Uganda allowed to spray DDT

[Unicorn]

"THE World Health Organisation and the European Union have allowed Uganda to spray the DDT chemical, the water and environment minister has said.

Ali Mambule reports that Maria Mutagamba said the Government would use the chemical, to kill mosquitoes that spread malaria.

The union had expressed reservations about the safety of Uganda’s agricultural products due to the spraying of the chemical, which was piloted in Apac and Oyam districts.

“You should now have no fear about the use of DDT concerning the market for our products,” Mutagamba said in Masaka town on Tuesday.

The minister, who was closing a seminar on the National Agricultural Advisory Services at Hotel Brovad, wondered why Ugandans feared the effects of DDT when they consumed products from countries where the chemical was used."

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/19/638374

Good news. In my opinion enviromentalist opponents of DDT disregard the value of human life. It can save millions of lives.

[superiority]

"Environmentalist opponents of DDT"? I think you may have been taken in, Unicorn. What exactly do you mean by that phrase?

[Unicorn]

I think you may have been taken in, Unicorn. What exactly do you mean by that phrase?
Restrictions on DDT use have led to unnecessary deaths due to malaria.

[Vanguard1917]

"THE World Health Organisation and the European Union have allowed Uganda to spray the DDT chemical, the water and environment minister has said."

That sentence says it all. Especially the word 'allowed'. I.e. EU bureaucrats dictating to African nations what their policy on DDT should be.

The West enforcing its anti-DDT environmentalist prejudices onto the malaria-stricken countries of the developing world was one of the greatest imperialist crimes of the 20th century. The imperialists now retreat and even admit that they were utterly wrong; scientific opinion is that controlled spraying of DDT is not dangerous to the environment but is key to fighting malaria. Nonetheless, it shows us the despicable consequences of an ideology which puts the supposed interests of 'nature' before the interests of people.


"Environmentalist opponents of DDT"? I think you may have been taken in, Unicorn. What exactly do you mean by that phrase?

He probably means the environmentalists who got DDT banned and were directly responsible for the death and illness of millions of some of the world's poorest people.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Good news. didn't they even ban the spraying of DDT on the walls of buildings? Regardless of how damaging to environment DDT actually is, that's a restriction of monumental stupidity - artificial buildings are about as far from any natural environment as one can get.

[superiority]

Restrictions on DDT use have led to unnecessary deaths due to malaria.


He probably means the environmentalists who got DDT banned and were directly responsible for the death and illness of millions of some of the world's poorest people.


didn't they even ban the spraying of DDT on the walls of buildings? Regardless of how damaging to environment DDT actually is, that's a restriction of monumental stupidity - artificial buildings are about as far from any natural environment as one can get.

wtf are you people talking about. none of this is even remotely correct

[RedAnarchist]

wtf are you people talking about. none of this is even remotely correct

Could you back that up with some sources?

[apathy maybe]

You know that when DDT use was wide-spread and common, when it was sprayed ever where and anywhere, mosquitos built up a resistance to it and it became much less effective at controlling them. And thus malaria.

Not to mention, that as DDT built up in the natural environment it started to accumulate in said natural environment, screwing with birds, fishes etc.


Along with the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the US ban on DDT is cited by scientists as a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle in the contiguous US.[7]

DDT is a persistent organic pollutant with a half life of 2-15 years, and is immobile in most soils. Its half life is 56 days in lake water and approximately 28 days in river water. Routes of loss and degradation include runoff, volatilization, photolysis and biodegradation (aerobic and anaerobic). These processes generally occur slowly. Breakdown products in the soil environment are DDE (1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-dichlorodiphenyl)ethylene) and DDD (1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane), which are also highly persistent and have similar chemical and physical properties.[33] These products together are known as "total DDT". DDT and its breakdown products are transported from warmer regions of the world to the Arctic by the phenomenon of global distillation, where they then accumulate in the region's food web.[34]

DDT is a toxicant across a certain range of phyla. In particular, DDT is a major reason for the decline of the bald eagle in the 1950s and 1960s[37][7] as well as the brown pelican[38] and the peregrine falcon. DDT and its breakdown products are toxic to embryos and can disrupt calcium absorption, thereby impairing eggshell quality.[39]

DDT is also highly toxic to aquatic life, including crayfish, daphnids, sea shrimp and many species of fish. DDT may be moderately toxic to some amphibian species, especially in the larval stages. In addition to acute toxic effects, DDT may bioaccumulate significantly in fish and other aquatic species, leading to long-term exposure to high concentrations.

