“Controlled indoor spraying of the infamous pesticide DDT is poised to make a comeback in countries that have tried and failed to do without it in the battle against malaria,” reports news service Reuters.
The Institute of Public Affairs* has published several proponents of DDT, including Roger Bate in an article titled ‘The Ban on DDT is Killing Millions in the Third World’.
——————
*I’m a Senior Fellow at the IPA.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I read the paper by Bate….gee he lays it on with a trowel. The greens are responsible for lots of the worlds problems aren’t they, and I never realised before they are all frustrated commies? The guys statements about fisheries and aquaculture are laughable and made me wonder if he really knows that much about the issues associated with malaria control. So I went to http://www.malaria.org and saw Bates name and several others he cites mentioned. Clearly as demosntrated by Roberts et al 1997 (link on the malaria site), it seems that certainly in South America there is a strong link between the rise of malaria cases and the decline of DDT use, but interestingly, the issue seems much more complex than that articulated by Bate.
While it is acknowledged that vector control is not the main focus anymore, it is not clearly stated that this change in focus was primarly because DDT was banned -there are other reasons as well. And, also interestingly, it seems that while many doctors want DDT for treatment of malaria, they are advocating it is only used for that purpose and are not advocating a lifting of the ban on its use in agriculture -in fact they want that to remain -why, if its so safe and the greenies got it wrong?
Anyhow they have won that concession to use DDT in vector control now so that means that all of those millions of children dying of malaria in the third world will now survive. Or does it? In my experience it’s much more complex than that. Just one example is that the ban on DDT means that people cannot afford to spray against mosquitoes, assumes that people would spray if DDT were readily available -ie that it is price that causes them not to spray -I guess that is what you would expect from free marketeers. But that evidence is tenous. It’s also naive to assume that third world governments will all start major campaigns of spraying the DDT themselves on behalf of their benighted citizens.
But DDT has always been used in indoor spraying – it was never banned. It can’t be used in certain countries, such as Sri Lanka, due to the Mozzies there being resistent. It can’t be used as wide area insectide because the mozzies will develop resistence.
Indoor spraying coupled with nets is the best way to combat malaria.
Also, you definetly shouldn’t use wide area spraying of DDT to combat a malaria outbreak after a Tsumani. Isn’t that right Jen?
SimonC
My understanding is that countries using DDT for spraying homes have not been eligible for aid money including from the US government? The use of DDT in targetted programs has been more than frowned upon – it has limited access to international/external funding.
South Africa has ‘gone it alone’, running its own programs and using DDT for spraying homes?
As regards natural disasters, I suggested in one of my columns in The Land immediatley after the Tsunami that DDT could be a useful tool for malaria control. I didn’t advocate ‘wide area’ spraying. But I was never-the-less villified by Tim Lambert. I was trying to make the point that money without a ‘tool kit of options’ is not necessarily going to help people.
But your ‘tool kit of options’ wasn’t required because there was no risk of an outbreak and there hasn’t been an outbreak. The WHO released a statement soon after the tsumani saying that an outbreak of malaria was low because the ground water that remained after the tsumani was sea water which mozzies can’t breed in. Subsequent research from Sri Lanka has shown that the malaria rates in tsumani affected areas was lower in 2005 than 2004 in line with the country as a whole.
DDT has always been a option with house spraying and USAID has, in the past, provided assistance in the spraying of houses with DDT. The WHO has DDT as one of 12 approved insecticides for spraying in malaria control. This doesn’t sound much like a ban to me.
This also doesn’t sound like DDT’s banned to me:
“The insecticide most widely used for house spraying has been DDT, which has continued to be recommended for this purpose long after it was banned for agricultural use in the USA and many other countries… Arguments about DDT applied to field crops accumulating in food chains are considered inapplicable to DDT sprayed inside houses.” C.F. Curtis. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Simon C,
The Reuters article, published just yesterday, see above link states that:
“On May 2, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), endorsed indoor spraying of DDT to rid homes of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. “The World Health Organization is set to follow,” Mandavilli reports.”
