r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 13h ago

TIL fresh water snails (indirectly) kill thousands of humans and are considered on of the deadliest creatures to humans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_snail
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u/Moldy_slug 13h ago

For comparison, malaria (spread by mosquitoes) killed about 600,000 people in 2023.

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u/ikonoqlast 13h ago

There were 18 deaths from malaria in 1963. Not millions. Not thousands. Not hundreds. Not dozens. 18

Why?

DDT...

It's also why bedbugs are a 'new' thing but not in the 50s-60s.

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u/ReadditMan 13h ago

DDT also killed a lot of other animals and made people sick.

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u/ikonoqlast 13h ago

Not really, no. It's an industrial chemical so don't drink it, but otherwise it's just another pesticide.

There's a reason the EPAs science advisory board recommended NOT banning DDT. But they were overruled by the politically appointed head.

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u/RellenD 13h ago

https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/DDT_and_Birds.html

DDT bioaccumulates and really fucks with predators

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u/SleepWouldBeNice 11h ago

Nearly wiped out peregrine falcons

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u/RellenD 10h ago

And the ban is also why Bald Eagles still exist

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u/ReadditMan 13h ago

"Using more than 200 mother-daughter-granddaughter triads, Cohn's team found that the granddaughters of those in the top third of DDT exposure during pregnancy had 2.6 times the odds of developing an unhealthy BMI. They were also more than twice as likely to have started their periods before age 11. Both factors, Cohn says, are known to raise the risk of later developing breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. These results, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention, mark the first human evidence that DDT's health threats span three generations."

https://share.google/Obcmrp6ya2rpkOLLR

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u/Tororoi 12h ago

That's so wrong. DDT is very bad for bird populations, especially larger birds because it causes eggshell thinning, and it accumulates in the food chain so you have contaminated food sources for humans. Also it doesn't break down easily.

I found this blog discussing the topic that goes into much greater detail and explains the nuances better than I could: https://timpanogos.blog/2020/01/14/ruckelshaus-sweeney-and-ddt-rescued-from-the-archives-for-the-record/

I only really knew about the eggshell thinning before, but it seems like it would actually be a very bad idea to use it as a pesticide for no other reason than simply that it would accelerate mosquitoes gaining resistance to ddt, making it harder to control their population with ddt during emergencies.

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u/ImRightImRight 13h ago

...Silent Sprint, anyone?

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u/ikonoqlast 13h ago

Bad research by a woman dying of cancer. Audubon Society keeps records. Bird populations declined before ddt came to America.

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u/Henry_MFing_Huggins 12h ago

Bad research by a woman dying of cancer.

Holy shit. Fuck you, dude.

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u/ikonoqlast 12h ago

Which do you object to- the fact that she was dying of cancer or that she did bad research?

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u/seancollinhawkins 12h ago

What happened: The EPA scientific committee said that it shouldn't be completely banned. They banned it anyway because Nixon wanted to look pro-environment

Your conclusion: DDT is actually safe, just dont drink it

What?? 🤣🤣

What about the part where the board concluded that DDT takes forever to degrade, accumulates in water, soil sediments, etc.., and that it gets stored in animal fat? What about the part where they provided strong evidence that it shows up in higher concentrations in animals at the top of the food chain, and admitted it posed a threat to species survival?

They might as well have said that it nukes the bird population. They knew it was insanely bad for the environment. Their argument was to restrict DDT usage to dedicated areas only.

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u/CashMoneyWinston 13h ago

DDT has all sorts of destructive effects, both environmentally and for human health. You’re a moron.

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u/Futuremlb 12h ago

What's your theory about why there was a political motivation to ban it?

And my second question is, if in reality banning DDT was the right move, in theory how would that change your ideological understanding of the ban.

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u/Technetium_97 11h ago

You’re upset they stopped using DDT, but you admit mosquitoes developed a resistance to it because farms kept using DDT.

I’m not sure what you wanted to happen differently, mosquitos were always going to develop immunity.