WUWT recently carried a guest post from Indur Goklany titled Smacking Down Malaria Misconceptions which generated a lot of contentious comments, inflammatory rebuttal posts, and even a permanent ban of Ed Darrell from WUWT because he claims I’ve called Rachel Carson a “mass murderer” (something I’ve never written nor said) yet refuses to retract his false statement and apologize for putting words in my mouth.
All that pointless bluster aside, I found this story below very interesting and encouraging, because if it goes forward to the logical and hopeful conclusion, the arguments over DDT and other pesticide uses to fight malaria will fall by the wayside. I think we can all agree that like the success with smallpox, we look forward to the day when malaria could be eradicated from Earth. – Anthony
Malaria’s newest pathway into human cells identified
Development of an effective vaccine for malaria is a step closer following identification of a key pathway used by the malaria parasite to infect human cells. The discovery, by researchers at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, provides a new vaccine target through which infection with the deadly disease could be prevented.
Each year more than 400 million people contract malaria, and more than one million, mostly children, die from the disease. The most lethal form of malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Part of the parasite’s success lies in its ability to deploy multiple ways to invade red blood cells, a process essential for the survival of the parasite within the human host.
Professor Alan Cowman, head of the institute’s Infection and Immunity division, led the research with Dr Wai-Hong Tham, Dr Danny Wilson, Mr Sash Lopaticki, Mr Jason Corbin, Dr Dave Richard, Dr James Beeson from the institute and collaborators at the University of Edinburgh.
For decades, it has been known that malaria parasites use proteins called glycophorins as a means of entering red blood cells. This new research reveals an alternative pathway used by the parasite to enter red blood cells. The pathway does not involve glycophorins, instead requiring the binding of a parasite molecule named PfRh4 to Complement Receptor 1 (CR1), a common protein found on the surface of red blood cells.
“The parasite is like a master burglar – it will try a variety of different methods to get into the house, not just the front door,” Professor Cowman said. “Although the human body has evolved a variety of methods to keep the parasite out, it keeps finding new ways to get in.”
Professor Cowman said the PfRh family of surface proteins is involved in the recognition of red blood cell receptors, which allows the parasite to attach to the red blood cell surface and gain entry.
“We think that the parasite uses this protein to correctly identify the red blood cell and say ‘Yes, this is the one we want to invade’, it’s like a quality assurance process,” Professor Cowman said.
“The PfRh4-CR1 pathway is one of the most important of the pathways we’ve identified for entry of malaria parasites into cells,” Professor Cowman said. “We are now at the stage where we have identified the best combination of proteins for a vaccine, and are ready to start clinical development.
“When both glycophorin and CR1 pathways are blocked, there is a 90 per cent decrease in infection of the cells with the parasite. These results suggest that if a vaccine were to stimulate the immune system to recognise and generate antibodies to the prevalent invasion pathways, there is a good chance it would lead to a significant decrease in malaria infection.”
The research was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. The study was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh, the Wellcome Trust and the Victorian Government.
personally I,d rather they worked out how to damage the mozzies.
seems a vaccine is the” promise” for everything that ails us.
Mosquitoes lay their eggs in stagnant pools of water, where they hatch into swimming larvae before the airborne adults ultimately emerge. Mosquitoes usually feed upon nectar, but the females drink blood to provide extra supplements for their eggs when they are preparing to lay. This is when they become a nuisance to humans and can transmit parasites such as malaria and other blood-borne diseases.
Repel the boarders!
Scientists have found that the backswimmer, which is similar to a water boatman, releases a “scent,” known as predator-released kairomones, that scares off mosquitoes – although humans can’t smell them. Backswimmers prey on the larvae of the biting insects, and so female mosquitoes have developed a tendency to avoid areas where they detect chemicals given off by the predators and avoid laying eggs where they are present.
If people can spray themselves and their clothes with this chemical, it will make them immune to mosquitoes.
I think national governments should divert money from climate modeling into malaria research. After all, the IPCC has assured us that AGW will rapidly increase the spread of malaria (though apparently there is no “consensus” on that claim given Dr. Reiter’s resignation, for example) so they should not mind.
That would be good. Just as other vaccines have reduced illness and deaths it also resulted in an explosion in the populations and a malaria vaccine will do the same.
There would still be a need to repel and kill the little blood sucking critters.
To strictly follow their mandate, their hearts, and their attitudes towards science and the “natural world” of unspoiled nature, the EPA, Greenpeace, WWF, PETA, and the UN/WHO would immediately (and successfully) get an injunction against using the vaccine BECAUSE it would lead to extermination of the malaria virus.