Indeed, the problems facing health officials in their fight against malaria neither begin nor end with DDT. Experts tie the spread of malaria to numerous factors, including a chronic lack of funds in the countries worst hit by malaria, and the resistance of the malaria parasite itself to the drugs traditionally used to treat the illness.[81] According to Richard Tren, "Malaria surged through Africa in the 1990s, fueled by resistance to chloroquine and other historically effective drugs."[82]

Although the publication of Silent Spring undoubtedly influenced the U.S. ban on DDT in 1972, the reduced usage of DDT in malaria eradication began the decade before because of the emergence of DDT-resistant mosquitoes. Paul Russell, a former head of the Allied Anti-Malaria campaign, observed in 1956 that eradication programs had to be wary of relying on DDT for too long as "resistance has appeared [after] six or seven years."[19]

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 one article by 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." In India, with its outdoor sleeping habits and frequent night duties, "the excito-repellent effect of DDT, often reported useful in other countries, actually promotes outdoor transmission."[90]
All quotes are from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT I only checked some of the footnotes, but they are all in the article for you to check if you want. Enjoy.

Too much use of DDT is very problematic, not just for environmental reasons, but also because insects then become resistant to it, making it much less effective (evolution in action!, also see hospitals where anti-biotic use is over the top, and resistant strains of "super" bacteria have emerged).
DDT is/was used for much more then just malaria control, but also for agricultural use, where it is/was often unregulated.

So yeah, check your facts everyone. While Wikipedia isn't the be all and end all, it is a good starting point.


Oh, and @ Red Anarchist. Three people come out with un-sourced statements, one person comes out with an un-sourced statement saying that the three previous un-sourced statements are wrong. Why pull up only one person? Why not the three other people as well?

[RedAnarchist]

Oh, and @ Red Anarchist. Three people come out with un-sourced statements, one person comes out with an un-sourced statement saying that the three previous un-sourced statements are wrong. Why pull up only one person? Why not the three other people as well?


They made a statement, and sup said that the statements were incorrect, so I was asking why sup thought they were incorrect.

[Unicorn]

The Case for DDT

Malaria is as old as mankind and still going strong, infecting hundreds of millions (and killing between one and three million) each year. A cure was known in 17th-century Europe. But because it was brought to the continent by Catholic missionaries (who actually learned of it from South American natives), many malaria sufferers, included Oliver Cromwell, thought the medicine was part of a “Popish plot” and refused to take it. Cromwell died of the disease in 1658. It took his death, and the subsequent curing of King Charles II, to shift public opinion in favor of “quinine,” as the anti-malaria agent is now called.

A similar situation confronts us today. Mankind now has all the scientific and economic tools to virtually eradicate malaria. But some influential groups are refusing to sanction one of the most effective prevention measures. Here’s the twist: in 17th-century Europe, those who rejected quinine sacrificed their own lives. Today, those who block the proven anti-malaria insecticide DDT are mainly condemning poor children in Africa.

It is unfortunate that DDT has become so politicized. Indeed, it is now associated with “right-wing” politics, largely because it has been demonized by environmental activists on the left. Over the past few years, malaria bureaucracies and aid agencies have been harried by American conservatives to account for their reluctance to use DDT. At more than one Senate hearing, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn has asked why DDT was not being purchased with U.S. tax dollars, given its demonstrated efficacy. Conservative talk-radio hosts, notably Rush Limbaugh, have helped create a groundswell of support for DDT across the country, which has prodded the Bush administration to change its policies.

Mosquito control is a smallish market; but for those selling products in it, DDT can create quite a crimp. The German pharmaceutical giant Bayer was embarrassed a couple of years ago when The Financial Times reported that it was arguing against the use of DDT while trying to sell competitor products. At the time, Bayer actually had a representative sitting on a United Nations anti-malaria committee. Still, its decision to oppose DDT was consistent with corporate self-interest.

Having attempted to raise funds for a pro-DDT campaign in the 1990s, I can attest that most businesses simply were not interested. Even though DDT had great potential for fighting malaria, not a single European or American firm I contacted was interested in defending it. The typical response from industry directors was something along the lines of, “We have enough other battles,” or, “Yes, it’s harmless and shouldn’t have been banned, but DDT is a lost cause.” After at least 100 separate letters, emails, and phone calls, I quit trying to raise support from industry. The only companies that seemed to have any interest were mining firms operating in southern Africa, which had already deployed DDT to save lives.

But over the past decade, a new pro-DDT campaign has gained momentum, with the notable backing of conservative political commentators. Left-wing activists often accuse the pro-DDT crowd of being corporate shills for industry. Yet the only factories that still produce DDT are government-owned shops in China and India. Western companies have no real financial interest in the promotion of DDT. But to many people, industry funding invariably calls research into question, regardless of the topic.

