Posted on 08/27/2006 6:44:50 AM PDT by mathprof
Men in blue coveralls and white surgical masks began their annual trek into the countryside here last week. Methodically, they sprayed one home after another with a chemical most Americans probably thought disappeared from use long ago: DDT.
As villagers looked on, the workers doused inside and outside walls with a fine mist. It is a yearly effort to repel and kill mosquitoes that carry malaria - a disease that kills more than a million people a year, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Advertisement This small kingdom near South Africa is one of a handful of countries still using the pesticide, banned in the United States in 1972 because of its toxic effect on eagles and other wildlife.
But now DDT is poised for expansion in the developing world.
The influential World Health Organization plans to promote DDT as a cheap and effective tool against malaria. And the U.S. government has boosted its budget for malarial insecticide spraying in Africa twenty-fold, to $20 million next year.
The new push for household spraying reflects a growing belief in some quarters that significant progress on malaria will require a third major front, alongside insecticide-treated bed nets and novel anti-malarial drugs.
No one proposes a return to the widespread agricultural use that severely harmed ecosystems in the United States and Europe decades ago. The results of such spraying were famously depicted in Rachel Carson's landmark 1962 book Silent Spring, which launched the modern environmental movement.
Advocates of household spraying say the comparatively minute amounts used in homes pose no known dangers. Any potential risk, they say, is far outweighed by DDT's potency against malaria, as was seen in the late 1940s and '50s when it helped eradicate the disease in the United States and other industrialized nations.
But environmental groups...
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
'I'm no infectious disease specialist
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Well, I'm board-certified,and I assure you that DDT is essential to combat malaria.
It will also eliminate West Nile, EEE, and a variety of other undesireables.
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Timely, pertinent and excellent post. Thank you! FR is blessed to have people like you among its readership and contributors.
I just finished the excellent book by David McCullough...." Path Between the Seas", about the building of the Panama Canal. We got rid of the malaria there by other ingenious means. No DDT was used, as it wasn't yet invented.
They simply, by hard work, got rid of the mosquitos.
"Mosquito resistance against DDT
In some areas DDT has lost much of its effectiveness, especially in areas such as India where outdoor transmission is the predominant form. According to V.P. Sharma, "The declining effectiveness of DDT is a result of several factors which frequently operate in tandem. The first and the most important factor is vector resistance to DDT. All populations of the main vector, An. culicifacies have become resistant to DDT."
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Wikipedia is highly controversial and highly suspect because for a long time, anyone, like YOU for example, could edit each and every entry thereby inserting their own biases and disinformation. Of course, I'm sure you wouldn't insert disinformation, now would you?
You should have told her:
"Think Globally - Act Locally - Off Yourself"
"But am I correct to suspect that the vector of these diseases will,over time,develop a resistance to the DDT thus putting the people of various tropical regions right back where they started?"
Your question pre-supposes that some individuals will survive, develop limited or total immunity and pass it on genetically. I don't believe that any individuals, in significant numbers, survive. Hence, no passing on of survivability genes.
"I bought into it too.And pelicans supposedly are more numerous post-ban. Even my parents & other old-timers have said so & none of them are environmentalist wackos. Would you let me know if you find out anything, would you?I'd like to know the story on this as well."
The environmental wackos assured us that the Alaskan pipeline was the death knell of the caribou population. That population has exploded and they like hanging out next to the pipeline since it provides a source of warmth. That probably makes them more amorous, hence more caribou.
It's a naturally occuring bacteria that occurs in several variants - one form (var. kurstaki) kills worms, grubs, etc - often used by gardeners on squash vine borers, but also genetically engineered into corn to control cutworms, etc.
The israelensis form is quite useful for killing mosquitoes, gnats and other Diptera species. It's sold as "Mosquito Dunks," for ponds, birdbaths, etc. They're basically little floating donuts of mosquito death.
I personally favor a broader-spectrum approach - there are many chemicals that kill mosquitoes quite nicely (in addition to the BT mentioned above), like malathion, pyrethroids, etc. Bed nets impregnated with these alternatives are effective in limiting the spread as well.
SW
This is categorically untrue, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which revolves around the reproductive cycle of a mosquito (2-3 weeks) versus that of a human being (~20 years).
Secondly, there are tons of observed instances of DDT resistance in mosquitoes. Sri Lanka, for one, is teeming with DDT resistant skeeters.
Vietnam stopped using DDT in 1991, yet their malaria rates plummeted. Why? Mosquito nets, distribution of anti-malarial drugs, and education (gasp!). They managed to reduce the death rate from malaria by 97% in six years, and the infection rate went down by 59%.
SW
Ping, for your archives.
Thanks! ^
Does DDT kill only mosquitos? What other insects does it kill?
I have a nice swamp beside my house I'd like to erradicate.
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