Go west young mosquito A few days ago MSN reported that the West Nile virus, first discovered in New York three years ago, has now been found as far west as South Dakota. They expect it to reach California within a year. Mosquito bites that were once annoying are now alarming. Even scarier than the virus is the fact that all of this could have been easily avoided. Last year, cities on the East Coast used pesticides to help guard against the West Nile virus. But the Big Gun, DDT, is no longer available. Because of stupid political actions, forced by the green vanguard, which is loaded with fanaticism and devoid of scientific facts, and the sinister population-control intellectuals, who are guilty of mass murder through preventable plague attacks on the Third World, DDT has been banned. (Boy, that was a mouthful.) The only ways to permanently eliminate the virus (and others, including malaria and yellow fever) is to drain all of the wetlands within a few miles of population centers (mosquitoes do not migrate far from home) and to use copious amounts of DDT. Can you imagine the ruckus the enviro-Nazis would raise if even a square foot of wetland, formerly known as swampland, were drained? And if the land were sprayed with DDT? Nerve gas, even botulism, would be better in the fevered imagination of these foolish people.
Well, let me tell you the scientific facts about DDT. DDT is one of the greatest chemical accomplishments in the history of mankind. DDT does not, and never did, threaten the bald eagle. "Thinning of the eagle's shell" as a result of DDT exposure was a pure fabrication. Junk science of the most outrageous sort. In 1970, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said: "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. … In a little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable." (Mr. Nader might want to hang the board of the NAS as well.) DDT does not cause cancer and, in fact, may prevent certain cancers. Dr. William Hazeltine, one of the great medical scientists of this century, found that DDT protects rats from leukemia and breast cancer. It is also effective in the treatment of juvenile jaundice. Hazeltine found that children in agricultural areas have less infant jaundice than city children, and this correlates with higher levels of serum DDT! Since the political tide is not likely to change in favor of DDT anytime soon, you must take steps to protect yourself and keep potentially disease bearing mosquitoes away from your home. See that your neighborhood is free of stagnant pools of water, such as wading pools and poor drainage areas that collect water. Ask the public-health people to inspect the area. And get rid of any automobile tires, kitchen pots, commodes, or old washing machines that might be cluttering up your yard. Researchers from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine that stressed and aggressive personalities may not be as prone to high blood pressure as many doctors have been led to believe. The doctors compared the presence of high blood pressure to anger, anxiety, restrained aggression, submissiveness, and "inner tension." (Before you ask, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.) "The relationship between psychological variables and hypertension, if one exists at all, is probably quite complex," concluded researcher Dr. Joseph Schwartz. I have always thought this Freudian piffle would eventually go into the historical trashcan of pseudoscientific babble. And good riddance. | 