… are you telling me that there has been no policy change at USAID and WHO? That Reuters and Nature don’t have a news story? That its business as usual?
I’m saying that…
There has not been a policy change. USAID has always supported (they even wrote a letter in November last year confirming it) the use of DDT where it is scientifically and economically viable (ie not Sri Lanka) and WHO has too:
http://www.who.int/malaria/docs/FAQonDDT.pdf
check out the line: “when strictly used indoors, as recommended by WHO, DDT poses very little if any environmental threat.” – that doesn’t sound like a WHO ban to me.
Jennifer, my comment stated:
Jennifer Marohasy wrote an opinion piece advocating the use of DDT against malaria in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. The fact is, that it would be useless since the mosquitoes are resistant to DDT. And yes, resistance can be managed — the way you do that is to switch to an insecticde that will kill the mosquitoes.
Since the proposal to ban DDT was defeated in 2000, what has been driving the debate has been a general aversion/hatred of Rachel Carson (she’s worse than Hitler according to some). These people don’t care about what the best way to fight malaria is, they just want to spray DDT.
Please explain how you were “vilified” by this.
Nor did you just write that DDT could be used for malaria control. You suggested that aid agencies should consider using it in tsunami-affected areas.
And where does the DDT end up? Yes, in the Arctic, despite Arctic people never have used DDT , they are the victims of this slow poisoning.
Hi Tim,
I was actually thinking of the following comment that you made following my very first blog post that was about neither malaria nor DDT:
“You advocated the spraying of DDT in Sri Lanka after the tsunami even though it would have been completely useless since mosquitoes there developed resistance to DDT in the early 70s. This is the sort of thing that shows that you are not to be taken seriously on enviromental issues. Posted by: Tim Lambert at April 20, 2005 11:21 AM”.
And I believe you were referring to the following column that I wrote for The Land:
There is the real risk of an increase in the incidence of malaria in regions affected by the tsunami tragedy in Asia. The capacity of aid organizations to response to this threat will be influenced not only by how much money these organizations have at their disposal but access to effective control strategies.
DDT has over many decades proven the most effective chemical for malaria (mosquito) control but its use is often restricted on environmental grounds.
There has been an increase in deaths due to malaria over the last decade which some have attributed to the international campaign against the use of DDT.
Indeed, the continued use of DDT for malaria control has become a contentious international environmental issue.
DDT was once used extensively by Australian farmers but banned in Australia in 1987 as part of a world wide push to outlaw its use because it was bio-accumulating in the food chain and, it was claimed, caused cancer and was harming bird reproduction by thinning egg shells.
The modern environment movement is considered by many to have its origins with Rachel Carson’s attack on DDT in her best seller Silent Spring, published in 1962.
The book and the campaign against DDT that followed resulted in the US Court of Appeals ordering the head of the US Environment Protection Agency William Ruckeshaus, to start the process of suspending DDT registration.
After an initial 60-day review process Rauckeshaus concluded that there was no good reason to ban DDT. But under mounting public pressure changed his position and banned DDT in the USA in June, 1972.
Ms Carson’s campaign had effectively highlighted environmental concern but failed to acknowledge DDT’s important role in malaria prevention particularly in the Third World.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) more than 1 million people die each year from malaria – mostly small children in Africa. Malaria is estimated to cause up to 30,000 deaths a year in Indonesia.
There has been an increase in deaths due to malaria over the last decade which some have attributed to the international campaign against the use of DDT.
For example, in response to international pressure, South Africa stopped using DDT for malaria control in 1996. The number of deaths from malaria increased from less than 50 per year over the period 1971 to 1995, to 450 in 2000. The South African Health Department switched back to DDT with an 85 per cent reduction in malaria cases within 18 months – the DDT spraying is believed to have controlled the case load to such an extent that all malaria patients could be treated with a new drug, Coartem.
