TIM LAMBERT STILL WRONG ABOUT DDT

Eritrea's WHO sponsored anti-malaria program has exceeded expectations, at least partly because it's one of the few countries that continues to use DDT for indoor spraying. Back in 2005 computer programmer Tim Lambert noted the success of Eritrea's anti-malaria program, erroneously attributing this to the fact that Eritrea had "stopped using DDT". Lambert is not a reliable source of information on the fight against malaria, or anything else for that matter.

Update: A group of DDT "experts" take time out from their hectic schedules – THR trying to work out Iain Hall's new passwords; Jeremy Sear obsessing about his kittehs, hair dye and Andrew Bolt; Toaf commenting at lefty blogs; and Tim Lambert telling whopping great lies about damn near everything – to critique my Quadrant article. They are unimpressed.

Lambert, the left's go to guy for misinformation on Rachel Carson and DDT, reckons I lied in writing this:

Carson’s introduction to chapter three (Elixirs of Death):

"For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death."

Several pages later upping the fear factor:

"All of this has come about because of the sudden rise and prodigious growth of an industry for the production of man-made or synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties. This industry is a child of the Second World War. In the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects."

The first synthetic insecticide on Carson’s list: DDT.

The accuracy of my quoting can be easily verified by checking Amazon's searchable Silent Spring page. The quote establishing the link between chemical warfare agents and synthetic insecticides is on page 16. The first synthetic insecticide mentioned thereafter is DDT (on page 18). Only after establishing the false impression in readers' minds that DDT is a product of weapons research does Carson note (page 20) that DDT was first synthesized in 1874 but its insecticidal properties not discovered until 1939.

If Carson truly wanted to inform her readers she would have explained that the organochlorine insecticides (including DDT) do not derive from chemical weapons research. Only on page 28 does Carson note that organophososphate insecticides are related to the so called nerve gases. But here again Carson misleads, this time by omission:

The origin of these insecticides has a certain ironic significance. Although some of the chemicals themselves – organic esters of phosphoric acid – had been known for many years, their insecticidal properties remained to be discovered by a German chemist, Gerhard Schrader, in the late 1930's. Almost immediately the German government recognized the value of these same chemicals as new and devastating weapons in man's war on his own kind, and the work on them was declared secret. Some became the deadly nerve gases. Others, of closely allied structure, became insecticides.

Germans. Deadly gas. You know, Zyklon B, used by the Germans to kill millions of Jews, gypsies and other "undesirables". Wrong. Zyklon B releases hydrogen cyanide, a chemical ubiquitous in nature. Silent Spring is full of such bunkum.

THR reckons I claimed "coffee is worse for you than pesticide". Uh no, Bruce Ames, unlike Carson a real scientist, in 1997 wrote:

There are over 1000 chemicals reported in a cup of coffee. Only 26 have been tested in animal cancer tests and more than half are rodent carcinogens; there are still a thousand chemicals left to test. The amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year is less than the amount known of rodent carcinogens in a cup of coffee.

Ames apparently knows his stuff:

His research focuses on cancer and aging and he has authored over 500 scientific publications. He is among the few hundred most-cited scientists in all fields.

A ranking of the carcinogenic potential of various natural and synthetic chemicals is here. Lefties might want to avoid clicking that link; it's to research conducted at that hotbed of conservative misinformation, the University of California, Berkeley.

Jeremy Sear, Pure Poison's whiniest whiner (although Dave Gaukroker is contesting for the title), pithily observes:

Ouch. That was embarrassing for "JF".

He should stick to sniping anonymously at other bloggers and their partners.

Stick to what you're good at, mate.

Gee, I can't remember the last time I posted anything anonymously. Perhaps Jeremy can refresh my memory.

Finally, yes Toaf I own a copy of Silent Spring and have read it. You?

Update II: Not content with sliming me at a fringe left blog that gets even less traffic than I do, Lambert has formally Lamberted me at Dulltard. Yikes!

Maybe Lambert could also find time to correct some of his past lies.