Eradicate Malaria? Doubters Fuel Debate

NY Times ^ | March 4, 2008 | DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

[neverdem]

Last year, challenging global health orthodoxy, Bill and Melinda Gates called for the eradication of malaria.

That is, for exterminating the parasite everywhere and forever, except perhaps in laboratory storage, as has thus far happened to just one disease in history, smallpox.

Their call, delivered at a malaria conference that they had convened in Seattle, was, in Mrs. Gates’s language, “audacious.” Her husband went further, asking, “Why would anyone want to follow a long line of failures by becoming the umpteenth person to declare the goal of eradicating malaria?”

To many public health leaders, that remains a good question. While some, including the heads of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the President’s Malaria Initiative, have lauded the Gateses’ call as inspirational, others call it noble but quixotic, because the tools to eradicate malaria do not yet exist. A few, including the combative chief of malaria for the World Health Organization, have even argued that it could do harm.

Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the W.H.O., backed the call, telling the audience from the dais in Seattle, “I dare you to come along with us.”

Last month on his swing through Africa, President Bush implicitly endorsed the idea without mentioning the Gateses, saying the United States would lead the eradication effort.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $1.2 billion to fight malaria, which is thought to cause as many as 500 million infections a year in 107 countries, a million of them fatal.

Virtually no experts expect it to be eradicated in the lifetimes of the Gateses or the Bushes. Dr. Regina Rabinovich, the foundation’s head of infectious disease, said the Gateses knew it was a long-term undertaking, not possible without more money, better health systems and probably a vaccine, which is still...

[neverdem]

(oversize)Map A Persistent Disease

[jas3]

"...the tools to eradicate malaria do not yet exist..."

Earth to New York Times....DDT was discovered to be a great way of destroying mosquitos in 1939. And where it was used effectively, there is now no malaria. Duh.

jas3

[Brad from Tennessee]

I’m glad to see the Gates set out on this quest. What they will discover is that DDT could have eliminated most malaria decades ago. That the UN withheld aid from any country that used DDT. And that politically correct junk science kills more people than any wars.

[eyedigress]

The Moonbats think the abolishment of DDT was a good thing, yet they don’t know why. I got into this discussion with a head at my company and her retort was “Do you care about Africans?”. The conversation was over.

[JasonC]

The truth is the green lobby simply doesn't want to eradicate malaria. Their idea of a global plague is "humanity", instead.

[neverdem]

Men Have A Harder Time Forgiving Than Women Do

Clinic That May Have Infected 40,000 With HIV, Hepatitis Closed

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[upchuck]

because the tools to eradicate malaria do not yet exist.

Yes it does and it has proved to be very effective. It's called DDT.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $1.2 billion to fight malaria...

Cudda saved y'all a bunch of that by using DDT.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Sad fact is that Rachel Carson, with her anti-DDT hoax, may have killed as many people as Pol Pot did

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

* "A committee of the National Academy of Sciences wrote in 1970, "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT... Indeed, it is estimated that, in little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria that would otherwise have been inevitable."

* "DDT was not banned because there was evidence it harmed wildlife or humans. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency administrative law judge who listened to 9,000 pages of testimony over seven months concluded, ""DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."

* "Despite the findings of the EPA judge, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. His aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckleshaus was a member and fundraiser for the Environmental Defense Fund -- a group who -- according to a deposition in a federal lawsuit -- conspired to discredit the scientists who defended DDT.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE: Junk Science of the Century: The DDT ban By Steven Milloy

http://www.junkscience.com/jan00/century.htm

[Gamecock]

I just got back from a couple weeks in Liberia. The locals told me that every Liberian will contract malaria during their lifetime. One was shocked that we don't have malaria in the South, even though we have mosquitoes.

I’m taking my prophylaxis as ordered.

[RU88]

The audacity of DDT.

[Rummyfan]

Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the W.H.O., backed the call, telling the audience from the dais in Seattle, “I dare you to come along with us.”

It's easy - start using DDT again!!!!

[Robert A Cook PE]

Sad fact is that Rachel Carson, with her anti-DDT hoax, may have killed as many people as Pol Pot did

Rachael Carson (and her inspired ilk) killed many more. Many times many more.

Pol Pot “only” killed some 3 million Cambodians.
Hitler’s holocaust directly some 6 million Jews, another 6 million in the war.
Stalin’s starvation, purges and slave gulags harvested 12-18 million.
Mao killed 18-30 million (directly).
Abortion has killed (about) 43 million taxpayers from 1973.
Malaria has infected (shortened lives) of some 500 million now?

[iopscusa]

CVV thanks for that DDT refresher and the link to Junk Science...as for Bill Gates, just because he’s rich doesn’t mean he’s not a fool...someone should stand up and ask these Lfeties why not use DDT?

[xzins]

I’m betting those little bloodsuckers are all liberals, socialists, and democrats.

[iopscusa]

To answer my DDT question: Uganda Fighting Back, Until now, Uganda has bowed to outside pressure, but Health Minister Jim Muhwezi is determined to use DDT. Speaking at a World Malaria Day commemoration in April 2005, Muhwezi noted, “DDT has been proven, over and over again, to be the most effective and least expensive method of fighting malaria.”
Many countries with a high incidence of malaria rely on international aid to fund their malaria-control programs and thus are forced to adopt policies that aid agencies and the European Union prefer.
Don Roberts, professor of Tropical Public Health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, noted “there is overwhelming evidence that malarious countries are being pressed by rich countries not to use DDT. It is a chilling thought that rich and powerful countries are willing to trade the lives of poor rural people for reasons that have no basis in science.”
“The aggressive European opposition to DDT use in Africa is a disaster,” said Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. “For all the time they spend talking about assisting Africa, European governments do far more harm than good.
“As Ugandan Health Minister Muhwezi points out, the best thing Europe can do for Africa is stop arm-twisting them into foregoing the use of DDT,” said Burnett. “Do Europeans care about African lives? If they do, they must turn their backs on the politically correct rhetoric of environmental activist groups and allow DDT to start saving lives. European Greens are killing innocent Africans.”
Paul Driessen (pdriessen@eco-imperialism.com) is a senior fellow with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Ah, people with too much money and too little knowledge in how to handle said same money. Reminds me of Henry Ford and his “Peace Ship”. LOL, what a waste..........

[Squantos]

When active duty I seem to remember the doc giving us a small parasite / tape work etc that prevented malaria as we were going to places where meds were not available etc etc ....

Ever hear of such as I can not remember what the critter was called. I named him Bob . When we got back the doc gave us some horse pill to kill him vs having to have to coach him out with a cookie and shooting him with a 45.

Allegedly a alternative for the quinine (sp?) meds ?!?!?

[LadyDoc]

no, they can’t eradicate it entirely...few disease can be eradicated.

But you can stop kids dying from it...and every life saved is a blessing.

[LadyDoc]

Hope the pill keeps you from getting Malaria...when I worked there, I came down with a mild case even though I took the pill...due to resistance to the medicine.