ACSH Report

by Rich Kozlovich

I know I said that I was going to do this weekly, but there is just too much information and too much to do, so I archived all the Morning Dispatches and then organized them by category. Since they are organized in this manner I can take one or two issues and highlight them. Unfortunately I have come to realize that I just can’t do it every week. There is just so much great information. I think this stuff is so great I hate “rationing” it, but I don’t see any other way. Having a real job can put a real crimp in real time allocations.

There is one way to get a daily dose of ASCH and that is through their Morning Dispatch. I wish to open this edition of the ACSH Report by quoting Dr. Elizabeth Whelan regarding their fund drive.

“Our message is really striking a nerve,” says ACSH president and founder Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. Dr. Whelan would like to thank the many Morning Dispatch readers who promptly and generously responded to the challenge put forth by an ACSH donor.“Raise $25,000 online this month, and I'll match it dollar for dollar,” the donor told us, “so you can stand up for what we believe in.” If you have not yet participated, please don't wait another day. Your donation today will have double the impact. Click here to donate safely and securely online -- or you can call ACSH, a non-profit dedicated to debunking unscientific claims, toll-free at 1-800-905-2694.

I can only encourage everyone to donate to this fine organization. Good science isn’t easy to come by. Those who are willing and able to take on the junk scientists are even harder to find.

Rhetoric versus Reality - Life Expectancy

A recently released government report concludes that the average life expectancy in the U.S. has reached an all-time high at seventy-eight.

“This certainly flies in the face of all the health scares,” says Dr. Whelan, who once wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal titled “Living Longer and Feeling Worse About it.” One of ACSH’s friends reacted sardonically to the news: “Gosh, what terrible news for the eco-wackos...How can this be happening with all the ‘chemicals’ in the environment?” The good news was conspicuously absent from the New York Times. Gray Lady indeed"

All That Is Natural

A large study sanctioned by the UK’s Food Standards Agency and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that there is no significant nutritional difference between “organic” and conventionally produced food. The research replicates the results of an earlier study by ACSH advisor and Emeritus Professor of Food Toxicology at Rutgers University Dr. Joseph Rosen, who exposed the fallacies of the organic movement’s claim that organic food is more nutritious over a year ago.

“While it’s a meta-analysis and it only looked at nutrition as opposed to the presence of pesticides, it still provides evidence that organic food isn’t any better for you,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier. “It’s like playing a game of whack-a-mole. It was already proven that people aren’t getting sick from pesticides on food, so the organic crowd claimed their food was more nutritious. Now that that has been disproved, they’re going back to the pesticides thing.”One such organic proponent is Dr. Marion Nestle of New York University, who says, “Organics aren't about nutrients. They are about cleaner and more sustainable production methods,” including “lower levels of pesticides and herbicides, which seems like a good idea.”

“We have no qualms with organic lobbyists who claim there’s more pesticides on foods that aren’t labeled as organic, but our response is: so what?” says Dr. Ross. “There are studies showing that those chemicals are safe at current levels of exposure. However, there are no studies that show a significant advantage associated with eating organic food.”

ACSH staffers are grateful to Dominic Lawson, whose article on the UK’s TimesOnline offers support for his belief that “Organic food is just a tax on the gullible.” Lawson chronicles organic proponents’ recent shift to abusive personal attacks against scientists in light of the UK’s FSA report proving that organic food isn’t any more nutritious than conventionally produced food.

He quotes Dr. Ben Goldacre of the NHS, author of the acclaimed book Bad Science, who says, “In my experience the [comments of the] organic food, anti-vaccine, and homeopathy movements are unusually hateful and generally revolve around bizarre allegations that you covertly represent some financial or corporate interest. I do not, but I do think it reveals something about their own motives that they can only conceive of a person holding a position as a result of financial self-interest.”

He’s not the only one who has observed the deceitful trend. “Dr. Joseph Rosen noticed recent studies once more discrediting the claim that organic food is nutritionally superior,” says Seavey. “He’ll be writing a series of articles on the topic for our HealthFactsAndFears blog in the next few weeks.”

The article concludes by reiterating ACSH’s oft-repeated organic disclaimer: “This just demonstrates the common-sense point that diet, rather than whether food is produced‘organically’ or not, is the key to healthy eating.”

A New York Times blog reviews a farmer’s riposte to a prominent critic of modern agribusiness and its methods:“[Blake] Hurst argues that the ‘reality is messier’ than idealistic, non-farming critics would have it. Much of his argument comes down to: beware the law of unintended agricultural consequences.”

“Organic agriculture is built on the fraudulent claim that chemicals are dangerous,” says ACSH’s Todd Seavey. “So-called sustainable agriculture, more often than not, is actually a conglomeration of primitive methods that sustained us on the brink of starvation -- without using resources efficiently at all -- for millennia. These techniques, like a lot of other unscientific, anti-industrial trends in society, are a virtual war on modern civilization.”

And of course we can’t leave without mentioning the logical conclusion of “organic” living and that is Holistic Medicine.

ACSH staffers were not surprised to see today’s New York Times mention Don Imus’ decision to forego traditional treatment for his stage two prostate cancer:

“Though he was initially advised to begin radiation treatments, he has so far chosen to treat the disease holistically. He has been dutifully ingesting habanero peppers and Japanese soy supplements as part of a regimen partly devised by his wife, a natural foods proponent.”

I am not opposed to people trying anything that they wish to use in order to maintain their lives, after all, the pillars of medicine have been seriously wrong before. What I am really in favor of is anything that works. In words of this loose quote of the fictional character Dr. Noah Praetorius, “I am in favor of using anything that makes sick people well.”

As Dr. Ross points out, he probably isn't harming himself as “Watchful waiting without invasive treatment is often a valid approach for early-stage prostate cancer." But what about his listeners? That is the scary part; what happens to them if they follow his lead? Is Imus and his wife dulusional? I don't know, and for the most part I doubt if we will ever know for sure since most men die before prostate cancer can kill them. That's kind of a sick thought isn't it? It is true though.

Africa's Real Climate Crisis

It’s not global warming. It’s a science, priorities, honesty and morality crisis.

by Fiona Kobusingye

Lung infections cause 1.4 million deaths, malaria 1 million more, intestinal diseases 700,000. Diseases that could be prevented with simple vaccines kill an additional 600,000 annually, while war, malnutrition and life in filthy slums send countless more parents and children to early graves.

And yet, day after day, Africans are told the biggest threat we face is – global warming.

Conferences, news stories, television programs, class lectures and one-sided “dialogues” repeat the claim endlessly. Using oil and petrol, even burning wood and charcoal, will dangerously overheat our planet, melt ice caps, flood coastal cities, and cause storms, droughts, disease and extinctions, we’re told.

Over 700 climate scientists and 31,000 other scientists say humans and plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide have minimal effects on Earth’s temperature and climate, and there is no global warming crisis. But their views and studies are never invited or even tolerated in these “climate crisis” forums, especially at “ministerial dialogues” staged with United Nations money. Al Gore refuses to debate any of these experts, or even permit questions that he hasn’t approved ahead of time.

Instead, Africans are told climate change “threatens humanity more than HIV/AIDS.” More than 2.2 million dead Africans every year?

We are warned that it would be “nearly impossible to adapt to the loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet,” which would raise sea levels by “5 to 15 meters.” That certainly would impact our coastal communities. But how likely is it?

The average annual temperature in Antarctica is minus 50 degrees F! Summer in its Western Peninsula barely lasts two months and gets maybe 10 degrees above freezing for just a few hours a day. Not even Mr. Gore or UN computer models talk about raising Antarctic temperatures by 85 degrees F year-round. So how is that ice supposed to melt?

Let’s not forget that sea levels have risen 120 meters since the last Ice Age ended. Do the global warming alarmists think cave men fires caused that? Obviously, powerful natural forces caused those ancient glaciers to come and go – and caused the droughts, floods and climate changes that have affected Africa, the Earth and its animals and people for millions of years.

Just consider northern Africa, where green river valleys, hippopotami and happy villages suddenly got turned into the Sahara Desert 4,000 years ago. Scientists don’t know why, but it probably wasn’t Egyptian pharaohs building pyramids and driving chariots.

However, the real problem isn’t questionable or fake science, hysterical claims and worthless computer models that predict global warming disasters. It’s that they’re being used to justify telling Africans that we shouldn’t build coal or natural gas electrical power plants. It’s that the almost total absence of electricity is keeping us from creating jobs and becoming modern societies. It’s that these policies KILL.

The average African life span is lower than it was in the United States and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans are being told we shouldn’t develop, or have electricity or cars because, now that those countries are rich beyond anything we Africans can imagine, they’re worried about global warming.