Indeed, even attempting to solicit funding from industry can blemish one’s reputation in the eyes of anti-corporate crusaders. Although I thought it unlikely to succeed, I wrote a letter to the tobacco company Philip Morris in 1998 requesting funding for my pro-DDT campaign. Today, this letter is making the rounds on assorted left-wing blogs. To them, it is the “smoking gun”—the root explanation of why conservatives have embraced DDT—even though Philip Morris denied my request.

Though you wouldn’t know from the anti-DDT bloggers, Western tobacco firms have consistently opposed DDT use. In their view, it threatens to “contaminate” tobacco leaves (even though no tobacco products have ever been denied importation because of DDT contamination). Tobacco companies have rarely issued public statements on the matter; but when they have, the statements have been anti-DDT. Despite these facts, the storyline of tobacco money funding a right-wing pro-DDT campaign is just too good to check.

Of course, support for DDT is hardly confined to the political right. Ottawa University scientist Amir Attaran used to work for Ralph Nader. Journalist Tina Rosenberg writes for The New York Times. They are both enthusiastic champions of DDT. So is scientist Donald Roberts, who recently won the prestigious Frank Brown Berry Prize in federal healthcare for his research on malaria. None of these people can objectively be called “right-wing.” Nor can the post-apartheid government of South Africa, which has been another vital advocate of DDT spraying.

The fact that the right has supported it does not suggest a conspiracy. Using DDT should be a no-brainer. If they truly want to help fight disease in developing countries, leftist advocacy groups in the United States and Europe should support DDT. For whatever their politics, anti-malaria activists are all working toward the same goal: saving lives.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-11-07/the-case-for-ddt

[apathy maybe]

So, do you want to coat the inside of building walls with DDT?, or do you want to spray it indiscriminately over water ways? Do you want to use it in agriculture? Or only to help prevent malaria?

Questions that are worth answering, because if you don't answer them, and you promote the use of DDT, people will assume that you want to spray it anywhere and every where and screw the consequences (namely massive environmental damage and resistant mosquitos).

And anyone who wants to use it indiscriminately probably is ignorant of the effects on the environment (or don't care), and don't know about evolution (or in some cases, deny that it even exists!).

[Unicorn]

So, do you want to coat the inside of building walls with DDT?, or do you want to spray it indiscriminately over water ways? Do you want to use it in agriculture? Or only to help prevent malaria?

Questions that are worth answering, because if you don't answer them, and you promote the use of DDT, people will assume that you want to spray it anywhere and every where and screw the consequences (namely massive environmental damage and resistant mosquitos).
Only for public health purposes. I think the Soviet policy was sensible:

"In the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) in 1970, DDT and DDT-based products were prohibited for use as pesticides by the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Health because of their persistence, bioaccumulation, and carcinogenicity. In the U.S.S.R. in 1981, the production and use of DDT in agriculture were banned, but its use for public health purposes (destruction of insects such as mosquitoes, malarial plasmodia, fleas, lice, ticks) was still permitted."
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1524154/Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane-DDT-ubiquity-persistence-and.html

[apathy maybe]

Right, sounds like you have a reasonably sensible approach then.

Vanguard1917 loves to spout off about (eeevil) environmentalists, and yet, when it comes down to it, most environmentalists I know (including myself of course), don't have a problem with using DDT in a responsible manner. Coating the inside of building walls is just fine for example.

[Vanguard1917]

Some of the results of the effective global banning of DDT. From Wikipedia (link (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt)):

'In the period from 1934-1955 there were 1.5 million cases of malaria in Sri Lanka, resulting in 80,000 deaths. After the country invested in an extensive anti-mosquito program with DDT, there were only 17 cases reported in 1963. Thereafter the program was halted, and malaria in Sri Lanka rebounded to 600,000 cases in 1968 and the first quarter of 1969.'

'After South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996, the number of malaria cases in KwaZulu Natal province rose from 8,000 to 42,000 cases. By 2000, there had been an approximate 400% increase in malaria deaths. Today, after the reintroduction of DDT, the number of deaths from malaria in the region is less than 50 per year. South Africa could afford and did try newer alternatives to DDT, but they proved less effective.'

'Malaria cases increased in South America after countries in that continent stopped using DDT. Only Ecuador, which has continued to use DDT, has seen a reduction in the number of malaria cases in recent years.'

----------------------

A good article from a few years back:

Tuesday 21 June 2005

Africans need DDT, not ‘blah, blah, blah’

Africans have paid a heavy price for the West's misplaced demonising of the mosquito-killing pesticide.
Dave Hallsworth

As Africa becomes big news - in the run-up to Live 8 on 2 July and the G8 summit in Edinburgh on 6 July, and with the start of an Africa season on BBC TV - there is one way we could help Africans that very few people are talking about: by lifting the restrictions on DDT, the pesticide that fights malaria by killing off the mosquitoes that carry it.

