Norton: DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud

Abstract

The chemical compound that has saved more human lives than

any other in history, DDT, was banned by order of one man, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Public pressure was generated by one popular book and sustained by faulty or fraudulent research. Widely believed claims of carcinogenicity, toxicity to birds, anti-androgenic properties, and prolonged environmental persistence are false or grossly exaggerated. The worldwide effect of the U.S. ban has been millions of preventable deaths.

Fraud in science is a major problem.A2002 report published by theAmerican Association for theAdvancement of Science (AAAS)on “fraud in science in Germany” stated that International Scientific Misconduct Rules should “punish deliberate or grossly negligent falsification or fabrication of data,” and that “failure to cooperate with investigations will be considered an admission of guilt.” Ombudsmen will be appointed “to probe for examples of misconduct, including falsification, fabrications, selective use of data, and manipulation of graphs and figures.” Upon reading this article, I prepared a 34-page list of frauds published in U.S. scientific journals and sent it to the editor of . Although he responded courteously, he evidently did not wish to publicize this. The most common examples of fraud in the United States appear to be environmental, including acid rain, ozone holes, carbon dioxide, ultraviolet radiation, global cooling, global warming, endangered species, and pesticides. This article will primarily concern the last, especially DDT 

Value of Pesticides to Humanity

DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was first produced in1874 by German chemist Othmar Zeidler, but he did not suggest any actual use for it. Sixty years later, Paul Müller duplicated the procedure and discovered the chemical’s insecticidal potential. For this, he received the Nobel Prize in 1948. DDT has been effective in controlling mankind’s worst insect pests, including lice, fleas, and mosquitoes. This was of enormous importance for human health because at least 80 percent of human infectious disease worldwide is arthropod borne. Hundreds of millions have died from malaria, yellow fever, typhus, dengue, plague, encephalitis, leishmaniasis, filariasis, and many other diseases. In the 14th century bubonic plague (transmitted by fleas) killed a fourth of the people in Europe and two-thirds of those in the British Isles. Yellow fever killed millions before it was found to be transmitted by mosquitoes. It infected British troops in the Louisiana Territory in 1741, killing 20,000 of the 27,000 soldiers. In 1802, French troops arrived there but departed after 29,000 of the 33,000 soldiers died of yellow fever. More than 100 epidemics of typhus ravaged civilizations in Europe and Asia, with mortality rates as high as 70 percent. But by far the greatest killer has been malaria, transmitted by mosquitoes

In 1945 the goal of eradicating this scourge appeared to be achievable, thanks to DDT. By 1959, the U.S., Europe, portions of the Soviet Union, Chile, and several Caribbean islands were nearly malaria free. In 1970 the National Academy of Sciences stated: “To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. In little more than two decades DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths due to malaria that would have otherwise have been inevitable.” Today, however, after the U.S. ban on DDT, there is a global malaria burden of 300 to 500 million cases and 1 to 2.5 million deaths annually, mostly among young children. Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds. Many South American countries suffered more than 90 percent increases in malaria rates after halting DDT use, but Ecuador used DDT again and enjoyed a 61 percent in malaria

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

On the first page of the book widely credited with launching the environmental movement as well as bringing about the ban on DDT, Rachel Carson wrote: “Dedicated to Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who said ‘Man has lost the capacity to foresee and forestall. He will end by destroying the earth’.” She surely knew that he was referring to atomic warfare, but she implied that he meant there were deadly hazards from chemicals such as DDT. Because I had already found a great many untruths in her book, I obtained a copy of Dr. Schweitzer’s autobiography, to see whether he even mentioned DDT. He wrote: “How much labor and waste of time these wicked insects do cause, but a ray of hope, in the use of DDT, is now held out to us.