The world needs to go on an energy diet, Al Gore and UN climate boss Yvo de Boer tell us. Well, I have news for them. Africans are already on an energy diet. We’re starving!

Al Gore uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year. And those anti-electricity policies are keeping us impoverished.

Not having electricity means millions of Africans don’t have refrigerators to preserve food and medicine. Outside of wealthy parts of our big cities, people don’t have lights, computers, modern hospitals and schools, air conditioning – or offices, factories and shops to make things and create good jobs.

Not having electricity also means disease and death. It means millions die from lung infections, because they have to cook and heat with open fires; from intestinal diseases caused by spoiled food and unsafe drinking water; from malaria, TB, cholera, measles and other diseases that we could prevent or treat if we had proper medical facilities.

Hypothetical global warming a hundred years from now is worse than this?

Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and economic development – except what can be produced with some wind turbines or little solar panels – is immoral. It is a crime against humanity.

Meanwhile, China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every week, so that they can lift their people out of poverty. So even if Africa remains impoverished – and the US and Europe switched to windmills and nuclear power – global carbon dioxide levels would continue increasing for decades.

Even worse, the global warming crusaders don’t stop at telling us we can’t have electricity. They also campaign against biotechnology. As American, Brazilian and South African farmers will tell you, biotech seeds increase crop yields, reduce pesticide use, feed more people and help farmers earn more money. New varieties are being developed that can resist droughts – the kind Africa has always experienced, and the ones some claim will increase due to global warming.

Environmental radicals even oppose insecticides and the powerful spatial insect repellant DDT, which Uganda’s Health Ministry is safely using (along with bed nets and modern ACT drugs) to eliminate killer malaria. They claim global warming will make malaria worse. That’s ridiculous, because the disease was once found all over Europe, the United States and even Siberia.

Uganda and Africa need to stop worrying about what the West, the UN and Al Gore say. We need to focus on our own needs, resources and opportunities.

We don’t need more aid – especially the kind that goes mostly to corrupt officials who put the money in private bank accounts, hold global warming propaganda conferences and keep their own people poor. We don’t need rich countries promising climate change assistance (maybe, sometime, ten years from now), if we promise not to develop.

We need to stop acting like ignorant savages, who thought solar eclipses meant the gods were angry with them, and asked witch doctors to bring the sun back. We need to stop listening to global warming witch doctors, who get rich telling us to keep living “indigenous,” impoverished lives.

We need trade, manufacturing, electricity and transportation fuels to power modern industrial economies. We need to do what China and India are doing – develop – and trade more with them.

That is how we will get the jobs, prosperity, health and environmental quality we deserve.

______________

Fiona Kobusingye is chairman of the human rights and economic development group CORE Uganda. In the coming months, CORE will present both Al Gore’s movie and another film, “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” at colleges and other events. It will do what Al Gore and the UN never permit: let people ask questions, debate the films and decide for themselves who is telling the truth, and what Uganda and Africa should do to make life better for their people.

Solar “Grand Minima” Threat Analysis

Originally posted on his site, IMPACT on June 3rd, 2009

James A. Marusek, Nuclear Physicist and Engineer, U.S. Department of the Navy, retired
[Abstract] We are approaching a period when the sun is going quiet. In the past, these periods with few sunspots, such as the Dalton Minimum, Maunder Minimum, & Spörer Minimum, produced decades of global cooling, famine and plagues. This paper provides an analysis of the global cooling threat.

I. Solar Cycles

Solar activity, visible by the number of sunspots, varies over a cycle of approximately 11 years. This variation is defined as a solar sunspot cycle. The periodic cycle begins at a solar minimum, peaks at a solar maximum and then falls back down to the next solar minimum. The International Sunspot Index is used to define the beginning and end of each solar cycle. Currently the Earth is in a solar minimum transitioning into Solar Cycle 24.

The Sun undergoes a magnetic pole reversal approximately once every 11 years.

The Sun’s magnetic field is normally dipolar but during solar maximum, quadrupole and octupole components exist as well.It has been suggested that the sunspot cycle is related to the planetary cycle of the four major planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. There are three centers of mass that are of interest, the sun, the major planets, and the solar system. Approximately once every eleven years, the four major planets are grouped ahead of the sun as the solar system moves through galactic space. This causes the sun to occupy a reciprocal position on the opposite side of the solar system’s center of mass. About eleven years later the major planets are grouped behind the sun causing it to occupy a reciprocal position ahead of the solar system’s center of mass.

The sun therefore alternately accelerates as it moves forward through galactic space and then decelerates to occupy a position behind the solar system’s center of mass. All this occurs while the solar system as a whole moves forward through galactic space. The acceleration and deceleration cause the sun to wobble in its path. The wobble creates turbulence in the sun’s interior, which is characterized by changes in sunspot activity.

II. The Quiet Sun - “Grand Minima”

The sun exhibits great variability in the strength of each solar cycle. This activity ranges from the extremely quiet “Grand Minima” such as the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 A.D.) to a very active “Grand Maxima” such as the enhanced activity observed during most of the 20th century (1940-2000 A.D.). High energy galactic cosmic rays enter Earth’s atmosphere collide with sufficient force to cause a nuclear spallation reaction with atmospheric molecules. Some of the fission products include radionuclides 14C and 10Be, which settle down on Earth's surface. Their concentration can be measured in ice cores, allowing a reconstruction of solar activity levels into the distant past.

The sun’s magnetic field wrapped in the solar winds deflects galactic cosmic rays trying to enter the solar system and is therefore responsible for modulating production of these radioactive isotopes.............To read Mr. James Marusek’s entire article, please CLICK HERE. I highly recommend it. If you ever had any doubts that the so-called global warming “deniers” were the real scientists involved in this issue, this should go a long way toward dispelling that myth. RK

Forests of Concrete and Steel

Many words could describe wind energy and green jobs. “Sustainable” is not one of them

by Paul Driessen

Spain did increase its installed wind power capacity to 10% of its total electricity, although actual energy output is 10-30% of this, or 1-3% of total electricity, because the wind is intermittent and unreliable. However, Spain spent $3.7 billion on the program in 2007 alone, King Juan Carlos University economics professor Gabriel Calzada determined.

It created 50,000 jobs, mostly installing wind turbines, at $73,000 in annual subsidies per job – and 10,000 of these jobs have already been terminated. The subsidies have been slashed, due to Spain’s growing economic problems, putting the remaining 40,000 jobs at risk.

Meanwhile, the cost of subsidized wind energy and carbon dioxide emission permits sent electricity prices soaring for other businesses – causing 2.2 jobs to be lost for every “green” job created, says Calzada. Spain’s unemployment rate is now 17% and rising. That’s hardly the “success” story so often cited by Congress and the Obama Administration.

Across the Channel, Britain’s biggest wind-energy projects are in trouble. Just as the UK government announced its goal of creating 400,000 eco-jobs by 2015, major green energy employer Vestas UK is ending production. All 7,000 turbines that Downing Street just committed to installing over the next decade will be manufactured – not in Britain, but in Germany, Denmark and China.

For businesses, existing global warming policies have added 21% to industrial electricity bills since 2001, and this will rise to 55% by 2020, the UK government admits. Its latest renewable energy strategy will add another 15% – meaning the total impact on British industry will likely be a prohibitive 70% cost increase over two decades. This is the result of the government’s plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions 34% below 1990 levels by 2020, and increase the share of renewables, especially wind, from 6% to 31% of Britain’s electricity.

These cost hikes could make British manufacturers uncompetitive, and send thousands more jobs overseas, the Energy Intensive Users Group reports. English steel mills could become “unable to compete globally, even at current domestic energy prices,” says British journalist Dominic Lawson; “but deliberately to make them uncompetitive is industrial vandalism – and even madness … a futile gesture ... and immoral.”

On this side of the pond, President Obama and anti-hydrocarbon members of Congress are promoting “green” energy and jobs, via new mandates, standards, tax breaks and subsidies. However, the United States would need 180,000 1.5-megawatt wind turbines by 2020, just to generate the 600 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity that compliance with the narrowly passed Waxman-Markey global warming bill would necessitate, retired energy and nuclear engineering professor James Rust calculates.

This would require millions of acres of scenic, habitat and agricultural lands, and 126 million tons of concrete, steel, fiberglass and “rare earth” minerals for the turbines, at 700 tons per turbine; prodigious quantities of concrete, steel, copper and land for new transmission lines; and still more land, fuel and raw materials for backup gas-fired generators. America’s new national forests will apparently be made of concrete and steel.

Those miners and drillers would likely be reclassified as “green” workers, based on the intended purpose of their output. However, the raw materials will probably not be produced in the States, because so many lands, prospects and deposits are off limits – and NIMBY litigation will further hamper resource extraction.