Kate says: …Scientists have found that the backswimmer, which is similar to a water boatman, releases a “scent,” known as predator-released kairomones, that scares off mosquitoes – although humans can’t smell them….”
Citation, please?
how can anyone claim to be reasonable and reject DDT as an effective Malaria tool ? It may not be perfect but to argue that there are more effective tools is simply nonsense …
Keeping the little critters from biting is important but DEET is not always the chemical of choice…despite how the FDA is now decrying the use of “natural” products in favor of the large chemical companies that supply the commercial brands. (What a surprise!).
We produce a catnip oil (nepetalactone) insect repellent creme that has been used in Africa will good results as well as here in the Great White North. Our “deep woods” version includes neem oil and both also contain a variety of other essential oils that give the product a pleasant odor. The cream base is also good for the skin but we have an alcohol based spray for golfers.
Re: “I think we can all agree that like the success with smallpox, we look forward to the day when malaria could be eradicated from Earth.”
Actually, I know more than a few “environmentalists” who would think that a crime against nature. As a matter of fact, many “environmentalist” academics embrace disease, no matter how horrid a death it may cause. For example, the classic instance in 2006 where environmentalists championed and applauded the ebola virus at the Texas Academy of Science —
http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html
Kate says:
September 27, 2010 at 6:49 am
If you replace the word mosquitoes with politicians your post would not change a bit 🙂
Kate says:
September 27, 2010 at 6:49 am
“[…]Mosquitoes usually feed upon nectar, […]”
Do tell… I never ran across that in all my years.
DDT used to work great; and now they understand a lot more about proper application. No need to wait for a vaccine; but good luck anyway.
Steve Goreham in his book “Climatism!” discusses malaria and points out that The World Health Org. in 2006 started using DDT again. The WHO says that science does not support the claims of some that DDT would cause a silent spring. Goreham also says that DDT should not be used in agricultural areas.
I’ll gladly say that Rachel Carson was to William Ruckelshaus (the then Head of the EPA who unilaterally and without foundation banned DDT) as Al Gore is to Maurice Strong (the architect of the IPCC and the drive to create a carbon crisis, a takeover of world energy and a one-world government).
As the DDT ban has killed millions, I hold her complicit in these deaths.
Google ‘ predator-released kairomones malaria ‘ and one should find oddles of interesting info~
Rachael Carson was testing at a time when there WAS abuse of DDT and other chemicals. At the levels it was applied in and the areas, she was correct.
it was advertised as so safe that your kids could run through the sprays for heavens sake…
overuse and abuse has always created problems. glyphosate now is yet another classic example.
our govt pushed asbestos housing as safe affordable and desirable…now its a millstone for any homeowner.
If its sounds too good to be true, it is!
This may be one of the most important advances in malaria control to date. It is probably not a magic bullet nothing is. A solid vaccine, combined with the “usual” other pathogen control measures, would go a long way toward full control if not elimination. I think we all, the researchers included, need to proceed with caution and not over sell just one aspect of this truly complex parasitic disease.
amicus curiae says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:28 am
it was advertised as so safe that your kids could run through the sprays for heavens sake…
I was one of those kids, it was my hobby during summertime, now I am 69 years old and no illnesses at all, thanks God. DDT is insoluble. Mrs Carson, as far as I know, was a Malthusian.
If the world spent just 10 per cent of what it has spent on the alleged danger of AGW I’m sure we would have licked Malaria. Maybe governments and green groups no longer care enough because it has already been eradicated in the USA, UK, Scandinavia and Russia. At least Bill Gates isn’t wasting all his money on trying to cool the earth. :o)
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/summary/246/10/1133-b
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253858/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29022220/
If this is successful where is the food required to fill the extra stomachs going to come from? Perhaps even more demands for international ‘aid’ are in the offing.
Thanks, Anthony, this one is right up my alley! (I’m an infectious disease epidemiologist by training).
DDT? Great stuff, but spraying it willy-nilly throughout the ecosystem is both harmful and wasteful. I’m very impressed with the results obtained from very focused spraying of DDT onto interior walls in endemic areas, please see: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/84/8430gov1.html
“The South African government has used DDT to spray the interior walls of houses. That and effective medications have reduced South Africa’s annual malaria death toll from 458 in 2000 to 89 in 2006. With this method, DDT spraying needs to be repeated only once every six to eight months.”
