Time to deal with the killers

© 2007 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

A friend taking her sister-in-law to El Paso saw the Rio Grande and said, “That’s the same river next to your house in Albuquerque.” The woman looked doubtfully and said, “Nope.”

My friend was upset that her brother’s wife could not be convinced the same river flowed by Albuquerque and El Paso. I feel the same way when I talk about the need to kill all of the mosquitoes in our area, and perhaps use DDT among other things to do it. People just say, “Nope.”

Killing all the mosquitoes may seem too drastic to some, but these potentially deadly creatures are lurking silently in our neighborhoods, waiting for an unguarded moment. I am not fear-mongering. Mosquitoes bring the epidemic of West Nile virus and other diseases.

Three things about West Nile: It is viral, so doctors can do little. It affects different organs in different people and with differing severity. And it is especially hard on people 50 and older.

The media seemingly trumpets every West Nile case reported, and the CDC says there were 33 reported cases and two resulting deaths in the state in 2005. A doctor friend of mine, however, said he sees at least 100 cases of West Nile each month, but the authorities in New Mexico only want reports on those affecting the brain, causing encephalitis or meningitis, so cases are vastly underreported.

Why am I writing this? Well, it is personal. I have lost two friends to mosquito-born disease complications, one to West Nile and the other to malaria. Two other friends have been very ill with West Nile this year. Their illnesses and deaths were completely unnecessary.

The soul of our society is that life is sacred and anything that threatens a citizen’s life must be dealt with swiftly. I do not see this swift action from the government. Their dialog is mainly how to minimize the exposure, which still leaves the danger intact. Why has this happened? It is because the environmentalists have paralyzed the government.

As a kid living in Japan, I rode my bike behind DDT trucks spraying for mosquitoes many times. That was 50 years ago. I do not know the long-term affects of DDT on me, but I do know that I did not get the more serious disease, malaria. John Berlau writes in his book, Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Heath, “Not a single study linking DDT exposure to human toxicity has ever been replicated.”

You probably grew up with the “DDT is toxic” myth and find it very hard to discard the propaganda. It has been perpetuated for decades. Today, most citizens say DDT is one of the most toxic substances on Earth. When corrected, they say, “Nope.”

Government policies must change

DDT is the Bunker Hill of the environmental movement. It is where the movement developed with Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring. Any revision to their notion that DDT is very harmful is met with flinty opposition and a resounding “Nope.”

Our nation’s leaders allowed this to happen by not doing anything or by actively supporting the ban on DDT, even when the supporting toxicology evidence was not there. It is a 35-year worldwide disgrace that so many people, primarily in Africa, have died needlessly for what is a political agenda. It is time for national, state and local leaders to reverse that action. Mosquitoes must be eliminated.

Also, we have local policies that make things worse than they need to be. Namely, there is a Las Cruces requirement to pond water next to every new house and business. They claim that the water ponded will not be viable for mosquito breeding, but that is not true. Mosquitoes need only 48 hours of wet to reproduce. Two days of rain and danger lurks next to your door.

For the officials, every gallon of ponded water is one less gallon of a potential flood with which they do not have to deal. They think of the flood danger and not the health issue. It is time to reconsider the ponding requirement or get busy blanket-fogging our area for mosquitoes.

It will take considerable citizen clamor to embolden governmental officials to action. Of course environmentalists will oppose it, but we must act decisively because every day people are being sickened and some are dying.

Of the approximately 200 varieties of mosquitoes in the United States, 60 have tested positive for West Nile. There are no safe zones even if you slather yourself with DEET and wear long-sleeve shirts and a hat. Some mosquitoes are dawn- and dusk-flyers, while some fly in the middle of the day. Some invade your homes while others do not.

It only takes one bite. While mosquitoes would rather bite other creatures than humans, they obviously do get some blood meals from humans. They are a scourge on us and our animals.

It is time for our national, state and local leaders to step up and take the proper actions to deal with this, including using DDT to protect us from mosquitoes, or be replaced by others who will. We cannot afford to have patience with those who look at this epidemic and then simply say “Nope.”

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.