We have heard a lot about ‘African voices’ and ‘what Africans want’ recently. One thing they want is to be able to use DDT, or at least a reliable alternative. During a visit to Berlin in May, Alcinda Abreu, foreign minister of Mozambique, called on the industrialised world to ‘provide alternative methods to fight malaria or else drop opposition to using DDT against mosquitoes’. Following reports that DDT was harmful to the environment, it was banned in the USA by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1972. This led to an effective worldwide ban, as countries dependent on US-funded aid agencies curtailed their use of the pesticide.

Now, as malaria death rates rise in Africa and other parts of the third world, some Africans are demanding change. When she was asked about environmentalist campaigners in the West who oppose the use of DDT, Alcinda Abreu said: ‘They have to give us alternatives…not blah, blah, blah.’ She proposed the development of an ‘effective and easy-to-administer vaccine’, and revealed that Mozambique intended to start re-testing the use of DDT in the battle against malaria, because no reliable alternative had been developed (1). Other countries, including Zimbabwe, have also said they will start using DDT again.

DDT came to be seen as an enemy of the environment following the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. My younger brother - who despite his denials is an out-and-out green (if it quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck, it’s a duck) - recently sent me a new copy of Carson’s book, published by Penguin Classics. And after re-reading it for the first time in years, I am amazed that so many people found it credible.

We used to have a slogan in the Royal Navy: ‘Bullshit Baffles Brains.’ In her book, Carson lumps together chemicals used for fighting weeds and insects that were proven to have sometimes terrible side effects - such as 2,4-D, DDD, DDE, BHC, aldrin, lindane and heptachlor - with DDT, for which there was little proof of such side effects. Even her dedication to Albert Schweitzer is a distortion. She quotes him saying: ‘Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the Earth.’ (1) The implication is that Schweitzer was opposed to insecticides; in fact, he was talking about the dangers of nuclear warfare, not DDT. Indeed, in his autobiography Schweitzer wrote: ‘How much labour and waste of time these wicked insects do cause us…but a ray of hope, in the use of DDT, is now held out to us.’ (2)

Carson focused much of her attention on the apparent harm caused to birds by DDT. She wrote about robins at Michigan State University that were apparently dropping dead as a result of DDT. Michigan ornithologist George Wallace theorised that the robins were dying because they had eaten earthworms contaminated by DDT. Neither Wallace nor Carson bothered to mention that there were high levels of mercury at Michigan, as a result of soil fungicide treatments on campus, and that the dead robins displayed symptoms of mercury poisoning (3). At the EPA hearings on DDT in the late 1960s, Joseph Hickey of the University of Wisconsin said that, in tests, he had been unable to overdose robins with DDT because they passed it through their digestive tracts and eliminated it in their faeces.

Carson also wrote of Dr James DeWitt’s ‘now classic experiments’ which showed that, while DDT may cause no observable harm to birds themselves, it may seriously affect their reproduction and reduce the number of eggs that hatch successfully (4). In fact, DeWitt came to a very different conclusion. He reported no significant difference in egg hatching between birds fed DDT and birds not fed DDT. Carson also omitted to mention DeWitt’s report that DDT-fed pheasants hatched about 50 per cent more eggs than ‘control’ pheasants.

In the late 60s, Dr Joel Bitman and his associates at the US Department of Agriculture found that Japanese quail fed DDT produced eggs with thinner shells and lower calcium content. Yet further examination of Dr Bitman’s study revealed that the quails under experiment had been fed a diet with a calcium content of only 0.56 per cent, where a normal quail diet consists of 2.7 per cent calcium. And calcium deficiency is known to cause thin eggshells (5).

After much criticism, Bitman repeated the test, this time with sufficient calcium levels, and the birds produced eggs without thinned shells. Following years of feeding experiments, scientists at the Department of Poultry Science at Cornell University ‘found no tremors, no mortality, no thinning of eggshells and no interference with reproduction caused by levels of DDT which were as high as those reported to be present in most of the wild birds where “catastrophic” decreases in shell quality and reproduction have been claimed’.

Various things cause thinning eggshells, including season of the year, nutrition (in particular insufficient calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, and manganese), temperature rise, type of soil, and breeding conditions (for example, sunlight and crowding). But environmentalists, it seems, rarely let scientific evidence get in the way of their campaigns against DDT and other ‘modern evils’.