In this and other current malaria control program, spraying with DDT is restricted to the inside of homes.
As part of a worldwide eradication program that started in the late 1950s, however, DDT was once sprayed over vast areas including from airplanes over US cities. This world-wide campaign was spectacularly successful in some regions with malaria eradicated from the US and in Europe.
In developing countries the incidence of malaria was dramatically reduced. In 1948 in Sri Lanka, for example, 7,300 deaths were attributed to malaria, in 1963 none.
In 1970 the National Academy of Sciences wrote in a report that ”to only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT” and credited the insecticide with saving half a billion lives.
As part of the negotiations leading to the United Nation’s Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) coming into effect in May 2004, organizations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) campaigned hard to extend what has been a worldwide ban on the agricultural use of DDT to include malaria control.
But just before the Convention took effect, the WHO stated that it “proposed and supports the continued use of DDT for disease vector control” and that “DDT, if restricted to indoor residual spraying, will form a minuscule portion of past usage levels, and will address (concern over) the uncontrolled release of the pesticide in the environment.”
Malaria is not an issue in Australia though we have the malaria mosquito. Malaria is considered both a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In the aftermath of the tsunami tragedy, communities in South Asia are particularly susceptible to water borne diseases including malaria.
How might aid organizations balance legitimate environmental concerns, like the funding of programs that include the use of DDT, against the need to save human lives?
Ends.
JF Beck has more on this and the Nature Medicine “DDT returns” article is a really good read too. See
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006/07/ddt-expert-debunked.html
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006/07/debunked-ddt-expert-attempts-debunking.html
Good post by JF Beck and the following from that blog is perhaps relevant in the context of the above comments from SimonC:
Lambert:
For the umpteenth time: I do not oppose the use of DDT and neither does the World Bank.
Mandavilli:
USAID never banned DDT outright, for instance, but nor did it fund DDT’s purchase—which amounts to the same thing. For that reason, the May announcement is widely seen as a change in policy even though the agency doesn’t position it as such. The World Bank went one step further, making the ban of DDT a condition for loans
Why wouldn’t we be advocating new generation pesticides. Why use a bio-accumulator and one that induces very simple effective resistance mechanisms in a variety of insects. Why die in a ditch for DDT?
Nobody has died in a ditch by DDT, that is the point. Hunger, crime, war but not DDT.
The Arctic people ingest the rest of the world’s poison with every bite.
Poisons like DDT and PCB accumulate in the fatty acids of their traditional food.
Arctic babies with high PCB and DDT exposure suffer greater rates of infectious diseases. A study in Greenland of such infants found that they have more ear and respiratory infections , a quarter of them severe enough to cause hearing loss. And the medical research on Arctic people’s exposure to PCB and DDT is just in the early phase.
And those people that died from failure to responsibly manage resistance in malaria carrying mosquitos might have karked it in a ditch. You guys seem to be hell-bent on spraying the stuff everywhere. Ann’s comments are indeed food for thought.
This latest change in malaria control policy is not advocating massive use of DDT by say aerial spraying (tonne quantities) but more modest use of gram-kg quantities inside houses.
Movement of such modest quantities to the arctic is not an issue. Massive use of DDT in agriculture is an abuse but wall spraying to save lives is not.
This issue and that of DDT resistance of mosquitoes is addressed in the following passage of an earlier Nature Medicine paper by Attaran and others which was very influential in achieving the DDT turnaround
Balancing risks on the backs of the poor
AMIR ATTARAN, DONALD R. ROBERTS, CHRIS F. CURTIS & WENCESLAUS L. KILAMA
Nature Medicine Vol 6 page 731 Jul 2000
QUOTE:
Ecological effects
DDT became emblematic of the toxics movement because of its effects on the non-human environment. Ecological studies have demonstrated that bioaccumulated DDT could cause thinning of eggshells and reproductive failure in birds of prey. The fault for this lies in the massive agricultural use of DDT. Dusting a single 100-hectare cotton field, for example, can require more than 1,100 kg of DDT over 4 weeks4. In contrast, DDT spraying for malaria control is less intensive, less frequent and far more contained. The current practice is to spray the interior surfaces only of houses at risk, leaving a residue of DDT at a concentration of 2 g/m2 on the walls, ceiling and eaves, once or twice a year. Half a kilogram can treat a large house and protect all its inhabitants.