Air quality laws and skyrocketing energy costs (due to carbon taxes and expensive renewable energy mandates) will make wind turbine (and solar panel) manufacturing in the USA equally improbable. Thus, manufacturing could well be in China or India, and most “green” jobs could be for installers, as Spain and Britain discovered.

Posturing has already collided with reality in Texas, the nation’s wind energy capital. Austin’s GreenChoice program cannot find buyers for electricity generated entirely from wind and solar power. Its latest sales scheme has been a massive flop: after seven months, 99% of its recent electricity offering remains unsold.

Austin officials admit that “times have changed,” and the recession and falling energy prices may make it impossible for the city to meet its lofty goals. The company’s renewable electricity now costs almost three times more than standard electricity, and even eco-conscious consumers care more about the color of their money than the hue of their purported ideology.

Even worse for global warming alarmists and renewable energy advocates and rent seekers, global warming patterns have reversed during the past decade. Satellite data reveal that the planet is cooling, despite steadily rising carbon dioxide levels, and summertime low temperature records are being broken all over the United States.

You better hope global warming is caused by manmade co2 if youre investing in [renewable] sectors, says Daniel Rice, the past decade’s best-performing US equity fund manager (BlackRock Energy and Resources Fund). But evidence for manmade catastrophic global warming is dissipating faster than carbon dioxide from an open soda bottle on a hot summer day.

The crucial fact remains: wind and solar are simply not economical without major government subsidies or monstrous carbon taxes. Moreover, cap-and-tax legislation currently being promoted in the House and Senate is “not enough to do anything” about supposed global warming disasters notes Rice.

“All it does is provide Obama a pass to Copenhagen,” where the UN will host a climate change conference in December, Rice says. And those subsidies and taxes would drive energy prices still higher, killing jobs and skyrocketing the cost of everything we eat, drive, heat, cool, grow, make and do.

Congress and the Administration are dragging their feet on nuclear power, closing off access to more resource-rich lands, and imposing layers of new regulations on oil, gas and coal energy – denying Americans these vast stores of energy and hundreds of billions in revenue that developing them would generate. Meanwhile, slick wind turbine ad campaigns promote expensive, heavily subsidized, unreliable technologies that only climate activists and company lobbyists would describe as sustainable, affordable, eco-friendly or socially responsible.

The ads and lobbyists seek more mandates, tax breaks and subsidies. Wind promoters want to quiet opponents long enough to get energy and climate legislation enacted – before Americans realize how it would drive the price of energy still higher, kill jobs, curtail living standards and liberties, and raise the cost of everything we eat, drive, heat, cool, grow, make and do.

___________

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death.

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“What’s Bugging You?”

By Harry L Katz, Board Certified Entomologist
Column for CVE Reporter for Sept 09

(Harry Katz is in his 90's now and is still a legendary defender of the pest control industry. Harry is probably the last of the old guard; those who were in leadership roles when all of this came into being. I would like to thank Harry for giving me permission to post his articles and for the interesting conversations about those days and the people involved. Harry and his peers were the giants of our industry whose shoulders we stand on today. RK)

Fear of pesticides is evident in the calls that I get for help with pest control problems. There is a good reason. Some fifty years ago, toxic materials were used indiscriminately by exterminators and the public. I recall a tragic even in the 1940’s in Pittsburgh, PA. A chef in the Salvation Army soup kitchen mistook white sodium fluoride roach powder for baking soda. Several men died. Congress then passed the first pesticide regulatory bill making sodium fluoride colored blue.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was enacted after Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” in 1962. EPA regulated the labeling and sale of all pesticides, providing an exaggerated margin of safety for the public. With elegant language, she painted a bleak future for the environment, citing disastrous examples of pesticide poisoning. One case that she cited was how a Penn State researcher lost the sight of one eye after testing the first batch of chlordane that was made. She neglected to report that the Velsicol Corp was able to remove the offending contaminant before marketing the product.

Clearly, Rachel Carson wrote the book to alert the public and to save lives. Unwittingly, her book may have contributed to the deaths of millions in the third world. In 1948, one country, Ceylon, had 2, 800, 000 cases of malaria. In 1962, after DDT was used, only 31 cases were reported. When DDT was banned in 1968, the number jumped to 1, 000.000, and in 1969 jumped to 2,500,000 (p69, “Toxic Terror” by Dr Elizabeth Whelan).

In 1969, my friend in Pittsburgh, PA, Carroll Weil, was appointed to the MRAK commission to investigate Rachel Carson’s demand to outlaw DDT. Carroll was the President of the Toxicological Society of America and a Fellow at the prestigious Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, PA. After reviewing all the data submitted on the procedures that were used to test DDT as a carcinogen, he found them to be faulty and refused to make the committee decision to ban DDT unanimous. After arguing late into the night, the committee promised to publish his addendum in a minority report. He then agreed to make it unanimous and that proved to be the death knell for millions in third world countries. Only 3 ounces of DDT solution sprayed on the interior walls of the huts would have greatly reduced malaria deaths.

Shortly after “Silent Spring” was published, a California exterminator, R.B. Loibl, pulled a publicity stunt. Fully aware of the possible hazards of DDT, he got his physician to measure out 10 ml of DDT solution which he and his wife voluntarily ingested for 90 days. He was monitored closely and there were no apparent repercussions. A year later, I met him at a convention of the National Pest Control Association. He was dancing with his wife after dinner on the closing day, even with impaired leg…a condition he had had for many years.

The Century Village caller had asked me if he should clean up the area where the pest management serviceman had sprayed. I told him that there could be immature cockroaches emerging from a hidden egg capsule. The film of dried-up toxicant could kill them , along with any new invasion of ants or other crawling insects.

Bottom line: There should be no fear from the use of pesticides, if the directions on the label are carefully followed.

Dear Mr. Weber

By Rich Kozlovich
Most of us remember the article that appeared in Smart Money called; “10 Things Your Exterminator Won’t Tell You”, written in 2007. I saw that it was published recently again, but I didn’t really pay any attention to it nor did I compare it with the first one, as I just assumed it was the same type of stuff that went around the first time.

Little did I know that it was the same article! Kudos to Frank Andorka, Editorial Director of Pest Management Professional magazine, who did pay attention and did notice that it was the same article! But most importantly, he decided to do something about it. I am pleased that Frank has allowed me to reprint his letter to Tom Weber, Editor of Smart Money magazine.
Mr. Weber,

When I first heard that Smart Money magazine had run a piece called “10 Things Your Exterminator Won’t Tell You,” I honestly thought it was a joke. After all, Ken Bensinger had already written that piece in 2007, and the industry did a good job of debunking it. I thought there’s no way a magazine with the reputation of Smart Money would try those scare people into not trusting their pest management professionals (PMPs) with the same sketchy journalism that they used the last time, would they?

But I went to the Web site and searched the title, there it was, published on July 21, 2009. Same headline, same writer, same scurrilous lies — I could hardly believe my eyes.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, it actually did. Not only was it a similar story, it was the same story. Word for word (well, you changed the headline on the first item, but that’s it). For the record, you slandered the PMPs you quoted once around, and now you’re doing it again. And I’m sure that Bonnie Rabe, the current president of the Association of Structural Pest Control Regulatory Officials, would be surprised to find out Steve Dwinnell had staged a coup to regain the position he held two years ago.

On another factual note, Michael Weisburger left his position as the president of “the nation’s largest pest control insurer” shortly after this hit-piece came out originally, although he is now back in the industry with his new venture called Planet PCO.

As one journalist to another, I need to ask you: What sort of standards do you have that you would rerun this piece without even trying to fix the errors and updating it? That’s more than dishonest, it’s lazy.

I would like to offer you the opportunity to defend the piece and its writer. At a day and time of your choosing, I would like to do a podcast with you so that you can answer questions about where you got the information for your article and why you feel the need to write derisively about the pest management industry every two years, a cycle as regular as the plague of locusts. I’ll even send you the questions in advance to avoid an ambush. What do you say?

Given what you had written in the piece in 2007, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that Smart Money would do it again. But it did — and it still saddens me. I hope you will do the industry the courtesy of answering their questions of you — I await your response.

Sincerely,

Frank H. Andorka Jr.
Editorial Director
Pest Management Professional
A Questex Media Group Publication
Integrated Media Solutions for Business
600 Superior Avenue East
Suite 1100
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
216-706-3735
Fax: 216-706-3712
Cell: 216-272-2885
fandorka@questex.com
www.mypmp.net

We will look forward to a follow up. In the meanwhile, the Col. John Boyd Award goes to Frank Andorka.

Killing Pesticides, Not Pests

By Alan Caruba
We are going to go from cotton fields to bedrooms in order to connect the dots on the many ways the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups have conspired to deprive Americans of beneficial chemicals that protect crops and humans from insect pests.