Carson died in 1964, two years after her book was published. So she missed the demolishing of her theories by the scientific community. Yet her book became the bible of the greens and Carson their Holy Mother.

The anti-DDT bandwagon rolled on after Carson’s death. In 1969, a study found a higher incidence of leukaemia and liver tumours in mice fed DDT than in non-exposed mice. But many scientists protested that the laboratory-animal studies flew in the face of epidemiology, pointing out that DDT had been used widely during the preceding 25 years with no increase in liver cancer in any of the populations among whom it had been sprayed. When the World Health Organisation (WHO) investigated the 1969 mice study, it discovered that both cases and controls had developed a surprising number of tumours. Further investigation revealed that the foods fed to both mice groups were mouldy and contained aflatoxin, a carcinogen. When the tests were repeated using non-contaminated foods, neither group developed tumours.

Most importantly, DDT is not hazardous to humans or the environment. Tests conducted by Dr Philip Butler, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Sabine Island Research Laboratory, found that ‘92 per cent of DDT and its metabolites disappear’ from the environment after 38 days. And humans have nothing to worry about when it comes to small exposures to DDT (even little robins shit it out with no trouble).

In 1969, the director of the World Health Organisation said: ‘DDT is so safe that no symptoms have been observed among the 130,000 spray men or the 535million inhabitants of spray houses [over the past 29 years of its existence]…. Therefore WHO has no grounds to abandon this chemical which has saved millions of lives, the discontinuation of which would result in thousands of human deaths and millions of illnesses. It has served at least two billion people in the world without costing a single human life by poisoning from DDT. The discontinuation of the use of DDT would be a disaster to world health.’ That has proven to be the case in recent decades.

Even if DDT were harmful to robins and mice, what should come first: robins and mice or human beings? I like seeing cheeky robins in my garden and don’t mind mice, but if preventing deaths of children in the third world meant wiping out robins and mice around the world, so be it. The real issue is not saving songbirds, but saving the lives of people in Africa and the Far East. Since 1981 around 20million people have died from malaria - deaths that could have been prevented by DDT.

It seems that hard-held beliefs can change with circumstances over a long period. In The New York Times on 8 January 2005, Nicholas Kristof quoted representatives from the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace on the issue of DDT: ‘I called the World Wildlife Fund, thinking I would get a fight, but Richard Liroff, its expert on toxins, said he would accept the use of DDT when necessary in anti-malaria programs. “If the alternative to DDT isn’t working, as they weren’t in South Africa, geez, you’ve got to use it. In South Africa it prevented tens of thousands of malaria cases and saved lots of lives.” At Greenpeace, Rick Hind noted reasons to be wary of DDT, but added, “If there’s nothing else, and it’s going to save lives, we’re all for it. Nobody is dogmatic about it“‘.

That last sentence might well raise a few eyebrows throughout the West. White man speak with forked tongue. Ask the rank-and-file member of your average green group whether he is dogmatic about DDT, and see how he responds.

We could do with a bit of DDT in the West too, it would appear. I spent my first five years of life living in cottages that had been converted from the stables of Lord Dukinfield’s horses. They were filled with the honeycombed tunnels of rats and mice. When we turned off the gaslight while listening to the radio, we would see the little red eyes of the mice. A less pleasant type of wildlife shared our abode and lived and bred in the lining of the wallpaper - bed bugs. During the night they crawled under our bedclothes and sucked our blood, the incision from their barbed proboscis leaving a very itchy wound.

Converted stables may be a thing of the past, but are bed bugs making a comeback? Under the headline ‘Bed bugs bite back in US hotels’, the Daily Telegraph recently reported that a businessman sued Helmsley Park Lane Hotel - a posh hotel overlooking Central Park in New York - after he and a companion suffered numerous bed bug bites while sleeping there. Hotels and motels are especially vulnerable, apparently, because of the transient nature of their customers and the ease with which the bugs travel in luggage and clothing. Reportedly, an ‘epidemic’ of bed bugs, not only in hotels but also in people’s homes, has led to a rise in business for pest control firms.

As Reuters reported on 12 May: ‘People are complaining that their homes and particularly their bedrooms are becoming infested. Entomologists are not sure what has caused the recent surge in bed bugs. Although common in many countries, bed bugs were all but eliminated in America in the late 1940s and 1950s when the insecticide DDT was used to rid infestations in hotels, houses and boarding rooms. DDT was banned in the 1960s for environmental reasons….’
Well, as the Scots say: ‘There’s many a muckle in a mickle.’ Make of that what you will.

