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.
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