Posted on 07/04/2007 1:11:29 PM PDT by Coleus
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Though Africa's sad experience with colonialism ended in the 1960s, a lethal vestige remains: malaria. It is the biggest killer of Ugandan and all African children. Yet it remains preventable and curable. Last week in Germany, G-8 leaders committed new resources to the fight against the mosquito-borne disease and promised to use every available tool.
Now they must honor this promise by supporting African independence in the realm of disease control. We must be able to use Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane -- DDT.
The United States and Europe eradicated malaria by 1960, with the use of DDT. At the time, Uganda tested the pesticide in the Kanungu district and reduced malaria by 98%. Despite this success, we lacked the resources to sustain the program. Rather than partner with us to improve our public health infrastructure, however, foreign donors blanched. They used Africa's lack of infrastructure to justify not investing in it.
Today, every single Ugandan still remains at risk. Over 10 million Ugandans are infected each year, and up to 100,000 of our mothers and children die from the disease. Recently Ugandan country music star Job Paul Kafeero died of the disease, a reminder that no one is beyond its reach. Yet, many still argue that Africa's poor infrastructure makes indoor spraying too costly and complex a means of fighting malaria.
Uganda is one of a growing number of African countries proving these people wrong. In 2006, Uganda worked with President George Bush's Malaria Initiative to train 350 spray operators, supervisors and health officials. In August 2006 and again in February 2007, we covered 100,000 households in the southern Kabale district with the insecticide Icon. Nearly everyone welcomed this protection. The prevalence of the malaria parasite dropped. Today, just 3% of the local population carries the disease, down from 30%.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
You’da thought Idi Amin woulda done sometin about it.
I’m all for using DDT, but the claim the somehow malaria is a vestige of colonialism is bizarre.
All Hail RACHEL! Carson, Carson, Carson !!!
Colonialism has nothing to do with this, that’s absurd. Unsanitary, third world living conditions and piss poor health care are to blame. Malaria is very treatable with sulfamethoxazole or other sulfa drugs.
I was confused about that too. However, I came to the conclusion that the author was referring to the decision by the "colonial" powers to BAN DDT, thereby consigning Africa to deal with the scourge on their own.
It's the flip side of NIMBY. I've got one in my back yard, but can't have one in yours.
DDT, PCB’s and Dioxin are all very similar chemically and are extremely toxic and carcinogenic. As if these people don’t have enough health issues (most of their own making), introducing deadly chemicals into their environment is the last thing they need at this point.
Very interesting article in this months National Geographic re malaria and DDT.
Agreed. Neither is it curable. It IS highly preventable and at low cost using small amounts of DDT. That said, countries CHOOSE which pesticides they allow to be sold, so its just NOT the case that the return of malaria is a consequence of colonialism. What is the case is that this waste of skin is looking for a way to blame others for what he and his fellows have done.
Why don’t you go live there?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. DDT is not extremely toxic to humans, nor is it a proven carcinerogen. Historically it was used as a treatment for barbiturate poisoning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health
Source?
Inventories are probably long gone now tho'...
Maybe the dumbest post I've ever read on this forum.
DDT is not Dioxin, and no one is suggesting the use of Dioxin.
The whole jihad against DDT was based on bad science and myths -- like most of the political environmentalism that became fashionable in the last century.
If these African countries want DDT,why don’t they just manufacture their own?Or are they waiting for us to just give them some?
When I was four and just learning to read, along with driving my parents nuts by pronouncing everything literally the way it was spelled, I began to commit certain words to memory; “acknowledgement” was the very first just because it was on the first page of every book I ever read.
The acronym, DDT (along with the word “acronym”) became members of the first ten.
Diphenyl-dichloro-trichlorethane, I repeated over and over to myself as I fell asleep, determined to remember it forever because it had such a melodic sound to it.
Twenty-eight years later, the product was banned and I had filled up my child’s mind with all the words it could hold.
Then I was busy trying to raise a child of my own and make sure he didn’t embarrass himself in public by shouting Ply-Mouth everytime an ugly car went by; he must be taught to say plim-uth or he would be like me and out of place.
He shunned words as his sister behind him ignores them and neither cares as much about the things that once caught my mind before them and all the while I watch the parade go past my door and wonder whether I should have spent more time building floats or sweeping empty streets.
Probably.
The UN has ensured no Aftican country except for South Afica is at all willing to admit they are sovereign. SO they want drugs or money from the evil, rich West, which is not doing enough to keep all the tyrannical regimes afloat by throwing money at the latest fashion in humanitarion problems. Example: how many Christans were left in Darfur before George Clooney noticed there was a problem? Why did Bill Clinton and George Clooney not care while the massacre was going on? And WHY do we have to help NOW, now that the Muslims butchered ALL OF THE CHRISTIANS??
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read here in years.