Read on:

Without DDT, malaria bites back (http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/000000005591.htm), by Roger Bate

(1) Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, Penguin Classics, 1962/2005

(2) Out of My Life and Thought, Albert Schweitzer, 1933

(3) Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, Penguin Classics, 1962/2005

(4) Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, Penguin Classics, 1962/2005

(5) Nature magazine, 1969


reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/882/

[superiority]

DDT was banned by individual countries, and in those cases it was usually developed countries where malaria was effectively nonexistent. There have, AFAIK, never been restrictions on the use of DDT as a malaria vector control agent in countries with high levels of malaria. Malaria use declined because blanket spraying of the countryside caused resistance to develop more quickly. If such practices had continued, I imagine DDT would be largely useless as an antimalarial agent today. DDT has never stopped being used to fight malaria.

[Vanguard1917]

DDT was banned by individual countries, and in those cases it was usually developed countries where malaria was effectively nonexistent. There have, AFAIK, never been restrictions on the use of DDT as a malaria vector control agent in countries with high levels of malaria.


Of course there were restrictions. I have highlighted some of the cases in my previous post.

You're right in saying that there was no official global ban; but there was an effective global ban after the US ban. In order to receive aid, developing countries were pressured to abandon DDT. Belize and Bolivia, for example, admitted that they stopped using DDT as a result of pressure from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Meanwhile, environmental groups were calling for an outright international ban and were calling on DDT production facilities to be closed down.

[Andy Bowden]

What happens when mosquitoes start developing resistance to DDT though, as they inevitably will if it's used on a large scale?

In fact they were developing resistance before the release of Rachel Carsons book Silent Spring.

Mosquito Resistance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt#Mosquito_resistance_to_DDT)

Comrades have brought up the use of DDT being sprayed in limited amounts in houses, where it's less likely to cause resistance - but even this has it's problems; DDT is only effective on mud houses, not westernised buildings.

And if your going to bring people out of poverty your going to fundamentally be changing how they live, which in the case of Malaria rules indoor spraying of DDT ineffective.

Do Comrades have any information about the use of vaccination programmes against Malaria?

My understanding is that this is pretty effective (if your a western tourist going to developing countries where there is a danger of Malaria you'll get a jab, for example) but that for these programmes to be extended throughout Sub-Saharan Africa it would require the existence of universal health care facilities, which do not exist.

[apathy maybe]

If we are discussing malaria (rather then DDT), then yes, vaccination is a much better option. Indeed, considering polio was basically wiped out through a world wide vaccination program (which stills continues, I got a teaspoon of yucky crap when I was in high school), and smallpox actually was wiped out in the wild. Oh wait, that is evil Westerners forcing their values on the developing world. The only trouble is that there isn't a vaccine for malaria yet (at least according to Wikipedia).

[Vanguard1917]

What happens when mosquitoes start developing resistance to DDT though, as they inevitably will if it's used on a large scale?

In fact they were developing resistance before the release of Rachel Carsons book Silent Spring

If mosquitoes are resistant to DDT, then why have malaria cases massively increased when DDT-use has been ceased, and decreased massively when DDT-use has been resumed?

Even environmentalist organisations now admit that household spraying of DDT is key to fighting malaria.



DDT is only effective on mud houses


How?

[MarxSchmarx]

Originally Posted by Andy Bowden http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?p=1195071#post1195071)
What happens when mosquitoes start developing resistance to DDT though, as they inevitably will if it's used on a large scale?

In fact they were developing resistance before the release of Rachel Carsons book Silent Spring
If mosquitoes are resistant to DDT, then why have malaria cases massively increased when DDT-use has been ceased, and decreased massively when DDT-use has been resumed?

Well it is a little more nuanced than that. DDT that had primarily agricultural use tended to increase instances of malaria. Indeed, for those of you with access to academic journals, please refer to
“Agricultural production and malaria resurgence in Central America and India” by Chapin and Wasserstrom (Nature 1981). Their results have subsequently been replicated in southeast asia.

I think in the realm of public health, this is probably less of a concern. Still, the persistent use has more to do with its cheap availability than inherit merit as an insecticide. But these are only short-term costs - indeed, the long term costs incurred by malaria or mosquito resistance are substantial for any society. In the long term, I highly suspect a "cocktail" of insecticides, probably including ddt, is optimal from a cost-benefit perspective..

[Vanguard1917]

No doubt it would be wrong to claim that malaria in the developing world can be eradicated through DDT alone. In Europe, malaria was eradicated through DDT and mass social and economic development. Of course, the same environmentalists who oppose DDT also oppose economic progress.

[Andy Bowden]

If mosquitoes are resistant to DDT, then why have malaria cases massively increased when DDT-use has been ceased, and decreased massively when DDT-use has been resumed?

