Quoting from the latter:
" Malaria is a major, ongoing disease problem in much of the developing world. Increases in the incidence of the disease have occurred for complex reasons. Reduced insecticide usage is one, but others include the resistance to treatment in both the parasite and the mosquito vectors, changes in land use that have provided new mosquito habitat, and the movement of people into new, high-risk areas."
"Most nations where malaria is a problem, and most health professionals working in the field of malaria control, support the targeted use of DDT, as part of the tool kit for malaria control. Most also agree that more cost-effective, less environmentally persistent alternatives are needed. There are some effective alternative chemicals for the control of adult mosquitoes, but preventing their further development is lack of invest ment by industry, because malaria is largely a disease of the poor."
"Malaria is responsible for enormous suffering and death. The facts are readily available in the scientific literature. To blame a reduction in DDT usage for the death of 10-30 million people from malaria is not just simple-minded, it is demonstrably wrong. To blame a mythical, monolithic entity called the environmental lobby for the total reduction in DDT usage is not just paranoid, it is also demonstrably wrong."
Thanks.
Sorry, that letter is BS
"support the targeted use of DDT"
Yeah, except using 'targeted' DDT in africa is like painting the siding on one house in detroit. It's a bigger problem than being politically correct can solve.
There is little reason to use DDT in a limited (the real translation of targeted) way. It is cheap and effective. Refusing to use it because of BS 'environmental concerns' will just kill more people.
But hey, since they're just those pesky "dark people" from africa, who really gives a damn, eh?
Oh yeah, post from a site that hates Lomborg the eco-skeptic, that's the ticket ... apparently, banning DDT was a great environmental activism triumph but had zero impact on actual DDT use ... huh??? Gimme a break...
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
... and ...
http://www.junkscience.com/foxnews/fn120100.htm
The World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Physicians for Social Responsibility and 250 other environmental groups will advocate the insecticide DDT be banned at next week’s United Nations Environment Programme meeting in Johannesburg. The meeting’s aim is a treaty banning or restricting so-called persistent organic chemicals (POPs).
...
The WWF’s chicanery doesn’t end with the science. Publicly, the WWF claims it backed off the demand of a DDT ban by 2007 in favor of regulatory controls. Don’t be fooled.
The would-be controls are so onerous and costly for the third world that they would operate as a de facto ban. Of the 23 countries using DDT, only 9 countries so far asked for exemptions under the impending treaty. The others either have stockpiled DDT in advance or have been scared off by the burdensome regulatory scheme, according to Roger Bate of FightingMalaria.org.
Donor agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development have pressured Belize, Bolivia and Mozambique not to use DDT — or risk losing their aid money, adds Bate.
The AID’s blackmail is eerily similar to its 1970s view that the failure of the Global Malaria Eradication Program (1956-1969) was a blessing in disguise. “Better off dead than riotously reproducing,” an AID official said.