So, a combination of improving drugs, prudent application of insecticides, and eventual development of a vaccine may reduce or even eliminate this scourge!
More children presently die from malaria than from global warming, right? Our funding priorities are goofed up.
Except for the lies of Rachael Carson, 30-40 million African children under the age of 5 would have not have had to die of malaria — You would think that getting DDT back into production, WHO authorized it in limited production in 2006 after concluding their 30 year exahausting study and finding no deleterious effects except on mosquito, would be top priority. It’s currently legal to product DDT but the IMF ties their African nation loans to not producing … Strange. Why would they not care for the children.
Was WHO’s DDT study sort of like today’s global warming science, I do see similarities with political goals and science ….
You would think it would be a top priority of Obama, to save the 1.5 million children a year that needlessly die of malaria. It’s nice they may have found a way to stop the disease, but I am an Occam Razor sort of guy, why not just kill the mosquitoes the most effective way known, with DDT.
Compare the billions wasted each year on AGW climate studies to this:
Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.
Malaria is responsible for 20 percent of Africa’s under-five mortality and 10 percent of the continent’s overall disease burden.
Less than five percent of people at greatest malaria risk have insecticide-treated mosquito nets to sleep under.
http://www.alertnet.org/topkillerdiseases.htm
Quick facts.
http://www.control-mosquitoes.com/
With regard to the deet alternatives…
All the same, I’ll stick with deet. I have tried just about everything and found nothing works nearly as well as >25% deet. Heck, having allegedly grown up in Northern Ontario I was regularly slathered with the deet most of my life and I’m perfectly normal! (Twitch, twitch.) Nothing wrong with me! Well, ok… Maybe I have three arms, an extra ear and a nasty foot disorder, but aside from that, I’m fit as a fiddle!
Seriously though, deet works better than anything else IMHO.
The malaria parasite (N.B. – NOT virus!) has managed to evade many other attempts at stopping it. This is a promising “step closer,” not the final word.
Surely that 400 million per year figure is a typo. What would be a realistic rate?
I agree with CRS, Dr.P.H. I’m a “drugs and bugs” guy myself. Effective control of malaria can only be achieved with a multifaceted approach. Humans are the actual reservoir of the disease. Mosquitoes are the vector. Effective management requires treating infected humans and decreasing the population of the vector. Antimalarial drugs are pretty good but they’re not bulletproof. We’ll never get rid of the mosquitoes. The best we can hope for is to keep them away from us.
Malaria is a parasitic disease, not a viral, fungal or bacterial one. This makes management and treatment much more difficult. Analogies to the small pox vaccine are perhaps a bit too simplistic. In a classic sense vaccination works by getting the human body to create antibodies to the proteins expressed on various viruses and some bacteria. If exposed, the antibodies bind with the invading protein and the immune system does the rest. We have vaccines against a wide variety of viruses and bacteria…but all of them because it ain’t as easy as it might appear.
It sounds like these researchers are looking to create a vaccine that would cause the human body to form an antibody to a specific complement protein. It is hoped that this will deny the plasmodia entry into red blood cells and short circuit the life cycle. This is going to be very difficult research as it would have to be a VERY specific antibody. You mess with complement you can precipitate fatal coagulopathies. It’s a very cool idea but personally I think we’re more likely to see an effective AIDS vaccine first.
You don’t handle overpopulation via diseases like Malaria. This disease kills children which causes their parents to replace them with lots more children.
Cutting child mortality below 10 percent is the most valuable thing to reduce population–see the wonderful videos of Dr. Hans Rosling. The second most valuable thing is the education of girls, so that women have something else to do.
And if I have my way, we will revere fossil fuels for increasing the carrying capacity of Earth, plus return to whole agriculture, re-flourish the Sahara and so on, thus having room for lots more people.
@ Dr. Dave says:
September 27, 2010 at 11:15 am
——
Nice to meet you, Doctor!
Good post, thanks! Another barrier is that rural poor in afflicted countries are very fearful of immunization, as we are seeing with the resurgence of polio in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Beating these bugs requires a multi-step process of science, public policy, research and education. I’ve learned of massive outbreaks of yellow fever in Africa stopped cold due to rapid intervention and social marketing efforts. SARS is another amazing success story!
This is one reason I am so pissed off at the frittering away of valuable research money on garbage like climatology. Climategate showed us that these folks (Mann, Jones et. al) are in it for themselves. I see no value to it whatsoever since, by their own admission, there is so much carbon in the atmosphere that nothing can be done anyway (short of driving humankind back into caves).