While its undoubtedly true that DDT use does, in the immediate term eliminate mosquitoes, over time as part of natural selection mosquitoes will develop resistance to most pesticides.

Paul Russel, the head of the Allied Anti-Malaria campaign commented that after initial use of DDT resistance develops after 5-6 years. This led to DDT being dropped independent of environmental concerns.

As to why DDT may be effective now - in the areas it is being used it will be decades since DDT was last sprayed. Over that period there will have been less pressure for mosquitoes to be DDT resistant, with many non-resistant mosquitoes surviving that would not have previously.

In these circumstances DDT would easily make mincemeat of them.

But the underlying problem is that its a repeating cycle - use of DDT eliminates most mosquitoes, except a small resistant strain who survive and propagate, making DDT useless. In order to make DDT useful again you would need to stop using it for a period, which undercuts the point.

As for the point with mud houses, it has to do with DDT not sticking to paint, which has led to the use of other pesticides.

[Vanguard1917]

Paul Russel, the head of the Allied Anti-Malaria campaign commented that after initial use of DDT resistance develops after 5-6 years. This led to DDT being dropped independent of environmental concerns.

That was in the 1950s (Paul Russell died in 1983). And when resistance developed, it was as a result of the outdoor spraying of DDT.

With DDT-use limited to indoor residual spraying, the development of resistance is heavily decreased. And even where resistance to DDT toxicity does develop, DDT still protects against mosquitoes as a result of its irritant and repellent qualities. This explains, for example, why DDT remains effective against malaria-carrying mosquitoes in India, even though mosquitoes there have developed resistance to its toxic action.


But the underlying problem is that its a repeating cycle - use of DDT eliminates most mosquitoes, except a small resistant strain who survive and propagate, making DDT useless. In order to make DDT useful again you would need to stop using it for a period, which undercuts the point.

Not at all. This certainly hasn't happened in practice. Countries which have undertaken indoor residual spraying have witnessed a continuous fall in malaria levels.

The sheer effectiveness of DDT in fighting malaria really does speak for itself. This is why the World Health Organisation reversed its 30-year anti-DDT policy in 2006, and it now admits that DDT needs to play a 'major' role in anti-malaria programmes. Even environmental groups that were at the forefront of campaigns to have it banned in previous decades - e.g. Environmental Defense, Sierra Club, the Endangered Wildlife Trust - now endorse DDT.

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This thread is specifically about Uganda, but last week Tanzania also finally began using DDT. It is sad that there are countries like Kenya who are still reluctant to use DDT in fear of its effects on trade with the West - especially the EU, whose eco-bureaucrats still continue to enforce their environmentalist prejudices on Africa.

[apathy maybe]

Err, Vanguard, you talk about how all environmentalists oppose the use of DDT, but then go on to talk about how some groups have changed their stance. Do you see any inconsistency there?

[Vanguard1917]

No, it just means that most of the main environmental groups simply cannot afford to continue directly denouncing DDT when its effectiveness is so widely acknowledged. Openly opposing a pesticide that has been shown to be able to save millions of lives, because it might kill some birds, just isn't seen as appropiate PR anymore.

But this doesn't mean that environmental groups don't oppose DDT. They do. International organisations and environmental groups like WWF still tell developing countries that they'd be better off sleeping under bed nets each night, UN eco-officials still tell DDT-spraying African nations to find ways to 'phase out' their DDT-use, and Greenpeace campaigners are still trying to close down the world's only major DDT production facility, in Cochin, India.

In other words, environmentalists still oppose DDT, but nowadays they now do it more indirectly than before...

[apathy maybe]

OK, you can keep your paranoia then. (Seriously, sleeping under mosquito nets is not a bad option, it is much cheaper in the long run, and won't damage the environment. http://www.unicef.org/health/index_25203.html is an article outlining some of the benefits.)

[Luís Henrique]

Great news.

Now Ugandans are allowed to die a modern death, from DDT poisoning, instead of a backward death from malaria...

Really, the problem is elsewhere. Those international organisms*, who now "allow" Uganda to use DDT, have in the recent past encouraged third world nations to destroy their plague control agencies, in the name of "efficience" and "reducing government expending". It is that destruction that is responsible for the rebounding in malarial statistics, not the abandonment of DDT. Other inseticides, particularly chrisantemic acid derivates, are equally effective, and much less dangerous, than DDT - but the same reason that makes them less dangerous, ie, the fact that they easily biodegradate, makes it necessary that they be constantly reapplied, which in turn demands a permanent structure with permanent personel for their appropriate use. As those international organisms won't admit the criminal nature of their fight against third world public services, they now have to "allow" these countries to use outdated, dangerous inseticides.