Only a scant two percent of the U.S. population engages in the farming that feeds all the rest of us and provides a bounty for export. Farm kids will tell you how they were on a tractor by the age of eight or nine, working the fields from early morning until dusk. When they get older, a lot of them decide to take up another way of making a living because farming is very hard work.

Since the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, not to mention the Department of Agriculture, a life spent farming has become increasingly more difficult thanks to the endless regulations regarding land and water use, what products they can use to fend off the pests and weeds that attack crops, and the manner in which they can be applied.

Why should this matter to you? Ask yourself that question while you are prowling the aisles in your favorite supermarket. Here’s the equation to keep in mind: No farmers. No food. And that includes livestock that depend on feed like hay and grains. If you like a nice cotton shirt or dress, remember that it started in a farmer’s field.

On August 3, the Western Environmental Law Center sent out a news release to brag about that way the 6th Circuit had issued an order denying the pesticide industry’s petition for rehearing in National Cotton Council v. EPA No. 06-4630. The order upheld the Court’s earlier finding that pesticide residuals and biological pesticides constitute pollutants under the Clean Water Act.

Just about everything is a “pollutant” as far as the EPA is concerned, but they really hate pesticides. Now farmers seeking to protect their crops will be required to get a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. If their neighbors or just about anyone objects, they won’t get it.

Let me tell you about some of the pests that attack cotton. They include Alfalfa Looper, Boll Weevil Song, Cotton Bollworm, Cutworms, Leafhoppers, Pink Bollworm, Saltmarsh Catapillers, Silverfish Whitefly, Webspinning Spider Mites, and something called Thrips.

Those are just a few of the insect pests that attack a cotton crop and they are just a few of the hundreds of insect species with which farmers of every kind of crop must contend. The invention of pesticides tipped the struggle in their favor, allowing them to protect crops in a fashion that permits them to feed the rest of us.

Now, here’s where it goes beyond just the problems farmers encounter. The rest of us are subject to every kind of disease imaginable because a lot of insect pests transmit them. They did so quite famously during the Black Death that wiped out a third of Europe’s population and, these days, they spread Lyme Disease, West Nile Fever, Rocky Mountain Fever, Dysentery, and all manner of nasty stuff, including the Bubonic plague.

By 1996 the EPA had whipped up everybody’s fears that pesticides were so harmful to children that even more regulation was needed, so Congress obligingly passed the Food Quality Protection Act and it amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

While it is true that the EPA hasn’t banned a pesticide since DDT, it is equally true that it has found all kinds of ways to eliminate a variety of pesticides from use. Usually they cite “studies” in which some rats are stuffed so full of high doses of a pesticide that it causes them to become ill. Short of drinking a pesticide directly from the bottle, this is not likely to happen to you. Most structural pesticides are so diluted when applied that they are a threat solely to the pests.

All of which means that, while the farmers are encountering difficulty dealing with Mother Nature’s nasty creatures, the rest of us are increasingly vulnerable to them as well. A case in point is the raging population of bed bugs that was the subject of a recent EPA “summit.”

Simply put, if the EPA had not forced Ficam, a bendiocarb applied with water, and chlorpyrifos, formerly known as Dursban off the market, there would be NO bedbug problem because either one of these excellent pesticides would eliminate them.

The EPA’s message to us is that we should learn to love bedbugs because they are difficult and costly to eliminate these days. Fortunately, they do not spread disease.

And you thought the EPA was “protecting” you?

No, they are protecting the “environment.”

Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

The Nature of Nature; Common Sense, Part II

By Rich Kozlovich

An article by Thomas L. Friedman called the Age of Interruption elicited some comments from his readers, including this letter from someone who claims to be Cynthia Emerlye of South Pomfret, Vt. and appeared in the New York Times on July 5, 2006 where-in she waxed eloquent about the need to embrace nature.

(Editor’s note: I don’t believe that Cynthia Emerlye of South Pomfret, Vt. is a person. This is the name of a company in that town and it was probably written by some employee who wished to remain anonymous. RK)

People keep yammering about the need to “return to nature” in order to restore their humanity and save the planet. Return to organic farming and eliminate pesticides and chemical fertilizers. No genetically modified foods, no roads, no cars, no electricity, no modern central heating or cooling in the home.

Having grown up on a farm in an area that had a substantial number of wells, springs and cisterns as water sources, along with outside toilets for personal use, I am somewhat familiar with the concept.

I remember well, and with great nostalgia, those starlit nights when I would lay on my back and see the great expanse of the Milky Way. In the country it is far more expansive than you could ever see in the city, or for that matter, even imagine in the city. You felt as if you were looking past eternity. You would be surprised at how many shooting stars appear on a clear night.

The problem with that is this…..Life isn’t lived that way. Those grand nights weren’t every night, and during the day those sights can’t be seen at all - and the memory of them doesn’t ease the burdens of everyday living. Just because these moments are prized and cherished by those of us who were able to enjoy them doesn’t alter the fact that the rest of the time was substantially more difficult. In other words; the farm is nice place to get away and visit, but I don’t want to live there anymore.

It's interesting that the people who lived that way didn’t quite see life the way these romantic greenies present it.

• When electricity was introduced into rural areas, very few said…"no, none of that throwing the switch stuff just to get light for me."
• When running water was introduced into these areas, very few said…."no, I would rather haul gallons and gallons of water up from the spring."

I had uncles and an aunt that did that. I want to see these romantic greenies do that on the first wash day. Does it ever occur to anyone to ask: If primitive was so good in the past; why did they ever abandon it in the past? If primitive is so great today….why do those who have the opportunity abandon primitive today abandon it so readily? I read about celebrities who rave about an outdoor experience as if they have had an epiphany….and then they go home. If it was so great….why didn’t they stay….forever? 

Apparently Friedman really "loved" it for four days. I would have liked to have interviewed his guide, who knew every "chirp" in the jungle, and see if he would rather live with his family in modern America or primitive areas of South America.

Clearly, this is what some really desire and they would find contentment with this lifestyle, and those who wish to abandon modern life and revert back to nature have my blessing. As for everyone else, I think this is something most people would really hate. Worse yet; I think few would survive.

This quote appeared in the Blog Café Hayek regarding this letter. “Consider, for example, Thomas Babington Macaulay's description of life in the 17th-century Scottish highlands -- before anything beyond rudimentary commerce and industry reach there:”

“His lodging would sometimes have been in a hut of which every nook would have swarmed with vermin. He would have inhaled an atmosphere thick with peat smoke, and foul with a hundred noisome exhalations. At supper grain fit only for horses would have been set before him, accompanied by a cake of blood drawn from living cows. Some of the company with which he would have feasted would have been covered with cutaneous eruptions, and others would have been smeared with tar like sheep. His couch would have been the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather might be; and from that couch he would have risen half poisoned with stench, half blind with the reek of turf, and half mad with the itch.”

I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t sound like a good time to me. The movies don’t really depict the true nature of life in ancient times. It was brutal, ugly, backbreaking, uncomfortable, unhealthy, and most importantly; very short lived. This, is the embrace of nature.

We may wish to embrace nature in a loving way, and I think this is a good overall attitude, but let’s not lose sight of reality. Nature has no loving embrace for us in return. Nature is unthinking, brutal, unkind, uncaring, unhealthy and will make life short lived for those who aren’t prepared to change their environment in order to survive.

Nature will shine on us one day and rain on us the next. It doesn’t care, nor is nature able to care. Nature is an environmental machine that operates under a set of laws, and those laws have no human concepts of reality or compassion. Let’s stop being anthropomorphic about nature. Nature has no human qualities, period.

How many of us really want to go back to those eras? If we did, how may would survive the first year? How many really know how to produce the food they would need to survive? If you were able to produce enough food to survive, how do you preserve meats, fruits and vegetables without refrigeration or canning processes? If you did grow enough grain to get through the winter how would you process it and store it?

It was done in the old days. Do you know how? How many really do? To some extant I do, but none of that has any appeal for me at all. I have no desire to embrace primitivism, and I don’t seem to see the greenies embracing it as a permanent life style either. They pontificate about the glories of primitive living from the comforts and well laid tables of the modern world.

The environment has to be properly cared for, but all things in nature must be used as a means of survival. I am not talking about abusing nature. Having grown up on a small farm I know and understand the concepts of conservation (there is a difference between conservation and preservation) for future utilization. It is just like a bank account, if you deplete it there is nothing left. Nature does not think and does not care. Nature has no feelings, no concerns and no desires. Nature is here for our use and our benefit, not the other way around. We are not imposing on nature. Nature belongs to us.

I don’t really believe that this lady really intends for her comments to be taken to the above stated extremes, but these odes to nature have an impact on people’s emotions. Clear analytical thought becomes very difficult when living in an imaginary world of serendipity.

