Howard Stern may not re-up with Sirius, I hear. That would make it easier to avoid the quackings of one of the latest and greatest cranks on DDT and malaria.
Rutledge Taylor, the erstwhile (still?) beauty-cream peddler to the stars, spoke with Stern on the telephone the day after the Pearl Harbor anniversary, apparently on the air, and demonstrated greater lunacy about DDT and malaria than in the past; the conversation was posted to YouTube. Among other things Taylor gets dead wrong he claims:
- Bedbugs did not develop resistance to DDT as reported in the 1950s and confirmed by recent detailed studies
- No one studied bedbugs in the past three decades or so
- DDT was banned to kill people, not due to any danger
- Mosquito nets are “antiquated”
- DDT doesn’t harm birds, doesn’t thin eggshells
- Linus Pauling’s vitamin C studies show that DDT works
- William Ruckelshaus completely banned DDT use everywhere, by himself, with no science to back the action
Taylor claims to have five file cabinets full of the studies on DDT, but it becomes clear that he hasn’t read any of them. For example, he cites the erroneous claim that DDT saved 500 million lives, from a 1970 study by the National Academy of Sciences — but he’s not got the honor to tell his listeners that NAS then concluded that despite its value, DDT is too dangerous to keep using.
Stern’s newsletter said, for the December 8, 2010 program:
THE DUDE WHO DRANK DDT
Howard got Dr. Rutledge Taylor on the line to discuss his DDT advocacy: “This is the guy who believes in DDT.” Robin remembered Dr. Rutledge’s infamous YouTube video: “He drank it!” Dr. Rutledge said anti-DDT activists cited faulty–or just plain old–research: “There’s not been a study on DDT and bedbugs in 30 years…it’s the safest pesticide on the planet.” Howard asked about the common claim that DDT thins bird eggs, so Dr. Rutledge said he’d never seen proof: “Total bullshit. I’ve got every study going back to 1940.”Howard asked if Dr. Rutledge was really dating 80s pop star Debbie Gibson, and the doc confirmed it: “She’s right here. Right now.” Debbie grabbed the phone: “I’m the crazy-supportive girlfriend up in the middle of the night making this phone call with him. Look, he’s saving the world and I wrote ‘Shake Your Love.’ It’s a match made in heaven.” Howard joked: “Does Dr. Rutledge ever bring DDT into the bedroom? Rub it on you?” The doc laughed: “It’s better than chocolate.”
Back in the olden days, broadcasters had to demonstrate that they broadcast in the public interest. Sirius needs to make no such demonstration. Otherwise, Stern’s Know-Nothing rants on DDT, alone, would put their license into question.
Instead of urging people to donate $10 to Nothing But Nets to save a kid from malaria, Taylor insists that people should go see his movie, “3 Billion and Counting,” instead.
Fortunately, the movie is no longer in release. So, Dear Reader, make Howard Stern apoplectic, and save a kid’s life, by sending $10 to Nothing But Nets, and ignore Stern completely.
The facts? You can’t get them from Stern or Taylor:
- Bug Girl, the internet’s greatest authority on bedbugs and DDT, notes two studies on bedbug resistance to DDT published in 2009 (so much for Taylor’s first two claims)
- Official history of the EPA restrictions on DDT — science was the driver, not politics
- Since EPA banned use of DDT on agricultural crops annual malaria deaths have fallen by more than half; in 1972 about 2 million people died from malaria worldwide — today, fewer than 900,000 people die from malaria worldwide; it appears that the “ban” on DDT caused a drop in malaria deaths, exactly contrary to Taylor’s claims
- Mosquito nets work wonderfully in fighting malaria — better than DDT without nets by a long way. Are they “antiquated?” So is the U.S. Constitution — that doesn’t mean it’s not the best way to go
- Recovery of the bald eagle, osprey, brown pelican and peregrine falcon is attributed directly to the reduction of DDT residues in the tissues of adult birds; DDT hampers the ability of birds to form competent eggs, plus it hampers the ability of chicks to survive to fledging
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Yeah, it’s a jab at Rutledge Taylor’s ill-tempered mockumentary, “3 Billion and Counting.” No one can say what the 3 billion things are, and the movie is wildly error-prone, even […]
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OMG. What a load of hooey.
