Monday May 10, 2010

TOXIC DUMP. The Ole Perfesser is spreading bullshit about DDT, claiming that liberal enviroweenies are keeping it from New York bedbug sufferers because of ObamaHitler, as if there were no scientific reason to restrict its use. A useful antidote may be found in Kim Larsen's 2008 article "Bad Blood." A highlights:

DDT proponents are generally reluctant to acknowledge the complicating and protean factor of mosquito resistance. Entomologist May Berenbaum finds this galling. An expert on insecticide metabolism, Berenbaum is director of the entomology department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Read the entomological literature of the 1950s," she said in a telephone interview. "Way before Silent Spring, scientists were already trying to understand resistance. That's what insecticide toxicology was all about back then. Resistance to DDT was first detected in Italy, in houseflies, in 1947!"...

After Berenbaum published the article, she said, she was barraged by e-mails demanding that she support her claims. "To get them off my back, I finally culled a list of peer-reviewed articles documenting resistance to DDT and other pesticides in pockets all over Africa. This is not my life's work. I spent 10 minutes--10 minutes--and I found 15 articles. What would I have found if I'd spent an hour?"

I've known New Yorkers who have solved their bedbug problems with commercial remedies that did not include DDT. It's difficult but it can be done. The Perfesser is full of shit.

Remember: These people are not uninformed, but uninterested in the truth.