In the Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, wonderful, valuable and agreeable things not sought for suddenly would appear. To embrace nature for its beauty and grandeur is fortifying to the spirit, but to embrace in order to humanize it as if nature was warm, wonderful and serendipitous; is to place it above mankind.

That's eco-religion.

That's eco-terrorism!

It isn’t very bright either!

Alphabet Soup IPM; Common Sense, Part I

By Rich Kozlovich

Heisenberg’s uncertainty Theory – The more closely you study the subject the less clearly defined it becomes.

Recently there was an IPM/bed bug study produced by Purdue University that took place in a bed bug project which was to determine which type of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) would be most efficacious and cost effective. In the abstract it outlines the program which was to last ten weeks in sixteen bed bug infested high rise low income apartments.

There was to be two treatment styles with apartments allotted for each style of “IPM” treatment. The first was designated as (D-IPM) with diatomaceous earth being the basis for treatment. The second was (S-IPM) with Phantom as the basis for control. Steam treatments and interceptors were also used. In the end the results were much the same. After bi-weekly inspections the costs were $463 and $482 per apartment respectively. There was also a fifty percent failure rate. That’s right! Fifty percent of the apartments were still infested after ten weeks of treatment.

A fifty percent failure rate; and they needed to fund a study to find this out? I would have been willing to tell them that at a fraction of the price. And just how long do we think that it will be before the apartments that were swept clean of bed bugs will be re-infested?

Was this study a failure or a success? If viewed in the traditional concept of failure and success, it would have to be a failure. In many ways it was a failure and in some ways it was a success because it highlights a number of things about IPM that have been a source of discussion between those who worship at the altar of IPM and those of us who believe that what they are promoting as IPM doesn’t exist in structural pest control, because so-called IPM is merely pest control with inadequate tools, which we will explore farther along.

First let’s look at whether this study was a failure or a success. Was it intended to be either? What was this study intended to do. Who benefited from this study? I intend to explore all of these issues.

Very often studies aren’t intended to be failures or successes as we may view things in those terms. They are very often merely designed to see what happens when (X) is done, in other words, “if we do this, what will be the results?” This seems to be the case.

I have had time to think about this and I have come to the conclusion that this study was a glorious success. It was a success because it highlights some important facts that we seem unwilling to face regarding IPM, especially involving bed bug control.

• This is a failure of price
• This is a failure of performance because of inadequate tools
• This is a failure of time
• This is failure of product
• This is a failure of definition
• This is a failure of public confidence
• This is a failure of good public health practices
• This is a success in that it points out what happens in the real world, with real people, living real lives.
• This is a success in pointing out that there is no such thing as an IPM methodology.
• This is a success in pointing out that the average person cannot afford Alphabet Soup IPM
• This is a success for grant chasers

This study was a glorious success because it highlights that fact that ultimately the customer, and society as a whole, is paying the price and will continue to pay the price, for environmental regulations that were not based on science, but ideology.

IPM became the catch word to justify the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA, which along with re-registration, drove products off the market that worked. It is my view that justifying FQPA is what's behind this mad drive to impose IPM. If EPA wasn’t funding IPM it wouldn’t exist in structural pest control. The fact is that IPM in structural pest control has no logical foundation, and can only exists in structural pest control because the federal government says it exists.

They have been successful in removing products from the market that work. They must now be able to show that there is something to replace these products in order to further their goal to eventually eliminate all pesticides. IPM is their answer to pesticides; only it isn’t working.

We shouldn’t delude ourselves about this at all. Every pesticide category that has existed has come under attack in some manner or other from EPA and the greenies, and those products have been eliminated from the structural pest control arsenal. They may have some limited applications elsewhere, but for our purposes; that is immaterial. Chlorinated hydrocarbons are gone, organophosphates are mostly gone, Methyl carbamates are mostly gone and now pyrethroids are coming up for review with the goal of eliminating them also.

True, we now have neonicotinoids and pyrroles such as Phantom, but they apparently not the answer either. And Termidor isn’t labeled for inside use, but that is immaterial becuase it doesn't kill bed bugs. One more point. There has been no pesticide used in structural pest control that has been “banned” since DDT. The EPA has used all sorts of schemes to attain their goals, but outright banning hasn’t been one of them since DDT.

Everyone would like to avoid the fact that this just isn’t just a public health issue, it is an ideological battle; THAT IS THE REAL ISSUE! Bedbugs are merely a symptom to the affliction of ideology versus reality; of green mythology versus truth. We must come face to face with these questions:

• Does IPM really exist in structural pest control?
• What is more important; making IPM sacrosanct or eliminating bed bugs?
• If bed bugs transmitted the plague as fleas do, would we be having this discussion?

No matter what EPA claims; unless you are talking about IPM in agriculture, where it originated and has clear parameters, IPM is an ideology; it is not a methodology.

IPM was an economic program outlined in 1959 in an obscure agricultural magazine, Hilgardia, that being a certain amount of pests cause a certain amount of damage, and certain amount of pesticide costs certain about of money, when the threshold limit of pests causes more damage than the cost of pesticides, then a pesticide application was made. That is pretty straight forward. Now THAT is IPM!

How can anyone translate that into structural pest control? The very idea that IPM is something separate or better than what is called traditional pest control is inherently flawed thinking. There is no threshold limit of pests in homes and businesses.

I have been told the IPM is a successful methodology. Really? Apparently these researchers at Purdue aren’t aware of this “methodology” since they now have an alphabet soup of IPM “methodologies”. S-IPM and D-IPM, with (S-IPM) standing for Phantom IPM, (pun intended).   Well then, how about these as designations?  (SDU-IPM) for Dursban-IPM, or (SF-IPM) for Ficam-IPM, or (SDI-IPM) Diazinon-IPM. It is clear that the IPM can be defined and redefined unendingly. Why? Because IPM in structural pest control is an ideology.  It is not now nor will it ever be a methodology!

Before we further explore what IPM is or isn’t, we need to define what pest control is. Pest control isn’t a methodology either; it is a practice, much like medicine. Don’t get your shorts all bunched up in a knot. Pest control is a practice exactly like medicine, and here's why.

In medicine the doctor (practitioner) examines the patient. In pest control the technician (practitioner) inspects the property. In medicine the practitioner makes a diagnosis. In pest control the practitioner identifies the pest. In medicine the practitioner determines the treatment the will give the quickest most efficacious relief possible. In pest control the practitioner determines the treatment that will give the quickest most efficacious relief possible. In medicine the practitioner outlines a program of preventative health care. In pest control the practitioner outlines a program of preventative applications.

Here is the rub. Does the doctor go through a list of techniques or products before he prescribes the one that will work the best? NO! Does the doctor start his treatment process by “bleeding” his patients first before moving on to more effective methods? NO! Yet those promoting IPM continue to demand that a whole host of hoops be jumped through before a pesticide application is made, insisting that pesticides are to be used only as a last resort. Even the EPA doesn't officially define IPM in that fashion. Are we to first resort to old techniques that became passe when pesticides were developed? If those techniques were so great; why did they abandon them for modern pest control in the first place?

Why should an experienced practitioner have to follow a circuitous plan from people who will do anything, or say anything, to eliminate pesticides? People who aren’t practitioners of pest control and aren’t responsible for the outcome?

• Do we really believe that the activists and their acolytes in government know how to treat a structure better than those in pest control? 
• Do we really believe that all the theoretical health claims made by these people are true? 
• Do we believe that everything we have been doing for over sixty years has been wrong?

IPM is pest control and there is no need to call it anything other than pest control; unless however there is some insidious goal behind this mad drive to impose it on the world. The very idea that IPM is different, better, safer and something entirely separate other than what is called traditional pest control is inherently flawed. Not only was there no definitive “methodology” in these so-called IPM treatments, the ones used in this study failed to produce effective results. The study may have provided the information they were looking for, but I could have told them this without wasting a lot of grant money.

I recently sent out a article that appeared on Monday, July 27, 2009 entitled, “Co-op hair-raiser: $250,000 bed bug bill”, that discussed the “total cost to make the three-tower, 217-unit Theater District co-op a bloodsucker-free zone: $250,000.” The article went on to say, “in addition, everything in the basement storage lockers was packed in impermeable containers and shipped to an off-site exterminator, while the storage rooms were treated. From now on, residents must put all their stored belongings in plastic bins with air-tight gaskets, or double wrap them in airtight plastics. The bug-sniffing beagle visits every week for now, and will eventually return three times a year. (This must be (DOG-IPM) for dog Integrated Pest Management. RK) The $250,000 bloodletting was paid from the building's reserve funds. A board member said it was a bargain compared to the cost of a bigger infestation. Scary. Is anyone is selling bed bug insurance policies yet?”

And this was a bargain?