Doubtless some fraction of this escapes to the outdoors, but even assuming it all did, the environmental effect is just 0.04% of the effect of spraying the cotton field. Guyana’s entire high-risk population for malaria can be protected with the DDT that might otherwise be sprayed on 0.4 km2 of cotton in a season5.
Compared with its agriculture uses, public health uses of DDT are too trivial to merit banning with any urgency.
But despite ‘resistance’ in itself, DDT still works to alleviate mortality and morbidity. Resistance tests work by measuring whether mosquitoes survive a normally toxic dose of DDT. The tests wholly overlook two non-toxic actions of DDT: contactmediated irritancy9, which drives mosquitoes off sprayed walls and out of doors before they bite, and volatile repellency10,11, which deters their entry in the first place. Both actions disrupt human–mosquito contact and disease transmission.
Data from the Pan-American Health Organization show a strong inverse correlation between malaria cases and rates of spraying houses (1959–1992) in South America, even after DDT resistance became widespread in the 1960s (Fig. 1). Here, ‘cumulative cases’ represent the population-adjusted, ‘running’ total of cases that exceed or fall short of the average annual number of cases from 1959 to 1979 (years in which World
Health Organization strategy emphasized house spraying12).
Cumulative cases increase considerably in later years, coincident with a sharp decrease in rates of spraying houses.
This inverse correlation is readily understandable because it is so biologically plausible. For mosquitoes, DDT is a toxin, irritant properties decrease the odds of being bitten by mosquitoes, and toxicity particularly reduces the odds that parasite-bearing mosquitoes will survive to infect others. Lowering these odds slows disease propagation by second- or higher-order relationships and therefore is very important13,14. Indeed, renewing the spraying of houses with DDT, as Ecuador did in the early 1990s, rapidly decreases case rates5.
My DDT posts have been updated:
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006/08/ddt-expert-debunking-deluxe.html
A recent Berkley study indicates that in-utero exposure to DDT could be associated with developmental delays
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/07/05_ddt.shtml
Die in a ditch for DDT.!!!
That is indeed the point (but made unintentionally it seems). Thousand of Africans have died needlessly in ditches sometimes because of a de facto ban on DDT. Its tragic that people can make comments like this, presumable from countries where there is no malaria.
Go to a place where children died, and still die, needlessly as a result of the de facto DDT ban, a ban denied repeatly by those associated with movements that created the same ban, and tell them why indoor spraying of huts with DDT was stopped.
Also explain why you should ignore the fact that in Equador and South Africa, when spraying was RE-introduced after thousands of unnecessary malaria cases, the epidemics were stopped in their tracks by DDT spraying.
Re developmental delays:
An African malaria worker made this pont recently: better a few point IQ loss than a dead child.
Get your priorities strait: malaria caused poverty and poverty causes malnutrition and malnutrition causes developmental delays, so that the interpretation of causes and effects in this situation is very tricky, and not necessarily against DDT use.
Detribe – am I advocating a ban on DDT. However I think the third world has had a gutful of imperialist bastards like you telling them what’s good for them. “Better a few IQ points loss ” indeed. You and your chemical company mates dumping shit that we would not in the first world to use on them.
What you have written is also laced with lots of correlations which may not be cause and effect. Simple hygiene and removal of stagnant water may have some impacts on mosquito numbers.
The DDT resistance mechanism is very powerful in insects and can cross correlate with other resistance mechanisms. Obviously as an entomological ignoramus you’d like to keep ratcheting up the selection pressure with gay abandon.