PJB says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:11 am
Keeping the little critters from biting is important but DEET is not always the chemical of choice…despite how the FDA is now decrying the use of “natural” products in favor of the large chemical companies that supply the commercial brands. (What a surprise!).
We produce a catnip oil (nepetalactone) insect repellent creme that has been used in Africa will good results as well as here in the Great White North. Our “deep woods” version includes neem oil and both also contain a variety of other essential oils that give the product a pleasant odor. The cream base is also good for the skin but we have an alcohol based spray for golfers.
And of course with that catnip oil, the kitties like you too, eh? :o)
David says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:14 am
Re: “I think we can all agree that like the success with smallpox, we look forward to the day when malaria could be eradicated from Earth.”
Actually, I know more than a few “environmentalists” who would think that a crime against nature. As a matter of fact, many “environmentalist” academics embrace disease, no matter how horrid a death it may cause. For example, the classic instance in 2006 where environmentalists championed and applauded the ebola virus at the Texas Academy of Science –
http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html
Yes, but do take note: They want everyone else to die.
Hypocrisy knows no limits with the self-professed people-haters.
*** Stop Press *** Stop Press ***
New method of tackling malaria, that works…
DDT
.
As a professional chemist, provenance is not as important as effect. DEET has its effectiveness and longevity but:
“”Up to 56% of DEET applied topically penetrates intact human skin and 17% is absorbed into the bloodstream.” Blood concentrations of about 3 mg per litre have been reported several hours after DEET repellent was applied to skin in the
prescribed fashion. DEET is also absorbed by the gut.
The most serious concerns about DEET are its effects on the central nervous
system. Dr. Mohammed Abou-Donia of Duke University studied lab animals’
performance of neuro-behavioural tasks requiring muscle co-ordination. He found that lab animals exposed to the equivalent of average human doses of DEET performed far worse than untreated animals. Abou-Donia also found that combined exposure to DEET and permethrin, a mosquito spray ingredient, can lead to motor deficits and learning and memory dysfunction.
An emergency medicine bulletin notes that DEET may have significantly greater toxicity when combined with ethyl and isopropyl alcohols and freon which are components of some DEET repellents. ”
My experience with natural extracts is positive but, of course, mostly anecdotal.
Also, regarding this:
http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html
When you read the above URL, keep in mind that the ones advocating the elimination of humanity from the Earth, DO NOT advocate their own removal first.
Rather, they are as suicidal maniacs who can’t handle the idea that someone will be around when they kill themselves. So they —not unlike Jim Jones— want to take as many others with them when they go.
When you come to understand them —the people-haters— you comprehend that they really bitterly hate themselves, but they engage in the most severe form of self-hatred: Projection.
Projection: Unconsciously projecting one’s own unacceptable feelings onto others, so that one doesn’t have to own them. Projection is a particularly insidious defense mechanism, because it not only prevents a person from dealing with his own feelings, it also creates a world where he perceives everyone else as directing his own hostile feelings back at him.
H.R.
September 27, 2010 at 8:25 am
Kate says:
September 27, 2010 at 6:49 am
“[…]Mosquitoes usually feed upon nectar, […]“
Do tell… I never ran across that in all my years.
#
Then you are blind or ignorant. This is common knowledge. Only female mosquitoes feed on blood, and then only to get enough energy to produce eggs. The rest feed on plant juices.
amicus curiae says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:28 am
Rachael Carson was testing at a time when there WAS abuse of DDT and other chemicals. At the levels it was applied in and the areas, she was correct.
it was advertised as so safe that your kids could run through the sprays for heavens sake…
overuse and abuse has always created problems. glyphosate now is yet another classic example.
our govt pushed asbestos housing as safe affordable and desirable…now its a millstone for any homeowner.
If its sounds too good to be true, it is!
Overuse. That was my thinking as well: Too much of a good thing.
In the corollary, the overuse of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is implicated in the burgeoning over-weight epidemic in the western world. That stuff is used in just every food that’s been highly processed.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
September 27, 2010 at 11:32 am
“This is one reason I am so pissed off at the frittering away of valuable research money on garbage like climatology. Climategate showed us that these folks (Mann, Jones et. al) are in it for themselves. I see no value to it whatsoever since, by their own admission, there is so much carbon in the atmosphere that nothing can be done anyway (short of driving humankind back into caves).”
