The EPA hands out out tax-payer cash to groups it determines are hardest hit by environmental problems. They call it ‘Environmental Justice.’
One beneficiary group was the Cleveland Tenants Organization, who received cash to fight bed-bug infestations.
The EPA knows that bed-bugs affect quality of life and have negative economic effects (PDF):
Although bed bugs are not known to vector disease, bed bugs still can be a significant public health problem. Bed bugs cause a variety of negative physical, mental and economic health consequences. Many people have mild to severe allergic reaction to the bites, with reactions ranging from none to a small bite mark to, in rare cases, anaphylaxis. These bites are also responsible for numerous secondary infections such as impetigo, ecthyma, and lymphanigitis. Mental health effects from bed bug infestations include anxiety, insomnia, or worsening of an existing mental health condition.
Economically, bed bug infestations are also a burden on society. Although the exact dollar amount is not known, the economic losses from health care, lost wages and lost productivity can be substantial. The cost of bed bug eradication may be significantly more than that of other pests since bed bug control usually requires multiple visits by a licensed pest control operator. The cost of treating multi-unit dwellings is exponentially more than treating single-family units.
It’s a pity that the EPA has to hand out cash to battle the very bed-bug problem the EPA itself created under Carole Browner. The Clinton-era EPA Director banned the bed-bug suppressing chemical treatment Dursban for use in mattress manufacture, based on a junk-science claim that was later debunked.
Sometimes, things come back to bite you on the arse. Literally.
Ed:
(1) That article is about deltamethrin (not DDT, though possibly related) resistance in bedbugs in 2008. It says nothing about DDT resistance in bedbugs “more than 50 years” ago. One comment without cites claims something like that. Hardly convincing.
(2) That article does not state that bedbugs are “essentially immune to DDT”, it says that bedbugs from NYC are more resistant to deltamethrin than are bedbugs from Florida, and extrapolates DDT resistance from that.
(3) And, as DB pointed out, the “rant” was about Dursban, not DDT.
The ‘rant’ never mentions DDT. It’s about Dursban.
So the entire premise of your comment is wrong.
By the way, did I fail to mention that bedbugs are essentially immune to DDT, and have been for more than 50 years?
See the internet expert on bedbugs: http://membracid.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/new-research-on-bedbug-insecticide-resistance/
Yeah, that’s right — the entire premise of the rant is wrong. DDT didn’t work against bedbugs in 1972. We can’t blame their resurgence in 2011 on the EPA’s 40-year-old ban on spraying DDT on cotton crops.
[...] What could possibly go wrong? [...]
The toxicological profile of Dursban (chlorpyrifos):
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/TP.asp?id=495&tid=88
Let’s see, who should get credence here, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, including H. Stanley Bennett, Dean of Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago, Nobel-winner James D. Watson at Harvard, Paul Doty, Harvard chemistry professor who tutored Nobel winners, or some guy who calls himself “strong viscous” in German?
I gave you the entire publication from the committee. If you believe it doesn’t deal with the science, please give us the quotes from the document to back your point. Otherwise, I’ll take James Watson’s word for it, over yours.
Dear Strong Viscous,
If I linked to the wrong criteria document for the EPA, please show us where the correct one is.
Thank you.
You need no other evidence of Ed Darrell’s perfidy. It is an entirely meaningless document with no scientific basis whatever.
Just in case you feel like reading all of the garbage that Ed Darrell links to: you’re wasting your time. Ed Darrell never actually reads the papers he links to, he merely copies and pastes links and arguments from other web-sites and then makes asinine claims that don’t hold up.
You will note, for example, he excerpts many opinion pieces that purport to discuss the item in question, but he never actually excerpts the item he wants to pretend he’s discussing.
Yes, Mr. Ed Darrell, we believe that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the president of the US from 1961 to 1963, but that doesn’t make Carson’s book true. In fact, the only thing that could make Carson’s book true is believing so very hard that the entire world turns inside out.
Your citation of the EPA’s own specious claims of scientific integrity as proof of the EPA’s claims is laughably absurd. Please find a hobby that gets you out of the house occasionally. But kindly stay more than 1000 yards from any schools.
Mr. Viscous said:
Then, would you please explain to us the purpose of the criteria document? The title of the document is “Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Chlorpyrifos – 1986.”
Here’s the forward:
Stark, don’t play the idiot, I can’t play you for one. Read the piece. Read the history. Kennedy charged the PSAC with checking the accuracy — the scientific accuracy — of Carson’s book. They expanded the charter a bit, and commented also on what federal policy should be towards pesticides. They found no errors on Carson’s part.
Why else would a group of science advisers, including some of the world’s best scientists, bother with the issue at all? Quit trying to bluff readers in to foolishness. Read the thing.