DDT has never been proved toxic; PCBs are excellent thermal coolants and were never intended to be body paint; Dioxins is a whole class of daughter products (mostly stemming from some form of chlorine, bromine or iodine) that are not understood well by anyone but have become universally feared because the fearful run the scare brigade.
Post 19 from Farmer Dean is spot on.
Why does not one manufacturing company in Africa make it?
It there a western embargo on any of the raw materials necessary for it. Also, once it is made how does it get to the places where it is needed. There may also be a problem with logistics.
My college toxicology textbook
I never said it was, read my post again.
That says all you need to know; if they actually teach lies and half-truths now, you would be better off apprenticing yourself to a modern-day Gepetto.
Assuming your memory is accurate, please transcribe the pertinent paragraphs supporting your earlier statement.
Rachel Carson ranks right up there with Margaret Sanger, Hitler, Stalin and Mao in terms of deathtoll.
That's a hot one. What box of Cracker Jacks did you pull that ''science'' from?
You sound like just another junk science wannabee do-gooder, who, not incidentally, is thoroughly racist. The loss of DDT as a pesticide has killed more Africans than any TWO other causes, and by at least 1 order of magnitude.
No problem for you, eh?
No one else brought up Dioxin, except for you. DDT is not anywhere near as toxic or carcinogenic as Dioxin.
Toluene to Saddam disguised as "insecticide" (and it DOES kill insects, and humans and anything else living) or DDT to African countries outright. Choices, choices, huh?
Come to that, why don't African countries build their own DDT plants? Muslims murdered all the educated people? (rhetorical question)
They don’t call it Darkest Africa because the sun doesn’t shine there.It’s the spiritual vacuum,moral depravity,corruption,debasement of human life,willful ignorance,the list goes on and on.
Read first then post.
In another study, humans voluntarily ingested 35 mg of DDT daily for about two years, and were then tracked for several years afterward. Although there was “suggestive evidence of adverse liver effects”, no other adverse effects were observed.[33
—
The DDT scare is just like the global warming scare. Remember we were all going to die at the millenium too.
Ohh there’s plenty of spiritualism there, as long as you bow to Allah. What I would like to know is why the “west” doesn’t give a crap until years after all the Christians have been horribly butchered?
To another point, the claims that DDT is toxic and carcinogenic have never been proved, the Carson claims remain unsubstantiated.
Right. Had DDT been in use since the early 70's over thirty million people wouldn't have unnecessarily died and a hundred million suffered from malaria.
DDT is of tremendous value. That it became a doomsday issue or even controversially issue was unnecessary. It created a big deadly problem. A complete waste of time, energy, capital, human resources and human life.
Imagine all that waste instead focused on solving real problems. Same thing for the anthropic global warming hoax. Not just unnecessary but thoroughly counterproductive.
No such thing as a spiritual vacuum. It always get filled. The rest of your post shows with what.
Because the liberals in power hate Christians and are glad to see them killed anywhere in the world?
DDT, asbestos, global wasming? More of the leftist misuse of science!
I’m old enough to remember when the problem was supposed to be global cooling. Anthropogenic global warming is a scam.
That is absolute nonsense and you should know better than to post a lie such as that here in FR! DDT has nothing hazardous in common with PCB's and Dioxins and was used extensively during the 50's and 60's throughout the United States with absolutely no deleterious effect on humans whatsoever. In fact there are many FReepers still alive and on site who remember the days in their respective east coast communities when the "mosquito trucks" would drive thru their neighborhoods spraying DDT to kill the damn things.
The banning of DDT was the worst thing to ever happen to 3rd world countries and it was based on distorted facts and out and out lies. In fact I would go so far as to say that the banning of DDT was the beginning of the Enrovironmental Waco movement based on junk science!
If you want the truth about DDT then go to Junkscience.com or to the following article from the American Spectator:
Well shucks, given the state of most of the African communities these days, they don't even have the ability to maintain their water treatment plants let alone feed themselves so the construction of plants capable of manufacturing DDT is kinda on the back burner at this time........Most of these people are just trying to figure out how to stay alive!.........Sheesh!
So to answer your question, yea, lets give it to them.
I used to work at a company that bought toluene in 5 gallon cans, four at a time, and used it as a paint thinner. I must have inhaled ten gallons of vapors from spray painting with it. That was twenty years ago and I still have a pulse.
Happy Independence Day!
The "mosquito trucks" drove through my street weekly when I lived in Honolulu, HI from 1960-1962. I often played in the "fog" that was sprayed.
That is largely the fault of the criminals in their society. They had good water systems before the thieves ripped them out to sell the plumbing to scrap metal dealers. Dumb as a sack of hammers.
Farmer Dean, We have us a winner.
You can send down the DDT in guilded buckets too.
You understand the folly of Solar Panels.
There is no hotter commodity on the black market than solar panels.
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