The Grand-Dad Of All Myths: DDT Is A Carcinogen

DT is a carcinogen and represents a disaster to the world’s ecology.” In the 15 years I’ve been writing this column, I believe this is the worst of the Myth Conceptions in the pest control industry. Especially with the baby-boomer generation in our industry who has been weaned on the beautiful prose of half-truths in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Only a handful of aging scientists knows that the claim of DDT’s carcinogenic effects is baseless.

Norman Borlaug, a nobel prize recipient and father of the Green Movement, said Silent Spring presented a very incomplete, inaccurate and over simplified story. “Its readers are victims of a hoax,” he said.

DOES DDT BREAK DOWN? It is a commonly held myth that DDT is a persistent chlorinated hydrocarbon that contaminates the environment for decades. FACT: The statement was based in part on a test in a small plot of soil to which a dosage of 40 pounds per acre of DDT was applied, then was kept dark, dry and free of vegetation. At this rate, all microorganisms are killed that would easily break DDT down at the usual dosage of 1 to 5 pounds per acre.

When Carson wrote that Albert Schweitzer predicted that man would destroy the earth with DDT, it was the atom bomb that he was talking about, not DDT. Carson also wrote that DDT has a half-life of 15 years or longer. Donald Spencer, fish and wildlife scientist for 34 years, said, “This is an irresponsible statement. DDT is metabolized to less toxic, and finally harmless compounds. In most croplands in the southern United States, the half-life of DDT is less than one year.”

Epidemiologist Elizabeth Whelan states that DDT is decomposed by ultraviolet light in the air in less than a year. More than 93% of DDT and its metabolytes are broken down in seawater in 38 days.

DDT’S EFFECT ON MAMMALS. “The robin and the eagle were on the verge of extinction.” Carson implied that DDT and other pesticides were responsible. FACT: the opposite occurred during the two decades of DDT usage. Audubon bird counts showed an increase in the number of birds.

It is also commonly held that DDT prevents bird hatching. FACT: Dr. Thomas Jukes lists several common causes for thin eggshells. Nobel laureate Borlaug points out that ornithologists have noted a reduction in birds of prey since the 1880s, mostly because of encroachment by man.

Another myth: Persistence of DDT in human bodies is cause for alarm. FACT: The AMA in 1970 reported traces of DDT were found in fatty tissues of humans in all walks of life. However, extensive studies found no ill effect after long exposure.

In millions of homes in third world countries, the walls were treated with DDT, yet not one case of illness has been reported from this mass treatment. Nor have any of the millions of people in Europe in WWII, who were spared death from typhus and were dusted with DDT under their clothes, been found to be affected in any way.

In 1970, Dr. Hardin B. Jones, professor of medical physics and psychology at the University of California-Berkeley, said, “of all the pesticides, DDT is the safest. At high levels it is destroyed rapidly by body tissues; at low levels it is metabolically inactive and harmless, simply dissolved in body fat.”

Another myth is that DDT causes cancer in animals. FACT: Tests with susceptible strains of mice that are fed massive dosages just short of a lethal dosage caused tumors to develop. But they did not metastasize. Tumors were found in the control group as well. The National Cancer Institute, on Oct. 9, 1978, announced that a two-year study showed that DDT did not cause cancer in lab animals.

DDT BAN IGNORED FACTS. “DDT was banned by the U.S. government because it caused cancer in mice.” The ruling based on this myth conception proved to be a death sentence for untold millions of people in third world countries. The death toll of millions annually from malaria returned after near complete freedom from the disease during the years of DDT use.

More of these myth conceptions about DDT and cancer will be exposed in a future column. In the meantime, readers are urged to read Toxic Terror by Elizabeth Whelan. Her bibliography lists hundreds of references to support the truth about this cancer scare.

Harry Katz, a 50-year veteran of the pest control industry, is an independent consultant based in Deerfield Beach, Fla. To contact Katz, call 954/427-9716.