I am not against DDT per se in malarial control, but surely there are better insecticidal compounds and we need to keep an eye on the resistance situation. Of course the alternative pesticides will be more expensive thanks to your big end of town mates, who hope that their clients’ diminished IQs won’t notice the second rate deal provided. Cultural control practices – site hygiene – are also important.
Do you really give a stuff about malaria or just want to get the drop on a greenie like Rachel Carson.
Surely each country can make their own decision on DDT. If it is no longer effective then they will surely stop using it. It is incredibly arrogant for rich countries to decide priorities poorer ones.
Luke,
I think a big apololgy to David Tribe/detribe is in order.
Detribe/David Tribe was correctly pointing out that people in the west should let African governments decide whether not they want to use DDT.
I get the impression you know very little about the issue and certainly your assumptions about what motivates David are very wrong.
David has spent much of his own time and money working with Africans in South AFrica. He is about dignity for human life. There is more information at this link http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001184.html including comment that
“Last year he spent several weeks in Africa where his foundation “Sow the Good Seed” provides aid in a very direct material way by underwriting the cost of farm inputs for a hectare of land for subsistence farmers trying to get ahead. If you would like to get involved with this foundation and help an African farmer out of poverty contact detribe [at] gmail [dot] com .”
So what about the new generation anti-malaria drugs vs. DDT spraying?
But obviously they wouldn’t be on the market before 2010. Bill Gate is also donating money to anti-malaria reseach companies.
Benefits with DDT, they are cheap meanwhile anti-malaria drugs are expensive.
Why not promote all the useful strategies. Advocacy of retention of the option to use DDT spraying does not preclude also promoting bed net and also initiatives to discover alternatives. Howver to have effectively banned DDT when there were not enough alternatives was a mistake. The fact that epidemics occured when DDT use was continued proves the alternatives were not up to the job,.
‘Detribe – am I advocating a ban on DDT”. If this is not a typo it represents massive ignorance of the world of malaria or simple moral stupidity.
“However I think the third world has had a gutful of imperialist bastards like you telling them what’s good for them.”
If you think a little futher you will realise I’m speaking in support of people in the third world and against restriction of THEIR choice by outsider rich people.
“Better a few IQ points loss ”
Luke your taking about Fiona Kobusingye-Boynes from Uganda, not me:
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060722-112056-6127r.htm
Real risks, irrelevant risks
– Washington Times, By Fiona Kobusingye-Boynes, July 23, 2006
Few parents want themselves or their children to be prescribed drugs that cause anemia, nausea, diarrhea, increased infection risks, fertility problems, fetal defects, hair loss and even death. But when those chemotherapy drugs mean not dying from cancer, it’s an easy choice. That’s the situation facing Africa — only for us it’s not cancer. Our concern is malaria, which infects nearly 400 million of us, and kills 1 million of our precious children, every single year.
We desperately need the African equivalent of chemo drugs — DDT and other insecticides — to prevent this terrible disease. Thankfully, the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Health Organization and other agencies are helping us launch spraying programs. Just spraying tiny amounts of DDT on walls keeps 90 percent of mosquitoes from even entering homes, irritates those that come in so they don’t bite, and kills any that land — for six months or more. No other chemical, at any price, can do that.
But chemical-hating activists continue to oppose these lifesaving programs and raise constantly changing “concerns” like: “Some researchers think DDT could be inhibiting lactation and might be related to premature births, low birth weights and slow reflexes in babies.”
Recently, the University of California-Berkeley and Los Angeles Times reported that “very high exposure” to DDT can cause mental test scores in 2-year-olds to drop slightly. They say this minor problem may disappear by the time the children enter school — but still urged that Africa consider “alternative antimalarial controls” and “balance” risks carefully against benefits.
However, these concerns aren’t even relevant to Africa. No one is talking about massive DDT spraying for agriculture, or even insect control. We’re talking about limited, controlled spraying on walls of houses.