___________________________________________________
I have to agree with you. Fretting about the planet warming up 90 years in the future while millions are dying of treatable or preventable diseases is like worrying about a leaky water heater while your house is on fire. As I’m sure you are aware, (collectively) parasitic infection is the #1 killer of humans on the planet. More die of parasite infections than all other infections, war, starvation, cancer, heart disease, etc. Most parasitic diseases are endemic in very poor, third world countries so there’s no money in developing treatments. However, there is a freaking fortune to made on the AGW fraud.
There are a lot of ways to improve conditions in the third world. Provide them with the means to generate their own electricity. Help them create their own sources of potable water. Help them develop sanitary waste disposal. Provide them vitamin supplements. Then get out of their way. Given the choice, the despotic leaders of these 3rd world quagmires would much rather receive “climate reparations” from Western nations than these quality of life improvements for their own people.
Personally, I’m a huge advocate of free market capitalism. I believe government should be funding very little science, research, engineering or development. That’s the job of the private sector and free markets (and most of our modern innovations came from the private sector). But the AGW scam is sold on the pretense that we’re saving the world for future generations and that the hundreds of billions that have been spent in this fruitless pursuit are for the benefit of mankind. So if you buy into the notion that we should be benefiting mankind as a whole why not pony up for very real, quantifiable problems that exist in the here and now rather than waste this wealth on some specious claim that mankind can control the Earth’s climate?
“All that pointless bluster aside, I found this story below very interesting and encouraging, because if it goes forward to the logical and hopeful conclusion, the arguments over DDT and other pesticide uses to fight malaria will fall by the wayside.”
To be replaced by arguments and bluster regarding the overuse use of vaccines, the safety of vaccine ingredients, governments mandating what we must inject into our children, etc. There is no panacea to infectious disease propagation, beyond proper sanitation, good hygiene, and common sense controls on breeding habitats of carriers.
Sarf of the River says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:57 am
If this is successful where is the food required to fill the extra stomachs going to come from? Perhaps even more demands for international ‘aid’ are in the offing.
“Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge”
~ Horace Mann ~
Having related that, allow me this: Food feeds the belly, and knowledge feeds the mind.
A full belly allows for a more open mind, and an open mind is better able to reason with –at length– than one preoccupied with fear, hunger, and desperation.
From tarpon on September 27, 2010 at 10:11 am:
Because Africa, the birthplace of mankind, is intimately tied to the “Nature knows best” all-encompassing paradigm that apparently only certain liberal-leaning types are able to fully comprehend by their own self-admission. Teach them better natural farming methods, even provide goats and other cattle, don’t give them modern agriculture which will greatly increase their yields and eradicate hunger because such practices are unnatural. The draining of swamps to control the mosquitoes is problematic since swamps are natural. Do not disturb their natural village life with disruptive technology like electricity and appliances, although clean fresh water is promoted by ancient close-to-nature methods like hand-dug wells. Especially respect and do not alter their natural tribal societies and beliefs which are inherently peaceful. The frequent clashes and warfare, which often would be seen as racially motivated if anything could be seen beyond same-color vs same-color, are obviously unnatural distortions as evidenced by the use of unnatural weaponry like guns and machetes.
DDT is unnatural therefore it must not be used. Nets are allowed since they are fabric and fabric was early man’s way to avoid animal cruelty by not having to harvest hides for clothing.
Nature, from an objective view, tends to provide a harsh life, with a strong winnowing before reproductive capability followed by a rather quick discarding after the reproductive period. Those promoting an everything-natural lifestyle usually do so for “uncontaminated” people in another country far away. The IMF is regarded as a form of charity to these less-fortunate people, note the calls to forgive their debts rather than demand repayment as with a real lending institution. Thus the IMF is used to promote a natural lifestyle.
Oh, BTW, the overpopulation problem which is rapidly depleting our planetary resources in a horrendously wasteful manner is clearly unnatural, thus it is allowable to use the IMF to help restore the natural balance. 😉
His current top priority is saving as many Democrat positions in Congress as possible to salvage his agenda which includes the
climateenergy and jobs bill. The TV has told me another top priority is stopping a Mideast war involving Israel. Strangely enough, his policy of slighting Israel at every opportunity, while bowing to any Muslim leader possible and insisting on dialogue and outreach to all these inherently-peaceful nations, while trying to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear power with strongly-worded letters and threatening to not send the flowers and fruit basket with the next one, has apparently not worked.899 says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:45 pm
“Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge”
~ Horace Mann ~
Having related that, allow me this: Food feeds the belly, and knowledge feeds the mind.