• Do we really believe that this kind of service is available to the average person? 
• Do we really believe that this is the answer to the EPA created plague? 
• Do we really believe that people are going to stand for this while self-righteous activists inside and outside of the industry pontificate about the glories of IPM?

Since EPA created this perfect storm:

• I would like someone to once again explain to me why blaming EPA isn't the answer, especially since at the regulatory level they are the only ones capable of ending this problem. 
• I would like for someone to also explain to me why anyone clings to the idea that chemistry isn't the answer. 
• I would like someone to explain to me why chemistry was the answer 1946 but it isn’t now. 
• I would like someone to explain to me why these so-called IPM programs that require unique technology, unending recalls, excessive amounts of money (that most people will be incapable of paying) and eventually repeated pesticide treatments with products that are inadequate is better for the public than what it replaced. 
• I would like someone to explain to me why Dursban, Ficam and a host of other products that EPA forced off the market was so much worse for the public.

Chemistry was the answer in 1946 and it will again be the answer in 2010, or there will be no answer!

So we come to this question; why do those in research defend and promote this noxious policy so fiercely? Because there is a lot of money involved! Things like the Butterfield Bill are a classic example of what I am talking about. Fifty million a year and bed bugs will be no closer to being eliminated than before. However there will be loads of money for grant chasers. As for government support of this; along with the fact that many government agencies are infested with anti-pesticide activists, bureaucracies live to grow and IPM, the Butterfield Bill, the EPA Bed Bug Summits aid in unending growth.

Do these researchers really believe that IPM is the answer? Do they really believe that the products we lost caused all the terrible health problems that the EPA and the greenies claim? If they do; then they need to say so. If they don’t; then they need to say so. One of these researchers actually said that they ought to build a statue to Rachel Carson because of all the research money that came their way to “study” pesticides as a result of her book and the movement it stirred. What is it all about; grant money or truth? Where are our priorities?

But what about the public? Who will speak for them? Who will answer to them?



There are two great books out there that you may find interesting. The first one is by the American Council on Science and Health, called “Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals? Scientific and Regulatory Issues in Perspective, and Bjorn Lomborg’s, “Skeptical Environmentalist”. Lomborg’s book is very long, deals with all environmental issues, and is highly technical; but anyone who reads it will become very authoritative on green subjects, and many of the actors.

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Smart Green... Smarter Consumer

By Paul Taylor

PAUL TAYLOR CONSULTING
www.taylorenvironmental.net
Ph.(310)709-8711 Fax(310)826-5476

Originally posted on July 27, 10:12 AM

With the global recession and California’s unemployment rate above 11%, the extra costs of green living are colliding with economic reality. Environmentalists have been green-guilt baiting us for years to donate to sanctimonious eco-nonprofits and to pay extra for green products and services.

The cold realities of economic recession have chilled recent years of obsessive environmental politicking. Environmentalism is the most densely organized political movement in human history -- eco-groups grew from 2,000 to over 4,000 during the 1990s. Now, as a political “special interest,” green groups have leveraged their roughly $1.5 billion in annual nonprofit assets to drown us in a tsunami of scary scenarios of climate change and global warming. Corporate marketeers have “greened” every product, service and advertising tag line. Surveys last year of large US retailers found more than 1,700 products boasting of green credentials or environmental benefits -- most at extra cost with unproven benefits. Critically missing in this eco-emersion of fanciful ideas for green living has been the increased consumer costs involved.

A contemporary example of smarter consumers is a 2007-launched California utility’s “climate smart” program. The patronizing program asked electric power users to donate an extra monthly $2 to $3 for “forestry projects” that would control global warming. Well, consumers are not that dumb. With common sense applied to the debate about the causes of climate change and to some theoretical reduction in greenhouse gases from a “forest project,” smarter consumers didn’t buy in. The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has found that only 0.6% of its 5.1 million users would pay extra to be “climate smart." It costs this utility about four times more (in millions) to run the “climate smart” program than donations received to date. So, power user rates may be raised to pay for this silly and indulgent green gone wrong mistake.

Let the green buyer beware. So-called “smart” green products and services always cost more than the conventional items they pretend to replacement. Maybe “SMART” is actually an acronym meaning “Socialist Manipulation And Rhetorical Tripe.”

The “PhD Effect” and scientific prediction

This appeared on May 29th, 2009 in the blog, Things I Don’t Understand. I would like to thank the author (let's make John A. Underhill his nom de plume) for allowing me to reprint this article.

Randi’s Theory of PhDs

One of my personal inspirations to look at the Universe through scientific eyes is not a scientist at all, but a conjurer, escape artist and illusionist called James “The Amazing” Randi. Randi (as he is frequently called) is now semi-retired from show business, but is fully engaged in making speeches and writing books on the paranormal, upon hucksters and scam–artists, on fake psychics like Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne and all sorts of flim-flam that causes gullible people to be separated from their money. He does this through his own charitable Foundation, the James Randi Educational Foundation,based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Now many people are beguiled into thinking that Randi is some mere conjurer. He most certainly is much more than that. Randi is a genius of first rank and a highly original thinker whose persistence has infuriated many counsels of the “great and the good” including that most precious of elites, the PhD scientists of academe.

It’s not that Randi is against PhDs or the people that have PhDs. He is a blessed and trusted friend to many people who possess those qualifications and more. He was a great friend of Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman.

Its simply that in his long observation of PhD scientists that some of them are peculiarly blind to their own deficiencies as observers, thinkers or even experimenters, and can be fooled by simple trickery or deluded by chance or human error into believing the most preposterous of nonsenses.

Randi has his own theory as to why PhDs are more credulous than they would admit. He refers to it as the “PhD Effect” and whimsically relates that he notices at the PhD ceremony the Presiding Professor always wears gloves to handle the PhD certificates and wonders why this should be – and then Randi proffers the suggestion that it must be because the certificates contain a substance that transfers itself instantaneously to the new PhD holder through the skin, one of whose results is that the newly minted PhD cannot utter either of the following two phrases “I was wrong” and “I don’t know”.

Moral Fashions and the Corruption of Science

I asked John A. for his last name in order to properly credit this commentary, but he commented that he keeps his “surname off the Internet." He went on to say, “Just link to my blog, Things I Don’t Understand, and people will know who I am.”

John apparently is a history buff and categorizes himself as a “classical liberal”. Those among us who are history buffs will find that statement insightful. For those who aren’t, I have linked the history of “Classical Liberalism”. It isn’t what you think. I have also linked a number of names and events that may not be commonly known to most people in order to give everyone the true flavor of what John is saying. I would also like to thank him for allowing me to reprint what originally was an e-mail that appeared in the blog Greenie Watch. RK

The history of science is rife with examples of political, social and moral fashions which not simply influence, but pervert the scientific method and corrupt the conduct of scientists. Einstein faced off the political and moral fashions of Nazism and eugenics but plenty of his colleagues happily incorporated those twin systems into their own research. Eugenics also laid the foundations for the moral crusade against alcohol in early 20th Century America which was again a supposedly scientific assessment delivered as a moral panic which must be addressed immediately lest America fall into a deep pit of moral degeneration.

The example of Trofim Lysenko and the political outlawing of Mendelian genetics in Stalinist Russia is a particularly scary example of a political fashion given to be a moral and political imperative by a dangerously unstable man who became President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The parallels with the modern global warming scare are obvious.

Another example would be neo-Malthusianism as popularized in the 20th Century repeatedly by Paul Erlich first in the 1960s and more recently by the scarily named "Optimum Population Trust" (and here)which includes such luminaries as Sir David Attenborough calling for mandatory limits on family size to prevent near future overpopulation and mass starvation. Once again, a supposed scientific analysis is communicated as a moral imperative.

John Holdren,now President Obama's Climate Czar, co-wrote several books with Paul Erlich in the 1970s at least one of which argued for forced abortions, forced adoptions of illegitimate children or from mothers "who contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and the introduction of chemicals into water and food that rendered people sterile. All of this to forestall a crisis of overpopulation by the year 2000!

Carl Sagan, Erlich and others began and propagated the Nuclear Winter story of the 1980s, together with scary scenarios about likely darkening of the skies due to dust from burning cities rising into the stratosphere and blocking out the Sun. All with the aid of computer models with extremely rubbery parameters and dubious simplifications. A moral imperative against nuclear weapons? You betcha. Even Richard Feynman, iconoclast as he was, while averring that the underlying theory was nonsense, could not raise his voice too loud lest people think he was in favour of nuclear proliferation. Moral panics do that to the best of scientists.

There are lots more examples, but you get the idea. These scientific fashions all in their own time held great sway in academia and mainstream media. They divided scientists into those who were credible and those who were so morally and intellectually corrupt as to actually oppose these ideas.

