Posted on 06/28/2002 6:48:59 AM PDT by SJackson
According to Richard Tren, chairman of Africa Fighting Malaria, "The use of small amounts of DDT means the difference between life and death for thousands of people in the developing world every day." In recent decades, new or recurrent malaria epidemics in Swaziland, Madagascar and South Africa have abated, primarily through the agency of this powerful insecticide.
Malaria currently kills more than 2 million people every year, many of them children. Scientists estimate one child in Africa dies from malaria every twenty seconds. This toll is hard to imagine.
Death by malaria can be reduced and even eliminated by the simple strategy of periodically spraying small amounts of DDT on the inside walls of bedrooms to repel and kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The World Health Organization has published reports that "have consistently and accurately characterized DDT-sprayed houses as the most cost effective and safe approach to malaria control," writes Dr. Donald R. Roberts, professor, Department of Preventive Medicine/Biometrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in the July 22, 2000 issue of the medical journal Lancet. In spite of its own findings, however, WHO has moved away from this very effective tactic.
Which leads us to the bad news. The scientific advances on the safe and effective deployment of DDT are being ignored, or denied, by some Western philanthropists and government agencies who offer grants to foreign public health officials on the condition they NEVER make use of DDT.
Why this fear of DDT? Ironically, DDT's past successes may have seeded its current crop of problems. About fifty years ago, DDT was shown to be safe for human beings and highly toxic to insects. This led to indiscriminate spraying from crop-duster airplanes to control agricultural pests, in addition to malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Subsequently, DDT was blamed for thinning wild bird eggshells. In actuality Rachel Carson's often quoted erroneous claim that DDT in the natural environment directly caused shell thinning was later disproved. However, another effect from the heavy use of DDT was reduced local bug populations, which might have secondarily impaired the food supply, nutrition and reproduction of bug-eating birds.
Resulting worries about the harm to the environment, especially to birds, led to the EPA decision in 1972 to ban DDT in the United States. Other nations followed suit - and malaria epidemics recurred. Although the disease kills over 2 million people every year, most of them children in Africa, it's uncommon in the USA.
So what is malaria? This debilitating disease is caused by a parasite that is passed to human beings by certain types of mosquitoes. By controlling the mosquitoes bearing the disease, DDT prevented more than 500 million premature deaths before it was banned in the 1970s according to the National Academy of Sciences. After testing and re-testing, DDT was found to have very few side effects and complications in human beings.
Spraying tons of DDT on crops from airplanes is not comparable to controlled spraying inside the bedroom walls of homes. The quantities and concentration are very different, and so are the effects. After use of DDT for over half a century, "Claims of risks of DDT to human health and the environment have not been confirmed by replicated scientific inquiry," according to Dr. Roberts.
Birds don't die from DDT - and people never did. But millions of people are dying of malaria because of the illogical superstition against its use. Many public health officials and scientists are stepping forward to right this injustice. Dr. Roberts reports that a letter "signed by over 380 scientists, including three Nobel laureates in medicine, representing 57 countries, supports continued use of DDT and residual spraying of houses for malaria control."
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., of Newport Beach, Calif., writes on medical, legal, disability and mental health reform. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., of Aberdeen, Wash., is president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists who write numerous commentaries and articles for newspapers, newsletters, magazines and journals nationally and internationally.
Sentiments exactly! The reason why the grain shipped here in this country and around the world is/was infested and deteriorated. What normally took one fumigation now takes 3 and 4 in order to store grain for one year and the fumigant is made by those big chemical companies. I'll send you a sample of grain that has been stored less than a year and fumigated 4xs. We are the middleman and (to be polite) taking it from all sides.
Time to stockpile I guess. I only wish I was old enough to stockpile DDT in 1972.
With West Nile Virus spreading in the Northeast it's time to start using DDT again.
Big chemical/drug co. patent and "no money in it" issues similiar to unavailability of proven useful cheap safe antibiotics like sulfa.The same people run both sides.
Can no longer buy anything which kills scorpions around basement perimeter.I'd pay $100 for a gallon of 1950's DDT!
More incestuous paternalistic big gov't/industry control nonsense.Almost enough to make one a libertarian.
It is already here in New England, though it is rare.
This disproof is news to me. Anyone have any info on this?
Check out JunkScience.com for their DDT FAQs
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