A full belly allows for a more open mind, and an open mind is better able to reason with –at length– than one preoccupied with fear, hunger, and desperation.
I apologise if my comment appeared callous. It was not meant to be. I am a recent visitor here and find both the topics and discussions fascinating. I’m not a scientist however I often have questions to which I ‘want’ answers to.
Thank you for the quotes. Certainly food for thought.
DDT? Bed bugs.
Part of the problem….
“Even though DDT spraying on house walls is technically legal under the POPs treaty, many African countries were reluctant to use it because of pressure from the European Union.
The EU imports large amounts of flowers and some vegetables from Africa and has stringent standards for DDT residues on imports. Theoretically, if DDT is used only for indoor residual spraying, it will not end up on agricultural commodities.
But many fear that some of the DDT supplied for interior spraying will be used on crops, particularly in areas where laws are not strictly enforced.”
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/84/8430gov1.html
OK, every time I’m in Europe, I see people smoking like Satan, drinking like fish, snarfing down all manner of high fat/fried foods, etc. And they are worried about the health effects of a tiny bit of DDT residual on their cut flowers??
How many children are dying of malaria because of this? Ridiculous!
Rachel Carson was a person gifted with the ability to write beautiful passages designed to motivate people to do the wrong thing.
I don’t understand why the world was so receptive to such a thing, but there you are.
Adolf Hitler was a terrible writer, but I understand how Mein Kampf fell on a receptive audience. His real talent was the ability to speak to the heart of a very angry and fearful audience. The economically and socially exhausted Germany of the late 20s and early 30s was almost literally a pile of flammable material waiting for a spark of anything promising any sort of hope for the future of Germany.
Both Rachel Carson and Adolf Hitler were very sincere. But I’ve come to the conclusion sincerity is a very over rated quality.
The teachings of Hitler cost the world millions in lost lives. It would appear Rachel Carson’s teachings have also cost the world millions in lost lives.
It’s going to be a long time before there is a general acknowledgement of the errors of Rachel Carson. She is often held up as one of the founding saints of the environmental movement. Questioning Rachel Carson could lead to other questions being raised about other portions of the ‘Received Text’ of environmental religions.
On another related note: China is aggressively moving into Africa with development funds. They are doing this to ensure supplies of raw materials for home and markets for their products. IMF may very well become another relic of the colonial period in Africa.
What an irony. The Chinese Communists providing capital for Africa’s entry into the world market.
When I was in school during WW-II, we used to watch B&W 16 mm movies in class (Social Studies) that showed in places like Malaysia and other tropical areas (Rubber plantations), they would line up all the villagers and spray them and their clothes from head to foot with DDT powder, sticking the nozzle inside their clothing and letting them have it so everybody looked like Pig Pen with a DDT powder cloud around them.
Quick quiz; what was the name of the very first kid who died of DDT poisoning; and bonus question what was the name of the last person to die of DDT poisoning; and why do they have the same name ?
“”” 899 says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:29 pm
amicus curiae says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:28 am
Rachael Carson was testing at a time when there WAS abuse of DDT and other chemicals. At the levels it was applied in and the areas, she was correct.
it was advertised as so safe that your kids could run through the sprays for heavens sake…
overuse and abuse has always created problems. glyphosate now is yet another classic example.
our govt pushed asbestos housing as safe affordable and desirable…now its a millstone for any homeowner.
If its sounds too good to be true, it is!
Overuse. That was my thinking as well: Too much of a good thing.
In the corollary, the overuse of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is implicated in the burgeoning over-weight epidemic in the western world. That stuff is used in just every food that’s been highly processed. “””
That statement is not unlike the observation that Sex causes children; actually the body of evidence linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer is probably more robust than that suggestion that sex causes children.
But high fructose corn sugar is NOT the cause of Obesity; but over eating probably is. When I first came to America, and was crossing the country on a Greyhound bus; I ordered a piece of Apple pie at the lunch counter at the GH bus stop (In Laramie Wy as I recall), and they gave me 1/6th of the whole pie to eat. My wife and I together could not eat all of it.
When I worked for Monsanto Central Research Laboratories in St Louis (county) Mo, there was a cooking lab next door to our lab that employed a gang of scientists who were perpetually baking plastic cookies; and they would bring them over to our lab to try them out to see if they were edible, had any knid of taste, and were not immediately poisonous. Their lab testing assured them that they had absolutley no food value whatsoever.
