I was gassing up my car at a neighborhood service station in the summer of 1995 when a customer at the next pump inquired as to the meaning of my license plate, “FREON.” I explained that I had helped pass the bill in Arizona permitting the continued use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and banning any retaliation for doing so. After all, Freon was a cheap, efficient and wonderful product that fell victim to the junk science claims of “holes” in the ozone layer caused by man. Enraged, the interloper yelled at me, “I suppose you like DDT, too!” Actually, I love it.
    Since April 25 was Malaria Awareness Day, let’s review the bidding.
    The devastating disease of malaria (a bad thing), carried by mosquitoes (irritating bad things), is capable of killing millions of people worldwide a year, mostly in poor countries, and making ill hundreds of millions more unfortunate souls. Then in 1939 along came DDT (a good thing). As a result of its widespread use as a costeffective and very efficient insecticide starting in the 1940s, malaria was well on its way to being eliminated (a great thing).
    Then in the 1960s, along came Rachel Carson (a naïve thing). In a chemical-hating fury, she penned the book Silent Spring (an unscientific thing) from which sprung forth the environmental push that was successful in getting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban DDT, despite admission by those in charge that they had no proof that it was doing harm to humans.
    Dutifully, the World Health Organization (WHO) imposed a ban on DDT (a monumentally bad thing). Todd Seavey, Director of Publications at the American Council on Science and Health, wrote on HealthFacts AndFears.com: “The result has been something on the order of 2 million extra deaths per year for over thirty years now, meaning the antichemical greens (who feared that DDT might have some eggshell-thinning effects on birds) have by now racked up a body count comparable to that of Hitler, Stalin, or even Mao Tse-Tung.” (A brutally true thing.) Last year the WHO, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of malaria deaths, reversed itself and lifted its three-decades ban on DDT (a long overdue thing). But it took only seven months for the anti-DDT crazies to pull on their combat boots and prepare for all-out war against the life-saving chemical, even if it means the spread of disinformation again (a nasty thing).
    Steven Milloy, an expert in debunking junk science, reports in his Apr. 19 column on FoxNews.com that the anti-DDT forces are prepared to use a bogus study by South African medical researchers that attempts to link low sperm counts and more to the use of DDT in spray campaigns there. The problem is, the results of the study on 311 South African men aged 18 to 40 were statistically insignificant and even self-contradictory! There ought to be severe punishment for such prostitution of data for political purposes. And there damned sure should be a DDT Appreciation Day (a deserving thing).
    Quote of the Week from Center for Consumer Freedom:
    “Science doesn’t tell us the answers so some of it we have to go on feelings.”---Organic food activist and former Greenpeace United Kingdom chief Peter Melchett.

Look alikes

Bennett Kopp, president of Scottsdale Republican Forum and . . .

. . . Phil Spector, legendary music mogul on trial for murder