Normally I avoid listening to presidential speeches as they are often self-congratulatory, fatuous and are often crafted to send some message to some segment of the planet.

So it was with half an ear and a very small part of my brain that I listened to President Bush drone on about his “Advancing the Freedom Agenda”.

However, when President Bush started speaking about America’s role in the fight against foreign disease did I become fully alert.

“In the years ahead, America must continue to fight against disease. Nations afflicted with debilitating public health crises cannot build strong and prosperous societies for their citizens. America is helping these nations replace disease and despair with healing and hope. We're working in 15 African nations to cut the number of malaria-related deaths in half. Our Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, is supporting the treatment of more than 1.7 million people. And Congress will soon pass legislation to significantly expand this vital initiative. We're expanding our efforts to train health workers for the poorest countries, to treat key neglected tropical diseases such as river blindness and hookworm. The challenge for future presidents and future Congresses will be to continue this commitment, so that we can lift the shadow of malaria and HIV/AIDS and other diseases once and for all.”

Do you see the section which upset me?

On the surface, everything seems as it should be. But there is a single section which is not only odious – it reminds me that the United States may be complicit in the deaths of millions of people based on the same type of junk science that is now being used to promote prescriptions for curbing global warming. And it has nothing to do with the United Nation’s recent admission that they deliberately overstated the African HIV/AIDS numbers to raise both support and funds from member nations. Do you see the section now?

Here it is …

“We're working in 15 African nations to cut the number of malaria-related deaths in half.”

and why it upsets me …

If it hadn’t been for the far-left democrats and their environmental movement supporters, millions of people who died from the effects of malaria would still be alive. And additional millions of people who suffered, and continually to suffer to this day, would have been spared this agonizing and debilitating malady.

Did this politically-inspired feel-good action kill millions?

Remember Rachael Carson and her book "Silent Spring?" And the demand that the pesticide DDT be banned worldwide based on faulty ecological science. Well the results are now apparent for all to see: millions have died due to a rise in indigenous diseases of all types. It is estimated that more than a million people die each year from malaria borne by mosquitos. A disease which was nearly eradicated globally decades ago. It was the very same type of ecologist-led  junk science that led to the ban -- and the charade continues to this day because the politicians are afraid to admit they were wrong and reverse course.

"But the scientific case against DDT was, and still is, nonexistent. Almost 60 years have passed since the malaria-spraying campaigns began--with hundreds of millions of people exposed to large concentrations of DDT--yet, according to international health scholar Amir Attaran, the scientific literature "has not even one peer reviewed, independently replicated study linking exposure to DDT with any adverse health outcome." Indeed, in a 1956 study, human volunteers ate DDT every day for over two years with no ill effects then or since."

"Abundant scientific evidence supporting the safety and importance of DDT was presented during seven months of testimony before the newly formed EPA in 1971. The presiding judge ruled unequivocally against a ban. But the public furor against DDT--fueled by "Silent Spring" and the growing environmental movement--was so great that a ban was imposed anyway. The EPA administrator, who hadn't even bothered to attend the hearings, overruled his own judge and imposed the ban in defiance of the facts and evidence. And the 1972 ban in the United States led to an effective worldwide ban, as countries dependent on U.S.-funded aid agencies curtailed their DDT use to comply with those agencies' demands."

"So if scientific facts are not what has driven the furor against DDT, what has? Estimates put today's malaria incidence worldwide at around 300 million cases, with a million deaths every year. If this enormous toll of human suffering and death is preventable, why do environmentalists--who profess to be the defenders of life--continue to oppose the use of DDT?"

"The answer is that environmental ideology values an untouched environment above human life. The root of the opposition to DDT is not science but the environmentalist moral premise that it is wrong for man to ‘tamper’ with nature."

Too late for DDT?

Originally DDT was effective and cheap enough to use in developing countries. However, as time progressed, so did nature … and over time mosquitos developed some degree of  resistance to DDT? Only history can accurately judge the final toll of this lost opportunity to bring one of nature’s most serious diseases under control.

