Spare the pests. Kill the people!
By Alan Caruba
Question? What do the following diseases have in common? Malaria, Encephalitis, Dengue fever, Bubonic plague, Salmonellosis, Yellow Fever, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme disease, Tularemia, Diarrhea, Dysentery, Gastroenteritis, and Typhoid Fever. They are all transmitted by insects such a mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and cockroaches. Today, they are responsible for killing millions of people around the world every year.
Question? Why is the Environmental Protection Agency not only failing to protect Americans against these insect and rodent-borne diseases, but is deliberately leaving people vulnerable by taking away every one of the major pesticides needed to eradicate the vast populations of these pests? The answer is that those who decide these matters in the EPA adhere to the genocidal agenda of the environmental movement that sees the elimination of human beings as the best way to protect the earth.
That can be the only answer to the EPA's latest assault on one of the most effective pesticides in use for the past thirty years, chlorpyrifos, better known as Dursban or Lorsban. In banning Dursban, they will be removing a pesticide at work in more than 800 products used to exterminate the billions of cockroaches, ants, spiders, fleas, flies, termites, and other insects that pose a threat to human health and property. The loss of its agricultural equivalent, Lorsban, will leave millions of acres of food crops vulnerable to attack by countless insect species.
This has nothing to do with science. After three decades of use, it is clear to everyone that, applied according to the instructions on the label, Dursban poses no threat to human beings. It does just the opposite. It protects them.
It protects them today in ways the EPA is determined to eliminate. In doing so, the EPA says its decision will not even be based on science. Instead, they say that using such data would be "unethical." What, however, is ethical about putting the lives of Americans at risk for the spread of diseases that only the proper use of pesticides can prevent?
Even a June 2nd Associated Press story on the ban noted that, "The agency concluded the compound poses no immediate threat to public health and won't order a recall of products containing it." No immediate threat? It has posed no threat for three decades. There is no overwhelming or even significant evidence it poses a threat. Why then is it being banned? Why ban a product that farmers use to control the legions of pests that attack wheat, corn and more than 75% of the nation's apple crops?
In the opening chapter of The Ratcatcher's Child, a book about the history of the pest control profession by the late author, Dr. Robert Snetsinger, he wrote, "In these days of refrigeration, packaged foods, disinfectants, pesticides, municipal garbage and sewage services, washing machines and other technology which provide high levels of sanitation, it is difficult for those living in developed countries to envision a time only a few generations ago when mankind lived in filth and squalor."
In my own lifetime, I can recall when refrigeration meant putting a big block of ice in a metal box. I can remember when milk was delivered to my home by a horse-drawn wagon. I can remember the days before the creation of mosquito control commissions when summer meant days spent swatting them away and nights spent under the covers as they buzzed around the room. I did not live in some rural community. I lived in a New Jersey suburb.
Whole generations have grown up deprived of an understanding the power of nature and, in particular, the insect and rodent pest species that serve as vectors of disease. School curriculums have been taken over by the Greens, constantly teaching children that pesticides are a threat, but the real history of man can be fairly neatly divided between the history of warfare and the history of epidemics.
In the 1400's, a combination of fleas and rats spread the Bubonic plague that killed 13 million in China and three quarters of the population of Europe, an estimated 75 million people. It can happen again! An outbreak of Bubonic plague occurred in India only a few years ago. Today, thanks to the ban on DDT, millions around the world die annually from Malaria. The West Nile Fever, previously unknown in America, invaded the northeast just last year.
If you do not kill pest insect species, they will kill you. They will do so by virtue of their staggering billions and they will do so to millions of Americans and others around the world.
Something needs to be banned and it is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency whose true agenda is to threaten the lives of Americans and the economy of this nation in every possible way. Until we rid this nation of this internal threat, this vicious cabal of those who hate Americans enough to strip us of our only defense against these threats of disease and death, we will all remain their hapless, helpless victims. This agency is depriving our farmers of the means to protect the crops that feed us and others around the world. Only Congress can reverse this assault on our lives and one wonders how high the cost of food will have to rise and how many will have to die before they take action.
Alan Caruba is a veteran science and business writer who founded The National Anxiety Center in 1990 as a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns designed to influence public opinions and policies. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.anxietycenter.com. Mr. Caruba can be reached via email at email@example.com.
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