There are no viable “alternatives.” Nothing works as well as DDT, does what it does, for as long, or at such a low price. Moreover, every chemical has risks. In fact, DDT is 100 times less toxic to humans than nicotine in cigarettes, just as safe as the pyrethroids used in agriculture and mosquito control, and far less toxic than chemotherapy drugs, say experts like Dr. Donald Roberts, professor of tropical disease at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Antimalaria drugs are also powerful chemicals. Fansidar can cause severe vomiting and lung and liver damage. Chloroquine (which no longer even works well) has harmful effects; and even Artemisia-based drugs have neurological side effects. People aren’t just exposed to them. Babies, little children, pregnant women and old people alike must ingest them every time they get malaria.
Bed nets are impregnated with pyrethroids, to make them kill mosquitoes — and people have to sleep under them, breathing in the vapors and rubbing their skin against the nets.
Researchers and activists have never studied or compared these side effects, or evaluated their risks and benefits. Nor have they recommended taking these products (or chemotherapy drugs) off the market — which would be shortsighted and tragic.
A half-billion people worldwide get acute malaria every year. Hundreds of thousands are left with permanent brain damage. Up to 2 million die.
Schoolchildren ages 6-14 who suffered more than five malaria attacks scored 15 percent lower than those who had fewer than three attacks, researchers from Sri Lanka and the WHO found. The impact of DDT on children in the Berkeley study was trivial by comparison.
I have had malaria more than a dozen times. I lost my son, two sisters and three nephews to it. My nephew Noel got malaria at age 2 and is still four years behind high school boys his age in reading and writing skills, because it affected his mental powers so horribly. My brother Joseph used to help in an office and with complex farming tasks, but his mind no longer works well because of cerebral malaria.
Many mothers have anemia, premature births and tiny babies because of malaria, and many people die from other diseases they would survive if they weren’t so weakened by malaria. These tragedies are repeated all over Africa, Asia and Latin America.
How can this possibly be compared to a couple points in mental tests for 2-year-olds? Africans must use every available weapon to combat malaria, our biggest killer of children. We cannot afford to let a million of our children die every year, while we look for a vaccine, better drugs or alternatives to DDT.
What we need are risk-benefit studies comparing mothers and children in communities where DDT is used, versus where it is not used — assessing days absent from work or school, days severely ill, mental impairment, financial well-being, expenditures on anti-malaria medicines, and deathrates.
We need to calculate the value of those lives affected by being sick with malaria for weeks every year … of mental capacity lost due to malaria… of 1.5 million African lives lost every year. Even at $1,000 to $10,000 per life, the impact of malaria — and the value of DDT — is monumental.
This month, another malaria outbreak hit the Kabale district in southern Uganda. More than 6,000 people were admitted to clinics in just one week. A spraying program with Icon (a pyrethroid also used in agriculture, and which thus can quickly breed mosquito resistance) resulted in the deaths of two students. That is terrible, but last year 70,000 Ugandans died from malaria. In 65 years, DDT never killed anyone.
Should we stop spraying, to prevent more deaths from Icon or possible learning delays from using DDT — and sacrifice another 70,000 Ugandans again this year?
Yes, there are risks in using DDT — or other antimalaria weapons. But the risk of not using them is infinitely greater. One-sided studies and news stories frighten people into not using the most effective weapons in our arsenal — and millions pay the ultimate price. That is unconscionable.
Fiona Kobusingye-Boynes is coordinator of the Congress of Racial Equality in Uganda and a tireless advocate for effective, life-saving malaria control.
My question to other readers: Who’se the imperialist in this discussion?
I’ve posted some thoughts on the Marriage of Heaven and Hell that is DDT policy over at GMO Pundit
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/hidden-cost-of-saying-no-to-ddt-real.html
I continue to be intrigued by the assertion that millions of children are dying from malaria because of a ban on DDT.
Here is what USAID says about the use of DDT in its anti-malarial work.