Also, there will be a lot of entomologists quite startled to find out their last 20 years or so of research on bedbugs doesn’t exist ;p
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Is it a virus y’all have, or is it learned obnoxiousness?
The information you ask for is contained in or linked from that post.
Start here, at “Beating malaria without DDT.”
You’ll notice that this post is based on two news stories about peer-reviewed research published in Lancet, one of the top two or three medical and science journals on Earth. The news stories were from Agence France Presse, and Reuters.
The AFP story said:
The Reuters report was similar:
Here’s the abstract with access to the full story, at Lancet.
You’ll notice in reading the news reports that this research was done under the aegis of the groups who ended the DDT advocates’ policies of charging for the bed nets. Free distribution seems to work better, according to the research. Your contributions to Nothing But Nets go to free net distribution. USAID is no longer insisting on charging for the nets, as it did early in the Bush administration.
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@xmfclick:
Peer reviewed research on the effectiveness of IRS vs ITNs:
-Pluess (2010): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20393950 – “Some limited data suggest that ITN give better protection than IRS in unstable areas, but more trials are needed to compare the effects of ITNs with IRS, as well as to quantify their combined effects.”
-Yukich (2008): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19091114 – “Both ITNs and IRS are highly cost-effective vector control strategies … ITNs are more cost-effective than IRS for highly endemic settings, especially if high ITN coverage can be achieved with some demographic targeting.”
The above two studies are about IRS generally (not necessarily with with DDT). With regard to DDT itself:
-van den Berg (2009): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20049114 – “No published data exist on cost-effectiveness in terms of cost per disability-adjusted life-year averted by IRS using DDT … Both the effectiveness and costs of DDT are dependent on local settings and merit careful consideration in relation to alternative products or methods … In 1990, the insecticide costs per house per 6 months of control were substantially lower for DDT (US$1.60) than for other insecticides (> US$3.40), but in 1998 the cost range for DDT (US$1.50–3.00) overlapped with that of alternative insecticides (> US$2.20), pyrethroids in particular. This comparison will further change with the availability of new formulations of pyrethroids that have increased residual activity.”
The bottom is line is that there’s not a lot research directly comparing IRS with ITNs or IRS with DDT vs IRS with other chemicals, but what little research there is suggests that ITNs are slightly better and that DDT isn’t dramatically cheaper than other pesticides.
With regard to NGOs changing donors $10/net and then selling the nets to Africans: do you have any evidence for this allegation?
And IRS is by no means free. That’s a preposterous statement.
Finally, have a look at this, sir: http://panna.org/blog/ddt-can-make-malaria-worse . Brand new research suggests that not only is DDT ineffective in many situations (or at least less effective than alternatives), but spraying it can actually make malaria worse in certain circumstances.
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I just read your post “Beating malaria without DDT” but I don’t see where you point to anything resembling peer-reviewed, replicated research that shows bed nets are more effective than IRS, which is your claim. Please post a link in your reply, for clarity.
Also, what is your position on the aid agencies’ policy of taking ten dollars from well-meaning Westerners on the pretext that they will be providing a bed net for someone in Africa or wherever, and then SELLING said net to said person for around five dollars, when said person probably has an income not far north of 20 dollars a month? How many poor Americans would be able to afford a quarter of a month’s income to buy a bed net, if the situation were transferred to the States? (Typically, poor people spend half their income on food and the rest on shelter.) Yes, the aid agencies say that if they have to buy a net people will treat it with more respect — which may or may not be true; the adults may but what about the kids? — but they effectively exclude the poorest and most at-risk people from using nets at all. On the other hand, AFAIK, IRS is free.
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I don’t listen to Stern anymore (not that I ever listened to him very much to being with) but doesn’t it sound a little like Stern is toying with Rutledge? Like, egging him on to sound as crazy as possible? I think maybe Stern is taking a piss at Rutledge’s expense.
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