*when they "banned" DDT, these international organisms were doing so in the interest of the First World; now that they changed such policy, are they doing so in the interest of third world nations? Did those international organisms change? Did they become humanitarian?

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

Now Ugandans are allowed to die a modern death, from DDT poisoning, instead of a backward death from malaria...

Bullshit, Luis. There is no evidence whatsoever that the spraying of DDT for anti-malaria purposes poses any threat to human health. It has been demonstrated over and over again that DDT is safe.

Malaria, on the other hand, infects around half a billion people a year and kills between 1-3 million people a year - deaths and illnesses which can be prevented with the help of appropriate DDT-spraying.


Really, the problem is elsewhere. Those international organisms*, who now "allow" Uganda to use DDT, have in the recent past encouraged third world nations to destroy their plague control agencies, in the name of "efficience" and "reducing government expending". It is that destruction that is responsible for the rebounding in malarial statistics, not the abandonment of DDT.

Clearly false. It was the abandonment of DDT after the US ban which led to massive increases in malaria. Many 'third world' countries had malaria under control with the use of DDT. And, indeed, it is DDT which has largely been creditted for eradicating malaria in the Western world.


Other inseticides, particularly chrisantemic acid derivates, are equally effective, and much less dangerous, than DDT

DDT remains the most effective pesticide availabe against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Other pesticides have been tried and have proven, contary to what you say, to be not as effective as DDT. South Africa, for example, tried other pesticides when it banned DDT in 1996, and malaria cases increased by around 1000% (yes, that's one thousand per cent). When DDT was re-introduced, malaria cases saw a radical decrease.


*when they "banned" DDT, these international organisms were doing so in the interest of the First World; now that they changed such policy, are they doing so in the interest of third world nations? Did those international organisms change? Did they become humanitarian?

No, they just caved into the pressure of pure facts. And, in fact, it is those international organisations themselves which are still involved in discouraging DDT-use throughout the 'third world'.


OK, you can keep your paranoia then. (Seriously, sleeping under mosquito nets is not a bad option, it is much cheaper in the long run, and won't damage the environment. http://www.unicef.org/health/index_25203.html is an article outlining some of the benefits.)

So, instead of trying to eradicate malaria through insecticides like DDT, people in the developing world should just learn to adapt to malaria and hide under mosquito nets every night in fear of catching a deadly disease?

Mosquito nets belong to the Middle Ages. It is simply a disgrace that international organisations and environmental groups tell people in the developing world that they should make do with them.

[apathy maybe]

Oh for gods sake. Malaria isn't going to be eradicated by using DDT. The only way to get rid of it, is a systematic world-wide vaccination program. We don't have a vaccination yet though, so sucks.

The use of nets not only protects against malaria, it protects against a variety of diseases, not to mention simple bites.

And yes, people should adapt to the existence of deadly diseases being spread by flying insects that come out at night. Because even using DDT you can't get 100% reduction in malaria cases, and until all nasty mosquito born diseases are destroyed, or until all mosquito's are killed, then people should protect themselves.

You are welcome to live in a country with malaria, spray the walls of your house with DDT and not use a net, however, I'll be using a net thanks.

[Vanguard1917]

Oh for gods sake. Malaria isn't going to be eradicated by using DDT.

Not by DDT alone, but it is, along with mass economic and social development, going to play a central role, as it did in Europe, North America and parts of Asia and South America.


The use of nets not only protects against malaria, it protects against a variety of diseases, not to mention simple bites.

The net does not protect against malaria. Correction: the net might to an extent protect against malaria on the condition that you go to bed at a certain time every night (preferably early - if you feel like staying up to read a book or chat with your family or friends, then tough), don't get up at all during the night (if you feel like getting up to fetch a glass of water, do so at your peril), and don't mind lying under a net over you under often sweltering conditions.

Not to mention that fact that nets rip.

DDT on the other hand is like a mosquito net over your whole house 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But who are Africans to want such luxurious comforts?



And yes, people should adapt to the existence of deadly diseases being spread by flying insects that come out at night.


Er, no, they shouldn't. They should find ways to eradicate deadly diseases.


Because even using DDT you can't get 100% reduction in malaria cases

Yes, you can, virtually speaking - as the experience of countless countries demonstrates.



You are welcome to live in a country with malaria, spray the walls of your house with DDT and not use a net, however, I'll be using a net thanks.


Sod off and do that then - for everyone's sake.

[apathy maybe]

You move to a country with malaria and spray the walls of your house first.

Then I'll move in next door and use a net.

We stay there until one of use gets malaria (and no cheating by using anti-malarial drugs only available to (relatively) rich folks). The other person wins.