Are Some People Mosquito Magnets?

ragnar30066---You are an idiot. You lack any amount of good sense or basis of fact for your argument. Please go spread your propaganda with the cirlce of jerks you hang out with instead of publicly posting where people actually spend 2 minutes looking up information to discredit you.
For anyone interested in a fact based analysis of DDT use, politics and Malaria please go to the following website: http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm. For those who do not want to take the time, the following is an excerpt with solid factual information on the relation between DDT (or lack thereof) and the resurgence of Malaria:

"Incredible as it might seem, while public health officials were cautiously limiting the usage of DDT, it was being used in increasing amounts in agriculture, especially on cotton, a cash crop (Chapin & Wasserstrom). This heavy use led to resistance among malaria carrying mosquitoes throughout the tropics. In this instance, the unwise use of DDT, rather than improving life, actually resulted in a resurgence of malaria. According to Chapin & Wasserstrom (page 183) "Correlating the use of DDT in El Salvador with renewed malaria transmission, it can be estimated that at current rates each kilo of insecticide added to the environment will generate 105 new cases of malaria."

Not surprisingly, anti-environmentalists ignore or downplay the importance of insect resistance. There is no mention of the problem in Trashing the Planet, Eco-Sanity or Facts not Fear. Toxic Terror, which has a twenty six page chapter on "The DDT Debate", devotes just one paragraph to the issue. There is no mention of the impact of DDT resistance on the war against malaria.

There were a number of other problems in addition to insect resistance to DDT and other insecticides. The heavy use of anti-malaria drugs started to produce microbes resistant to them. Non insecticide control measures that had greatly reduced the presence of malaria in many areas were discontinued when DDT arrived (Chapin & Wasserstrom). There was a chronic lack of funds. Many countries had to abandon their control efforts, or they diverted funds to other areas when the number of cases of malaria had been reduced to a low level."

You are welcome.....
Love and Kisses---Flattoe

Did you know that if McCain is elected you will have to pay income tax on the value of the medical insurance that your employer gives you? Worse still, he is offering a tax break for people who pay their own insurance, BUT only $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families.

Let's say you have a family of four. Your insurance policy costs would be at least $1,500-2,500 per month under a self-pay plan, which cost more than employer group plans. So, you pay $18,000 -$30,000 per year for insurance, and you get to deduct only $5,000 of that. If you paid $25,000 for you insurance, you would be out of pocket $20,000 per year. This is FAR WORSE than the current system, where if you are self employed you can deduct 100% of you medical insurance costs.

So, if you're not self employed, you would stick with your Employer's plan. Employer plans for a family of four have a value of $900-$1,500 per month totaling 10,800-$18,000 per year. Surprise! On April 15th, you owe tax on all of that as INCOME to you. Say your bracket is 25%, and the value of your Employer medical plan is $14,000. You will OWE THE IRS an additional $3,500, and that's ON TOP of whatever monthly premium you already pay to your employer for your insurance.

Many analysts say that McCain's new rules would encourage employers to stop offering health benefits. If that happened, then far fewer Americans would be insured than are insured today, because what family of four can afford $18,000-$30,000 out of pocket per year for self-pay health insurance?

Furthermore, McCain's plan does not require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions of people who self-pay their insurance. People under employer group plans have all of their pre-existing conditions covered. This is a hugely unfair aspect of the current system. Insurance companies can afford to cover the pre-existing conditions of the much larger pool of people with group insurance, but they refuse to pay the pre-existing conditions on the smaller pool of self-pay customers. They have been allowed to price gouge the self-pay customers, which is a form of market manipulation that should be illegal.

So let's say one of your kids had diabetes and you have high blood pressure, then your employer stops offering insurance. You now have to buy your own, but you and your child are INELIGIBLE due to pre-existing conditions. Oh, yeah, they will let you buy the insurance, but you can't use it for any pre-existing condition until you have paid on time every month for two years. And you know what happens at one year and 11 months? You get a letter saying your policy has been cancelled. I have many patients this has happened to.

McCain's plan SUCKS.

It does nothing to help middle class working Americans afford or obtain medical insurance. In fact, it makes the current system WORSE.

Thank you, Flattoe, for providing that valuable information. I work in an admininstrative capacity for an office of the EPA, and trust me, these dedicated individuals have more to do than dream up and submit recommendations for Congress to regulate substances without any factual basis. It doesn't work that way. DDT is very toxic...killing birds, insects, fish, getting into our streams, rivers and lakes--basically, the food chain of our very existence. Rachael Carson brought this to light. When are we going to wake up and stop "messing" in our nest for the sake of convenience? Some of this stuff can't be fixed!
(As a side note on mosquitoes: I got an email that indicated listerine works as a good mosquito repellent...used in a spray bottle, you can spray it around your entryways to keep them out of the house as well.)