THERE'S SMART, THEN THERE'S TIM LAMBERT SMART

Tim "Fact-Check Boy" Lambert, with close to 40 posts on the subject, fancies himself something of a DDT expert. Whereas I have argued there was an effective de facto ban on DDT back around the time of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty, Lambert argued that the ban is a myth. He has now gone even farther, arguing that not only was there no ban, "the threat of an imminent ban was purely imaginary and was sensationalized by the media".

As proof, Lambert quotes from a paper in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health (2003):

However, as an NGO observer, WWF could not propose actual treaty language, and no participating country formally supported the suggested ban. WWF's proposed 2007 deadline provoked a strong negative reaction from malaria control advocates. A public health NGO, the Malaria Foundation International (MFI), mobilized 371 scientists, including three Nobel laureates, to sign a letter warning the negotiators that a firm deadline to ban DDT would place an unethical burden on the world's poorest countries. Prominent malariologists argued that while an eventual ban of public health use of DDT could be acceptable if cost-effective alternatives were in place, significant and long-term investments in malaria research and public health capacity building in developing countries would have to come first from the developed world (Curtis and Lines 2000). The global POPs negotiation process was also criticized as lacking sufficient participation by health officials from malarious countries (Attaran et al. 2000). The media was alerted to the imagined threat of an imminent ban on public health use of DDT, and articles appeared in the New York Times, the Economist, Science News and elsewhere describing the issue (Stolberg 1999; Raloff 2000).

The threat had to be more than imagined for Malaria Foundation International to produce a letter to treaty negotiators stating in part:

You are no doubt aware that one of substances the POPs Treaty seeks to ban from future use is DDT, and that such a ban is supported by most wealthy Western countries and several environmental NGOs.

Lambert – in 2006 – obviously knows more about the DDT ban threat – back in 1999 – than these MFI letter signers, who let their imaginations get the best of them. Lambert is one smart boy.

Update: I lodged a comment at Fact-Check Boy's blog asking why, if the DDT ban threat didn't exist, the MFI bothered to write the letter to negotiators and all of those notables signed it. Naturally, the comment didn't make it through moderation. Funny how ScienceBlogs.com, of which Lambert recently became part, states its mission is to "increase public understanding of science" but dissenting comments aren't allowed. I've emailed Lambert asking what's wrong with my comment. If he's true to form he'll call me a troll and tell me to go away.

Update II: After a wait of over 12 hours my comment made it through. Yippee!