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The Environmental Appeal To Ignorance The following letter was sent to the South China Morning Post in reply to John Arnold. John Arnold (Behind the ban on DDT, 18 July) complains that DDT was never proven to be safe and thus commits the fallacy of the appeal to ignorance. Logically, the onus of proof is on he who makes the accusation and with DDT’s exemplary track record, he must show why he thinks DDT unsafe. DDT was branded a wonder chemical because it virtually rid the world of malaria yet it was still banned on baseless accusations at the time, including claims it caused cancer in humans and thinned the eggshells of birds. Numerous websites report that before it was banned, Judge Edmund Sweeny of the American Environmental Protection Agency ruled: “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.” Despite this ruling, William Ruckelshaus the then EPA Administrator under pressure from environmental ideologues, promptly banned it in 1972, condemning millions of people a year to slow death from malaria. Overcoming blatant abuse of power by environmentalists takes such a long time and slowly the momentum to have this terrible ban lifted is being achieved. In the meantime, how many more will die of malaria while we wait?
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