But is it too late for us to demand better science before implementing public policy…

Here in California, Schwarzenegger wants to craft strong anti-global climate change legislation based on the same type of politically-inspired junk science that led to the suffering of millions. He apparently needs this environmental win, not because he cares for his constituents, but because they are the type of far-left credentials that can be used to boost his future political career. And it is not only California where this nonsense being played out to the benefit of the special interests. Every special interest with an eye on the public treasury is planning to somehow capitalize on the global warming craze. Like in the dot com boom when “profits didn’t seem to matter,” in the current global climate craze, energy efficiency, cost effectiveness and the ability to measure the effects of politically-mandated programs are also being ignored.” The result being: another man-made catastrophe which may radically change the political balance of democracy and results in some form of controlled socialism. 

It seems that the environmentalists now want man to tamper with nature, as long as it is their environmental agenda that is being enacted. An agenda which has been steadily perverted by far-left socialistic radicals into an anti-America stance.

What can YOU do?

Do not support any candidate who supports fixing the alleged global climate change with political solutions such as a “cap and trade” system which would allow polluters to continue to pollute using UN-issued pollution credits which will be manipulated, Enron-style, by the Wall Street Wizards.

Do not support any environmental group which is more about political action agendas than they are about the environment itself.

Ignore those “people for a perfect planet” as they want to minimize man’s footprint on Earth and give civil rights to animals.

Use you own common sense when it comes to government giveaways to special interests. Ask yourself is the benefit measurable and can it serve a public need at a price that is affordable without government subsidy.

Do not vote for any candidate or current politician who is willing to subvert the safety, security, sovereignty and economic strength of the United States or limit an individual's right of self-defense for their personal philosophy, power, prestige or profits.

-- steve

Quote of the Day: “If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?” --Steven Wright

A reminder from OneCitizenSpeaking.com: a large improvement can result from a small change…

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius

Reference Links:

Rachel Carson's Genocide by Keith Lockitch|CapMag.com

Malaria|Wikipedia

DDT|Wikipedia

“In 1962, Silent Spring by American biologist Rachel Carson was published. The book catalogued the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the US and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects on ecology or human health. The book suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds.”

“Its publication was one of the signature events in the birth of the environmental movement. Silent Spring resulted in a large public outcry that eventually led to most uses of DDT being banned in the US in 1972. DDT was subsequently banned for agricultural use worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but its limited use in disease vector control continues to this day in certain parts of the world and remains controversial.”

DDT: The Bald Eagle Lie|Steven Milloy

“A 1984 National Wildlife Federation publication listed hunting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot as the leading causes of eagle deaths.”

“In addition to these reports, numerous scientific studies and experiments vindicate DDT.”

“U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists fed large doses of DDT to captive bald eagles for 112 days and concluded that ‘DDT residues encountered by eagles in the environment would not adversely affect eagles or their eggs,’ according to a 1966 report published in the “Transcripts of 31st North America Wildlife Conference.”

“The USFWS examined every bald eagle found dead in the U.S. between 1961-1977 (266 birds) and reported no adverse effects caused by DDT or its residues.”

“One of the most notorious DDT ‘factoids’ is that it thinned bird egg shells. But a 1970 study published in Pesticides Monitoring Journal reported that DDT residues in bird egg shells were not correlated with thinning. Numerous other feeding studies on caged birds indicate that DDT isn’t associated with egg shell thinning.”

“In the few studies claiming to implicate DDT as the cause of thinning, the birds were fed diets that were either low in calcium, included other known egg shell-thinning substances, or that contained levels of DDT far in excess of levels that would be found in the environment – and even then, the massive doses produced much less thinning than what had been found in egg shells in the wild.”

President Bush Discusses Freedom Agenda|The White House

Fact Sheet: Advancing the Freedom Agenda|The White House

In Focus: Freedom Agenda|The White House