See here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nature/disrupt/sspring.html
You didn’t read it, Ed Darrell. Quit trying to play us for idiots.
Yes, they did examine the science. They said Carson got it right. It was a special panel on pesticides of the President’s Science Advisory Panel. It was convened specifically to look at the science of the issue. In no case did they find any error in Carson’s book.
You may read the document here, at the Kennedy Library collection: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-087-003.aspx
Conclusion: reading the links the Ed Darrell provides will disprove everything he says, therefore you are wasting your time with anything longer than a simple: “Ed Darrell, you are a liar, and the truth is not in you.”
Once, again, Ed Darrell lies: “Here’s the criteria document from EPA on chlorpyrifos (Dursban):
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/standards/upload/2001_10_12_criteria_ambientwqc_chlorpyrifos86.pdf
That paper makes the scientific case for regulating the stuff in water runoff.”
The paper makes no such case.
Perhaps Ed Darrell has forgotten to read the things he cites: “First, a blue ribbon committee of the nation’s top scientists in pesticides and insects checked out Silent Spring for accuracy, at the order of President Kennedy. They reported on May 15, 1963, that the book was extremely accurate, finding no errors of science in Carson’s book.”
This is factually true, while being extremely misleading, the report did not examine the science of Carson’s insane, paranoid screed.
Thanks, I think you got them all.
Ed,
I found some of your comments in my spam folder, flagged for multiple links. I restored three, but if there were more, they’re gone. Check the comment policy for the link limit.
**Ed, Per the Comment Policy, this comment was flagged as spam, but I restored it. There is a limit of one link per comment or it gets flagged, and there’s a good chance it’ll be lost. If you need to post more than one link, use multiple comments, thanks.**
First, a blue ribbon committee of the nation’s top scientists in pesticides and insects checked out Silent Spring for accuracy, at the order of President Kennedy. They reported on May 15, 1963, that the book was extremely accurate, finding no errors of science in Carson’s book. See links here: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/history-may-15-1963-presidents-council-vindicates-rachel-carson-warns-of-pesticide-dangers/
Second, EPA acted against DDT only after two federal courts told them they had to (because the courts had determined DDT to be so dangerous it should be immediately yanked off the market). (See one of those rulings excerpted here.) EPA conducted about nine months of hearings on the subject, with a hearing record more than 9,000 pages long.
Third, EPA was sued to stop the regulations, but the courts determined that EPA had ample scientific grounds to act as it did.
Someone who claims the action stopping DDT use on cotton was done either in haste, or without proper science, does not know the record, the law, or the science.
Here’s the criteria document from EPA on chlorpyrifos (Dursban):
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/standards/upload/2001_10_12_criteria_ambientwqc_chlorpyrifos86.pdf
That paper makes the scientific case for regulating the stuff in water runoff.
Resurgence of malaria? What source claims that?
1. Malaria deaths at the peak of DDT use, in 1959 and 1960, were about 4 million people per year.
2. Malaria deaths in 2008 were under 900,000 per year – a more than 75% reduction in malaria deaths while the population of the world nearly doubled.
3. Malaria infections ran about 500 million per year through the 1960s.
4. Malaria infections were about 250 million in 2008, a reduction of 50% worldwide — again, while the world population doubled.
See some details here:
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/annals-of-ddt-880000-died-from-malaria-in-2008/
Check here for a hundred posts with serious facts you should know about DDT and malaria, and Rachel Carson: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/ddt-chronicles-at-millard-fillmores-bathtub/
Malaria infections and malaria deaths are way down. That’s not exactly a “resurgence.”
John Hardin – Steve Milloy wrote an excellent piece on the way the the CWA of 1972 was handled. I don’t have a link, but you may be able to find it on his website (Junk Science) – or, if you contact him I’m sure he can give it to you.
Forgot the link, one of many that DDT ban was made in haste without proper scientific evaluation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/805839/posts
The phasing out of DDT due primarily to the book “Silent Spring” which also takes certain leeway with the actual facts is similar to Dursban.
“The World Health Organization estimates that DDT saved 50 to 100 million lives during this period, and that’s just counting malaria prevention. In recent years, however, the disease has staged a comeback. Globally it quadrupled during the 1990s, and it’s even reappeared sporadically in the United States. The resurgence of malaria is due to a variety of factors, including changes in land use and possibly climate, and some experts say the phasing out of DDT is one of them”.
Unforseen consequences when ideoligy trumps logic.
.
Ed, here’s the first hit on a Google search for “Kilburn Dursban 1998″:
http://www.dauberttracker.com/documents/authorities/Goeb.pdf
P.S. — I haven’t found a case with a Dr. Kilburn in it, yet. I hope you can find a citation or case name. If nothing else, it makes great drama, and it’s likely to smoke out false claims.
