoes evolve resistance to insecticides. DDT?s persistence is only an advantage when it sprayed indoors and it stays where it is sprayed. Persistence is a big disadvantage when spraying outdoors because the insecticide is rapidly diluted and the mosquitoes get exposed to sublethal doses. This is perhaps the best method know for breeding insecticide resistant mosquitoes. That is why DDT is only used for indoor residual spraying. these days.
There is a real cultish quality to those DDT boosters, which ignores scientific and social realities in favour of some rightwing caricature of Technology and Progress. It professes to be rational and science orientated, but ignores those bits of science that clash with its worldview. It reminds one both of Ayn Rand and Lysenko.