How Environmentalists Kill Millions Of People - Banning DDT - A Great Example
- 2 years ago
DDT: Banned Lifesaver
Death from malaria means convulsions and delirium, retching and diarrhea, joint and abdominal pain so excruciating that coma can be a blessing. The parasitic infection destroys the bodys red blood cells and clogs its capillaries, depriving vital organs and the brain of blood. That malaria strikes some 300 million people annuallyand kills an African child every 30 secondsis all the more tragic given how preventable it is. But modern environmental ideology simply doesnt permit the use of DDT, the most effective means of eradicating the ghastly disease.
Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) certainly ranks among the most senselessly demonized synthetic compounds. Despite decades of research vindicating the insecticide, the World Health Organization recently announced plans for a zero DDT world, i.e., the total phase-out of the chemical during the next decade. Instead, the agency, in conjunction with the UN Environmental Program, will spend $40 million to test non-chemical (read less successful) methods of malaria control.
Only three years ago, WHO had endorsed its widespread use, declaring that DDT presents no health risk when used properly and Spraying is like providing a huge mosquito net over an entire household for around-the-clock protection. The agencys sanction in 2006 came 30 years after it renounced DDT amid unsubstantiated claims of environmental risks.
Such policy yo-yo frustrates those on the front-lines of the malaria fight who see special interest politics, not science, driving public health policy. Indeed, groups who prosper by collecting contributions for bed nets and other less effective prevention methods are among the most virulent critics of DDT.
As Roger Bate, of Africa Fighting Malaria, recently told the Wall Street Journal: Sadly, WHOs about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists. Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don't benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes.
It was not always so. Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded a Nobel Prize for his formulation of DDT in 1939. Thereafter, it became the premiere weapon in defeating malaria across North America, Southeast Asia and a chunk of Europe, freeing a billion people from the miseries of infection.
However, full-scale eradication efforts were never mounted in Africa, where 90% of malaria deaths now occurmost among children under age five.
Widespread agricultural application of DDT captured the attention of naturalist Rachel Carson and others, who claimed the chemical was destroying wildlife and causing cancer in humans. In fact, a great deal of Carsons conclusions about human health and the environment were patently wrong, more the product of her imagination than proper scientific research.
Death from malaria means convulsions and delirium, retching and diarrhea, joint and abdominal pain so excruciating that coma can be a blessing. The parasitic infection destroys the bodys red blood cells and clogs its capillaries, depriving vital organs and the brain of blood. That malaria strikes some 300 million people annuallyand kills an African child every 30 secondsis all the more tragic given how preventable it is. But modern environmental ideology simply doesnt permit the use of DDT, the most effective means of eradicating the ghastly disease.
Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) certainly ranks among the most senselessly demonized synthetic compounds. Despite decades of research vindicating the insecticide, the World Health Organization recently announced plans for a zero DDT world, i.e., the total phase-out of the chemical during the next decade. Instead, the agency, in conjunction with the UN Environmental Program, will spend $40 million to test non-chemical (read less successful) methods of malaria control.
Only three years ago, WHO had endorsed its widespread use, declaring that DDT presents no health risk when used properly and Spraying is like providing a huge mosquito net over an entire household for around-the-clock protection. The agencys sanction in 2006 came 30 years after it renounced DDT amid unsubstantiated claims of environmental risks.
Such policy yo-yo frustrates those on the front-lines of the malaria fight who see special interest politics, not science, driving public health policy. Indeed, groups who prosper by collecting contributions for bed nets and other less effective prevention methods are among the most virulent critics of DDT.
As Roger Bate, of Africa Fighting Malaria, recently told the Wall Street Journal: Sadly, WHOs about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists. Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don't benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes.
It was not always so. Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded a Nobel Prize for his formulation of DDT in 1939. Thereafter, it became the premiere weapon in defeating malaria across North America, Southeast Asia and a chunk of Europe, freeing a billion people from the miseries of infection.
However, full-scale eradication efforts were never mounted in Africa, where 90% of malaria deaths now occurmost among children under age five.
Widespread agricultural application of DDT captured the attention of naturalist Rachel Carson and others, who claimed the chemical was destroying wildlife and causing cancer in humans. In fact, a great deal of Carsons conclusions about human health and the environment were patently wrong, more the product of her imagination than proper scientific research.