I think you may be confusing a trial expert with the process by which EPA gathers information on a substance for regulatory action. As a practical matter, EPA doesn’t rely on one expert on any such regulatory action. Dursban regulation took years, hundreds of hours of hearings, a lot of study, public comment, and may be challenged in court at any time.
Dow bothered to go after this one guy, but, with all their high-dollar lawyers, didn’t bother to sue EPA to overturn the ban? Then that tells us Dow doesn’t have the information to indicate EPA’s actions were not exactly what was required under FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Considering the case of the Eblings, which produced a $23 million verdict against the company that ultimately failed to warn them to keep their kids off the floor of a Dursban-sprayed apartment, I think we might conclude the weight of scientific evidence still pushes against Dursban. Here’s a newspaper story: http://newsandtribune.com/local/x1561144440/New-Albany-family-awarded-23-5-million
Here’s an earlier appeals result in the case, from several years ago: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/in-court-of-appeals/1272455.html
EPA didn’t create this bed bug thing. Bed bugs were knocked down by ambitious pest control people, a bit of a miracle considering bedbugs were almost all immune to DDT by about 1960. Bedbug rebound has a cause not yet clearly known.
The evidence is that chlorpyrifos, Dursban, is a hazard to children. Bedbugs are a small price to pay for healthy children.
Ed,
Dow did sue in a case where the scientists behind the Dursban claims acted as expert witnesses. Dow won, and the court was forthright in its language about the reliability of the scientific method employed. The link I had for the entire judgement is now dead, but I had copied the following excerpt for a prior post on the topic:
In the quest for accuracy and full disclosure, we should compliment the author for not claiming the ban on DDT use on cotton is the cause of the rise of bedbugs. That makes this author more nearly correct than most others.
Oh, quite to the contrary. If the EPA says something wrong, call them on it. They change stuff all the time to comport with comments from the public, and experts, and new findings in science.
More to the point, if they say something wrong in regulation, the regulation is illegal. So sue them to get the regulation changed. EPA’s been sued a number of times on that point, famously, lately, when they failed to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. They were sued because the law says they are to regulate pollutants that cause harm.
So, if you have information that EPA regulated Dursban without an adequate basis in science, sue them to change the regulation.
In other words, I call the bluff of the claim that there is no science to back a Dursban regulation. Got the study? Cite it. Sell the information to the pest control industry, so they can sue.
If the studies don’t do what is advertised, of course, you can’t sue, and you can’t sell it — but you could at least cite it.
page4848: Thanks, that’s a good starting point.
If you want to contact me privately my name on my comments links to my home page, where my email address is available.
I think Ed Darrell has a point. When the EPA says something, you’re not to question them. Please be silent in the presence of your betters.
Frank the BedBug Chaser and I want you to look at this chart for yourself http://www.bedbugchaser.com/BedBug_Chaser_100__chemical.html and see why exterminators using our equipment can heat your house faster than those using other brands. This is why exterminators using our Avtron heaters can charge less money per sq ft than those using Brand “X” – time is money and we save you time! Without burning your house down!!
If the Dursban ban was not based on science, aggrieved parties may sue to vitiate the ban under EPA’s organic act and general administrative law procedures. Administrative actions must be based on good science.
Are you claiming that all the mattress manufacturers in the U.S. are clueless as to the law to get them a better product?
Why haven’t you sued to overturn the ban, if you have science to show EPA wrong?
Or, might your sources be in error, and EPA might be right?
Actually, John, I think I can give your the basics right here. The Clean Water Act of 1972 phased in a lot of rules and regs for oil producers and gas stations.
The idea was well intended, but the results drove out of business most of the smaller oil companies. The enviro firms (private) that are connected to the gov’t are very crooked and will run up charges on the basis of faked work wherever they can. The money they receive is not governmental, but private.
Hope this helps. Start with the Act mentioned and go from there.
Good luck!
DB – no intervention needed. Thanks
Gee whiz, John. Not right off the bat because I lived this. However, I can proably direct you – there’s lots documented. I don’t want to put my email addy on a public place like this. Do you think the Daily Bayo guy might act as a go-between?
Hey – writer of DB – can you hlep us out?
page4848: I’d like to use that “greenies created big oil” in debates, do you happen to have any cites handy?
This is hardly the first time something like this has happened.
In the US, formation of the EPA (around 1970) and its Draconian policies drove out of business what were known in the sixties as the “Independent Oil Companies” (as opposed to what were then called the “Major Oil Companies” – the ones that survive until this day).
In other words, the Greenies created the very entity that they now hate, now known as “Big Oil.”
Obviously, this is just one example of the unintended consequences of the stupidity of the Greens; there are many, many more, as you have pointed out!