Think about it; the Coca Cola Bottling Company takes ordinary water, and turns it into a liquid that is far more expensive than premium gasoline; but has no more food value than the water they started with; snd then they ship it all around the world by the millions of gallons to places that already have plenty of water.
So I don’t really think that high fructose corn sugar causes anything that eating less food couldn’t fix. And Starbucks who doesn’t let corn syrup in the door and provides for no recycling of their cups and plates and the like; has at the fixins stand every kind of plastic sugar substitute known to man; including Sacharine; which it so happens, is the very first product that was ever manufactured by Monsanto Chemical Corp, in their plants in East St Louis, right opposite that huge Croquet hoop that is sitting there by the river.
So far as I know nobody ever got sick from eating sacharine; but it sure tastes like ; well you know what it tastes like.
We need to remember that Margaret Sanger’s push for decriminalizing abortion was aimed at eliminating African Americans (and current distribution of abortion facilities are significantly higher in African-American neighborhoods) Don’t rule out racism being behind the EUs ban on DDT.
The obesity epidemic has a number of causes ranging from redefining obesity down, the low-fat diet craze, insulin resistance, several cold virii, etc. The human body is not a black box. It has numerous intricate feed-back loops. Preventing the loss of fat reserves is very important to our bodies, which fight that and replenish fat cells in every way that they can. That is why two people can eat exactly the same meals, have exactly the same exercise and one will be thin and the other obese.
I do not subscribe to but have noticed the push for letting the population of the equatorial areas decline by ignoring them to death. Leaving them in disease and poverty with all most all resources untouched.
I think the “would be new world government” intends to decrease the resistance to migration into to the equatorial areas when the next Ice age comes, so as to more easily have a place to move to, with the wealth and power they hope to accumulate in the more polar latitudes before they become covered with ice and polar bears.
Helping the peoples of the equatorial areas become self sufficient, politically and economically stable, is going to be the last item on their agenda. China on the other hand is living in the area already, and sees no problem with the development of South and central America, Africa, and the rest of the middle East, who will become their allies in fighting off the polar invaders when the next ice age shows up.
Some of the NWO players have already relocated to China and S E Asia in order to settle in ahead of the influx of the second wave of climate realists at the “obvious to all of the commoners”, beginning of the next Ice Age.
I spent a couple hours looking at Google earth yesterday, I was dully impressed with the difference between the suburban development across a couple of borders. The S W USA and Mexico looks like Simcity on one side and chaos on the other.
Israel is an even higher contrast in development, they have actually reserved the best farm land for food production, and built compact segments of housing in agriculturally non productive areas, to maximize food production with good and frequent use of irrigation.
Across the borders the outside is strewn with building that will not survive earthquakes, in low lying flood plains, with very little added vegetation coverage, and very little use of irrigation.
There is something about immigration from diverse geological areas that brings with it a recognition of a need for innovation, and ways to improve the carrying capacity of the native environment.
These benefits only come WITH the immigration of non natives that bring ideas and capital along to be put to use and maintained, knowing full well the maintenance is the part that makes it worth while in the long run.
You want citation? Ok, there are many, so try this
Nature’s Insect Repellents Discovered
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100716125645.htm
ScienceDaily (July 17, 2010) — In the battle between insect predators and their prey, chemical signals called kairomones serve as an early-warning system. Pervasively emitted by the predators, the compounds are detected by their prey, and can even trigger adaptations, such a change in body size or armor, that help protect the prey. But as widespread as kairomones are in the insect world, their chemical identity has remained largely unknown. New research by Rockefeller University’s Joel E. Cohen and colleagues at the University of Haifa in Israel has identified two compounds emitted by mosquito predators that make the mosquitoes less inclined to lay eggs in pools of water.
The findings, published in the July issue of Ecology Letters, may provide new environmentally friendly tactics for repelling and controlling disease-carrying insects.
Many animals use chemicals to communicate with each other. Pheromones, which influence social and reproductive behaviors within a particular species, are probably the best known and studied. Kairomones are produced by an individual of one species and received by an individual of a different species, with the receiving species often benefiting at the expense of the donor.
Cohen and his Israeli colleagues focused on the interaction between two insect species found in temporary pools of the Mediterranean and the Middle East: larvae of the mosquito C. longiareolata and its predator, the backswimmer N. maculata. When the arriving female mosquitoes detect a chemical emitted by the backswimmer, they are less likely to lay eggs in that pool.