Modern environmentalism has most, if not all of the above ideas incorporated into the unholy fusion of science and Marxist political theory now called "ecology", but is really a manifestation of what David Henderson memorably called "Global Salvationism".

The most interesting thing about all of this is that I, as a classical liberal, can find common cause with people from a wide spectrum of political and philosophical beliefs that the lessons of history are that moral fashions in science are endemic, cyclical and a constant menace to the real business of scientists to understand how the Universe works.

Scientists don't live in a fashion-free vacuum. They dress themselves in the fashions of the day, read the latest scare stories of the day, follow the latest celebrity soap operas of the day and most of all abide by rules to not upset the funding apple-cart from which their work is done, whatever their personal and moral qualms, at least until retirement.

Of Mice and Men (and Pest Control)

By Alan Caruba

I would like to thank Alan for allowing me to publish this commentary. RK

Among the many books in my office is the “Handbook of Pest Control”, seventh edition, edited by Arnold Mallis. Its contributing editors are a who’s who of the leading authorities on pest control and its encyclopedic text includes thousands of references to the diseases that insect and rodent pests routinely spread in the course of their daily lives.

In one fashion or another for some three decades or more, I have provided public relations services to various elements of the pest control industry; manufacturers of pesticides and my own state’s trade association which is affiliated with the National Pest Management Association.

I tell you this so you don’t think I am evading an obvious bias that favors a profession that dates its history back to medieval times when being a “ratcatcher” was so highly regarded that the Queen of England designated one to keep the castle free of the nasty beasties.

Over the years, these men developed formulas for killing off rodent and insect pests. When you contemplate that the Black Death that swept Europe and England killed a third of the entire population and was caused by a combination of fleas and rats spreading the bubonic plague, the need to control such pests is obvious.

These days, America is experiencing a huge comeback of a pest that had been largely eradicated, the common bed bug. After DDT was banned from use worldwide, along with depriving millions of Africans from protection against malaria, the bed bug returned. Other pest related diseases that have emerged in recent years are West Nile Fever, imported from Africa and spread by mosquitoes, and Lyme disease, spread by ticks.

It is common knowledge that cockroaches spread Salmonella and a variety of other diseases, but probably less well known that termites do more property damage nationwide every year than all the floods and fires combined.

I tell you this because the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Environmental Protection Agency in order to get it to evaluate the effects of 74 pesticides on eleven endangered and threatened species in the San Francisco Bay area over the next five years.

America is on the brink of bankruptcy, but this inane environmental group thinks that pesticides are a greater threat to eleven supposedly endangered species than national insolvency.

While people are losing their jobs and their homes, the environmentalists are worrying about pesticides, not pests. In the San Francisco Bay area represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tucked away in the under-performing $787 billion “stimulus” bill is a provision for as much as $16.1 million to save the habitat of the allegedly endangered Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.

Stay with me just a bit longer. As reported in Pest Control Technology, “As part of the Endangered Species Act, the EPA is required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services—and sometimes the National Marine Fisheries Services—when they make a pesticide regulatory decision to register or re-register a product.”

The suit, settled in favor of the Center for Biological Diversity, will ultimately require the EPA to ban the use of pesticides anywhere in the entire nation if they are found to threaten “endangered species” which are anywhere and everywhere in the entire nation.

At present this means that “As a result of the lawsuit filed in California, pest control operators in Northern California are presented with serious challenges.” All of the pesticides that are the subject of the proposed injunction are used routinely to protect homeowners, apartments, restaurants, hospitals, schools, as well as warehouses where various food products are stored. The affect on the agricultural use of pesticides and herbicides is incalculable.

To put it another way, the Center for Biological Diversity has put the health of everyone living in Northern California and eventually the entire nation at risk of the many diseases insect and rodent pests spread in order to protect some “endangered species.”

For now, the least protected specie will initially be the people living and working in Northern California if pest control operators are deprived of the pesticides they use. The most privileged specie in the Bay Area will be the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.

Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/ A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.


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Take Time to Smell the Horsepucky

By Rich Kozlovich

This first appeared on June 18, 2006. This is a lead in article to two other hard hitting articles that I have been working on for some weeks. I have crossed the Rubicon.

I have quoted Ben Franklin in a number of articles saying, “Truth will very patiently wait for us”. One of my fellow pest controllers took umbrage with that statement. Actually he took umbrage with me being the one saying it. Why? He stated that it wasn’t for me to point out what was truth since I have no qualifications and hadn’t done any research. He then went on to imply that truth was in the eye of the beholder. I have some questions.

1. How qualified does someone have to be to point out “truth”?
2. How does one become qualified to be able to see that which is true?
3. What determines what the qualifications are?
4. Who determines who is qualified?
5. Are public officials automatically qualified?
6. If public officials are elected officials, are they now qualified by virtue of their election?
7. If public officials are found to be wrong are they now unqualified?
8. Are they unqualified forever?
9. Is honesty a quality necessary to point out the “truth”?
10. Is an alphabet soup of letters behind your name necessary to be able to point out “truths”?
11. Does education guarantee integrity, insight and understanding?
12. Is integrity more important than education or visa versa?
13. Is being over educated and under smart acceptable?
14. Has a researcher ever been found to be lying? If so, is he disqualified forever?
15. Is he only disqualified until the next government grant?
16. If a researcher lies should his alphabet soup of letters behind his name be removed?
17. If that happens is the one who was not formally educated now more qualified?

Well then, let’s try this. One and one are two….right? See, there are absolute truths. Then again it didn’t take much brainpower to come to that conclusion. Perhaps it was far too bold for me to be the one point this out. This bodes well the question; is integrity and a legitimate concern for that which is right more important to brainpower than formal education?

The problem we have today is that we have the tendency to rely on “experts” entirely too much. Who says they are “the experts”? Scientists who are “experts” in their own field very often disagree. Vehemently! Global Warming is one such issue. We also have to tendency to run to the middle of the road. Well, let me say this about the middle of the road. That is where the dead animals are.

When Mann, Bradley and Hughes published their now infamous and discredited Hockey Stick graph to show global warming was an Earth threatening event that had to be addressed immediately; it was received by the greenies with utmost enthusiasm.

When McIntyre, a consultant for mineral exploration, and McKitrick published their independent study (they received no funding so as to avoid being criticized as lackeys of big business) the Greenies went almost apoplectic. So what was the solution? Mann and his cohorts merely needed to turn over all their research and show how they arrived at their numbers, which is typically done to allow for peer review. They refused; demanding that everyone had to just accept their conclusions and that there was “consensus” among all serious scientists regarding this matter and further review was unneeded.

Well, first off, that isn’t how peer review works. Secondly, part of the funding for their research came from the United States government which prompted a Senate committee chairman by the name of Inhofe to demand that they turn over their information or else. They and their allies went into even further stages of purple apoplexy. Once released it was obvious to the scientific community why they didn’t want to turn over the information. It exposed how they worked the numbers to get the answer they and their Greenie allies wanted. It was a case of a conclusion in search of data.

Now entering stage left, the High Priest of and First Televangelist for the “First Church of the Warming Globe”, Al Gore, with his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” with his pitch to send out 1000 apostles (Wow, Christ only needed 12) to spread the word to high schools and anywhere else uninformed, unformed minds could be molded.

Who amongst all of the above are qualified to expose the “truth”?

• The scientists who have been shown to have baked the data?
• The scientists who exposed them?
• The political leader who desperately wants the limelight and is inclined to accept any foolish Philosophical Flavor of the Day to get it?
• Or perhaps it is the honest "reader"!

Is a dishonest scientist more qualified than an honest “reader”? Education is a wonderful thing. We need to be constantly educating ourselves by reading books, articles in newspapers, magazines and listening to discussions regarding a whole host of issues.

In grade school, junior high school and high school we get the basic tools necessary for independent thought. This requires a certain amount of teaching of what to think versus how to think. Yet isn’t self-education the basic ingredient of formal education? Reading the information, discussing the information, and challenging each position by cross-referencing various writings. Finally writing about the information ourselves, since nothing sharpens the mind quite like having to place your thoughts down on paper.

Unfortunately higher education has lost sight of its role. Formal education at the higher levels continues to teach you what to think, not how to think. Unfortunately so many come out of college as a herd of independent thinkers. Has it always been this way? I don’t know; although I do believe it depends on the school and the professors; and more schools and their professors are more and more radical. Woe be unto any student who stands against one of his professors pet theories. Worse yet; one who proves this pet theory has the smell of horse pucky attached to it.

It may take a little time, but eventually truth comes out. We need to stop being intimidated. We have the right and duty to challenge those in leadership positions in our industry irrespective of their credentials. We have the right and duty to challenge those who would destroy the pesticide manufacturing/distribution/application industries. This is our industry, not the experts. It is our families who will suffer the consequences for their being wrong. They will just move on to some other project. As Winston Chruchill pointedly stated, "experts should be on tap, not on top". If we have opinions that are contrary to what has become the conventional wisdom we need to speak up and not allow anyone to intimidate us into submission. We need to avoid the middle of the road and take a stand for what we believe is “truth”.

Albert Einstein once said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." While I don’t present myself as the absolute judge of truth and knowledge, I do however think I’m a pretty good judge of the smell of horse pucky.

Weekly ACSH Report

Compiled by Rich Kozlovich

This week there has been so much information that I couldn’t even begin to put it all in here. As I organized this week’s information I ended up with about 7 pages of stuff. It was just too much to put in this article, so I deleted a great deal of wonderful information, which is typical.

Here are ACSH’s latest views on the Swine Flu “crisis”.

There is so much going around about the latest flu “crisis” and so much is somewhat irrational. The media is clearly responsible for most if it. Apparently the WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, indicates that the swine flu virus mixing with other strains such as avian flu,responded, “The virus is still very stable...But as we all know, the influenza virus is highly unpredictable and has great potential for mutation.” There are a number of points that should be discussed as a result. Avian flu is “highly pathogenic” according to Dr. Ross and “In combination with swine flu, that would indeed be a devastating virus, but they’re being alarmist again. They simply have to monitor the virus to see if there’s any change in genotype or virulence.” The CDC claims that their mathematical modeling shows that over one million Americans have now been infected with the swine flu virus.

So far there have only been 127 deaths in the U.S., “a relatively low number but disturbing in its uncharacteristic concentration in younger patients.”An article published on Friday from Associated Press medical writer Mark Stobbe reports that 600million swine flu vaccinations may be distributed for the upcoming flu season

All of this “crisis” thinking is causing “crisis” decisions that are unfounded regarding flu vaccinations. The country has three hundred million people and six hundred vaccinations are going to be available. Is everyone going to have two vaccinations this year? Irrational! Dr. Ross Gilbert points out “For now, people are running around in a panic, wearing masks and not going to school. They lack the perspective to see that the seasonal flu is more dangerous than this. [The usual seasonsal flu] is a pandemic by any standard, and thus far, apparently much more dangerous than swine flu.”

Because of the implementation of this and regular flu season shots ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says “I can’t imagine the logistics of that. There’s going to be a huge overlap between the two vaccination schedules. I could easily imagine tens of millions of doses of this stuff not being used because people don’t want it or there’s just no way to get it distributed. In fact, millions of doses of annual, seasonal flu vaccine are discarded every year.”

The article also mentions the 1976 vaccination of 40 million Americans in anticipation of a new strain of swine flu: In 1976 America was in an anticipation of a swine flu “crisis” which never materialized. Forty million got shots and five hundred developed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, but this is a bit of data dredging because no one knows what really causes it.

Dr. Ross notes that “The flu vaccine is practically as safe as rainwater unless you’re allergic to eggs, since it’s developed in eggs. The fact that in 1976 there were 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome from 40 million doses swine flu is of minimal concern. That risk is about one in 100,000, and in most cases the symptoms were mild and reversible. These vaccines will hopefully even be less toxic.”

Get the Lead out….Another environmental scare?

Without scares could these activist organizations exist? If they didn’t exist would they have to go out and get real jobs? Perhaps that what they are really afraid of?

The Center for Environmental Health claim to have “found yet another unnecessary lead risk: high levels of lead in name-brand handbags and wallets purchased from Target, Macy’s, Wal-Mart, and many other retailers,” and they recommend that we “TELL THESE STORES TO GET THE LEAD OUT OF PURSES!” They go on to make a demonstrably false claim: “Scientists are increasingly convinced that there is no safe level of lead exposure.”

Once again we find “scientists”, the so-called experts who we are all supposed to bend before and obey, are changing the rules to make their views the “new science”. “This is a new wave of people who are arguing against the classical toxicological principle that dosages are significant,” says Dr. Whelan.

Dr. Ross adds: “We strongly disagree with that thesis on the grounds that it is unscientific and is basically analogous to a revocation of the laws of thermodynamics -- by which I mean they can’t just get away with saying that a tiny exposure is worse than a large one -- it’s nonsense. There is no evidence to support it.”

Bisphenol-A (BPA)

I recently had a conversation with a good friend who has been involved in all the legislative issues that have faced our industry for many years. Recently there was a discussion about the need to return pesticides that have been forced off the market (banned is the commonly used term, but the only pesticide used in structural pest control that was ever banned was DDT and that was based on junk science) by EPA and their tactic of changing the rules in order to make it too expensive to maintain a pesticide registration.

Dursban came into the conversation and the claims by activists that it caused autism. One of the scientists commented that Dursban has been off the market for ten years and if it really did cause autism then you should have seen a drop in autism cases and we haven’t. It must then be concluded that Dursban didn’t cause autism. I was really impressed; at least until he then said that he has decided that plastic bottles were what was causing autism. And he meant it. Of course it could be worse….here is someone who believes that these chemicals cause obesity.

Former environmental consultant Janelle Sorensen has a hunch that our children are getting fatter because of chemicals in plastics, and she convinced Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai, to agree with her. Well, sort of. “Right now it’s a correlation; we don’t know if it’s cause and effect or an accidental finding,” Dr. Landrigan said. “The $64,000 question is, what is the causal pathway? Does it go through the thyroid gland? Does it change fat metabolism?”

Except for a very few people, I will tell you what changes metabolism. Exercise! It is all about calories in and calories out.

In a blog entry published on Friday, Andrew Van Dam with the Association of Health Care Journalists finally noticed the media bias against bisphenol-A (BPA)that ACSH staffers -- almost alone against the crowd -- have been condemning for some time. “In a review of American media coverage of the controversy of bisphenol-A, researchers at STATS (a nonprofit, nonpartisan Statistical Assessment Service affiliated with George Mason University), say the media failed to properly weight different studies based on their size and research methodology.”

Dr. Whelan has noticed the trend: “If you looked at media coverage of BPA for the last six months, you’d find that a vast majority of the reports were biased in favor of anti-chemical scares. There were very few scientists who were willing to defend BPA despite all the evidence that proves it’s not dangerous. The FDA has already ruled time and time again that BPA is safe as used. How could they come out with any other assessment, unless a new administration can overturn scientific evidence?”

“This needs to be brought to light,” says Dr. Ross. “All of this hype comes from two or three junk science groups like the one under Frederick vom Saal that has been trying to scare people about BPA for over ten years. They automatically doubt any corporate-funded study -- including any researcher who ever received industry support -- for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they want to be praised as heroes.”

“Well, I don’t know their motivation, if it’s publicity-seeking or what,” says Dr. Whelan, “but I know that they aren’t advancing the cause of public health. Any reassessment study would take so long that BPA would probably be banned everywhere already by the time that they prove it is safe again.”

New York Times health and science columnist Gina Kolata, wrote a guest contribution to John Tierney’s New York Times science blog highlighting the recent STATS report that revealed a lack of objectivity in media coverage of the bisphenol-A debate.

“The fact that Ms. Kolata is raising questions about media bias is important since she’s a mainstream reporter, and the mainstream media doesn’t like to criticize itself,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier. “People aren’t interested in a critical look at the negative news they’ve been putting out, but she’s showing them anyway. Thanks are due as well to John Tierney for highlighting this story initially.”

Acetaminophen: Use As Directed

FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory committee is meeting to discuss “how to address the public health problem of liver injury related to the use of acetaminophen in both over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription (RX) products,” noting that they are not seeking to remove it from the market, as it is safe when used as directed…..People just need to be careful about mixing medications that have acetaminophen in them.” For more information, see ACSH’s publication on OTC pain relievers.

FDA advisory panelists voted yesterday to ban Percocet and Vicodin, two popular painkillers that contain acetaminophen, because of their potential to cause liver damage. I think this is an important point.

“Consumer representatives on the panel included Sidney Wolfe, an outspoken opponent of pharmaceutical companies and drugs in general. “The fact that Sidney Wolfe is a ‘consumer representative’ on a supposedly objective panel is very disturbing,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. “He is taking up a position that should be going to an actual consumer representative and not an activist from the country’s most strident anti-pharmaceutical watchdog group.”

Very often these panels of government “experts” are nothing more than activists who have been given the opportunity to expound their latest philosophical flavor of the day without any real opposition. These various panels are often rigged in order to come out with predetermined results. It was the same with DDT and the pattern has continued down to today.

As I said before, I had to eliminate a host of information, including information about activists attempting to eliminate fluoride from the drinking water in New Jersey, and medicines that can be developed from genetically modified foods, although I did link those two pieces of information in my weekly newsletter. For those who would like to receive ASCH’s Morning Dispatch:

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