To reproduce conditions of temporary pools in the field, the researchers used aged tap water with fish food added as a source of nutrients. Individual backswimmers were then placed in vials containing samples of the temporary pools, and air samples were collected from the headspace within the vials. The researchers used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze the chemicals emitted by the backswimmers.
Cohen and his colleagues identified two chemicals, hydrocarbons called n-heneicosane and n-tricosane, which repelled egg-laying by mosquitoes at the concentrations of those compounds found in nature. Together, the two chemicals had an additive effect.
Since the mosquitoes can detect the backswimmer’s kairomones from above the water’s surface, predator-released kairomones can reduce the mosquito’s immediate risk of predation, says Cohen. But they also increase the female mosquito’s chance of dying from other causes before she finds a pool safe for her to lay her eggs in.
“That’s why we think these chemicals could be a useful part of a strategy to control the population size of mosquitoes,” says Cohen, who is the Abby Mauzé Rockefeller Professor and head of the Laboratory of Populations. “We started this work from very basic curiosity about how food webs and predator-prey interactions work, but we now see unexpected practical applications. These newly identified compounds, and others that remain to be discovered, might be effective in controlling populations of disease-carrying insects. It’s far too soon to say, but there’s the possibility of an advance in the battle against infectious disease.”
Also
Nature’s mosquito repellent
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/1882
Mosquitoes take fright at essence of backswimmer
and
Biology News Net
Scientists identify nature’s insect repellents
http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/07/16/scientists_identify_natures_insect_repellents.html
…etc
So have there been any programs started where local natives have been foreign exchange students, with the goal of teaching them usable values in environmental enhancement techniques practiced in other countries, they can take home?
Most of the foreign students I have seen in the practice of medicine (my limited exposure) opt to stay here and make the big money to send home to relatives so more can come over.
However the Mexican neighbors I had who worked at an auto manufacturing plant, in Kansas City, and also a couple I knew in Fenton Missouri were transferred to Mexico and given supervisor jobs, training the new plant workers when the jobs were exported, reported they were happy with the arrangement, which included increased pay for them.
I have been unfortunate enough to attract a female mosquito bite, some 3 miles off the coast of Tanganyika, now Tanzania, whilst on a ship at anchor some 45 years ago. The anti-malarial drug in those days was paludrine, supposedly administered one week before, and two weeks after arriving and departing a “malarial” potential zone. It did not work for me, but, what I find strange, and sometimes questionable by the science of today, is that little or no credence is given to the infamous “recurrence”, of which I suffered for some 12 years; some on leave, but others at sea (at work), where there was little or no sympathy.
I should have added to my previous post that I did, indeed suffer from malaria, and should also state that the disease produces some extremely weird thought processes, by which I do not mean dreams, per se.
To the two “bug and drug” Doctors, what ever happened to the, I believe virus, that was found in Isreal, that when applied to waterways where mossy’s laid their eggs, the virus would attack the swimmers and supposedly had a 90-95% kill effect? About 10 years ago it seemed all the rage, but I haven’t heard a thing about it in the last 5 or so years?
Malaria is cured by any one of several chemicals, the best of which is chlorine dioxide, a widely effective, very safe and very cheap unpatentable chemical, which makes it totally unprofitable to the pharmaceutical industry.
One brand name outlet for Chlorine dixiode kit is ‘miracle mineral supplement’.
The WUWT community and it’s stance against AGW is on the fringe of a wider group of anti establishment thinkers. I’m suprised no one else in the comments has yet shown an inclination for anti-pharma anti-vaccine.
PBJ’s information on DEET fails to note the the studies by Abou-Donia et al have largely been discredited for a variety of reasons–call 800-789-3300 for details if you wish. The Am. Academy of Pediatrics in 2003 reviewed all DEET-related information, both published and unpublished and changed its recommendation–it suggests that DEET-based products in concentrations up to 30% can be used on infants as young as two months of age. This organization also notes that children in areas where malaria is endemic can use even higher concentrations according to labeling information. Hope this information will shed a bit more light on the “science” of DEET which as been used for more than 50 years and is cited in leading medical publications as having a “remarkable” safety profile. I work for the DEET Education Program. We have information on all repellents. We suggest that people use one of the four EPA-registered active ingredients (rather than a “natural” product) as these have been assessed for safety and efficacy. The four actives are: DEET, picaridin, Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus and IR3535. THE OLE product cannot be used on children younger than three years of age. It is a formulated, synthesized molecule–we do not suggest mixing your own formulations from OLE purchased at a natural products store, as these are not tested and are likely not to work more than 20 minutes or so.
Hope this information helps.