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/id/malaria/news/afrmal_ddt.html
My reading of this is that they have never banned DDT, but continue to focus on other methodologies that they find more effective, particularly in terms of cost – isn’t that what free marketeers champion?
They also point out that there has always been an exemption for the use of DDT. There is also a statement that suggests the use of DDT in South Africa was warranted because other insecticides were not as effective there because mosquitoes had developed resistance.
Are we to believe that this information posted by the US government is misleading?
Apologies for being a bit paranoid here, but which company lies behind this bad mouthing of the greens and Rachel Carson? Is it Monsanto?
Think that even Greenpeace and the Arctic People’s Council are not totally against DDT spraying if it can be proved to save human lives.
Personally my hopes lie in malaria vaccines.
Jennifier,
From USAID:
‘Contrary to popular belief, USAID does not “ban” the use of DDT in its malaria control programs. From a purely technical point of view in terms of effective methods of addressing malaria, USAID and others have not seen DDT as a high priority component of malaria programs for practical reasons. In many cases, indoor residual spraying of DDT, or any other insecticide, is not cost-effective and is very difficult to maintain. In most countries in Africa where USAID provides support to malaria control programs, it has been judged more cost-effective and appropriate to put US government funds into preventing malaria through insecticide-treated nets, which are every bit as effective in preventing malaria and more feasible in countries that do not have existing, strong indoor spraying programs.’
‘There are a few situations in which IRS with DDT is generally found to be appropriate. For example, in South Africa when certain mosquitoes developed resistance to the major alternative class of insecticides, the synthetic pyrethroids, DDT was used.’
or from November last year:
‘Under this program, USAID will purchase insecticide, supplies and equipment to conduct scientifically sound spraying programs for malaria control. Currently, there are 12 insecticides approved by the World Health Organization used for spraying in malaria control, including DDT. USAID expects to consider the use of all insecticides on a scientific, case-by-case basis, and will provide the essential technical planning, training, logistics and support needed before spraying begins.’
So USAID does support the spraying of DDT where it is appropriate and even says that in South Africa it is appropiate due to the resistence of the mozzies. DDT is not banned!!
The WHO says it is one of twelve approved insecticides and even has a pamphlet on how to use it. USAID says we support it’s use where appropriate. And what about the World Bank’s ban on DDT:
‘Dale Ward: How about using DDT to wipe-out malaria? This was successful in the past, before the misplaced hysteria of DDT came around.
Suprotik Basu: Thanks for the question on DDT. I was hoping someone would ask it.
DDT is clearly a very effective tool against malaria, and the World Bank does, where appropriate, support the use of DDT. But the issue is broader than DDT. The issue is one of indoor spraying and indoor spraying can be done with many, many different insecticides. It is not just about DDT. It is about a number of different insecticides that can be used for indoor spraying. The choice of insecticide depends on what are the resistance patterns inside that country. It is not really so much do we or don’t we use a particular insecticide. It is what is the appropriate insecticide in that particular country.
On DDT itself, you are right to note that there has been no scientific evidence that indoor spraying with DDT for malaria has resulted in negative health or environmental consequences. So the Bank’s position is very pragmatic on its use. We will use insecticide, and that includes but is not limited to DDT. There is no room for dogma on this issue and we take a country by country decision.’
So who exactly has banned (or ‘de facto banned’) DDT in the fight against malaria?
I thought Luke better represented the “imperialist bastards” than anyone – by advocating a total ban without consideration of the consequences he more than qualifies as an ignoramus.
Ann, dont you get weary of all these conspiracy theories? I know I do, they just dont add up to what is reality.
More on WHO’s position:
“Recognizing the role of DDT in disease vector control, WHO helped lobby for the exemption provisions during negotiations on the content of the Stockholm convention in 2000.” Bull World Health Organ vol.82 no.6 Genebra June 2004.
SimonC,
Thanks for all the links, they support your contention that there never was even an ‘in principle ban’.
It is 18 or so months ago that I tried to get a handle on the situation and history of the situation specifically in South Africa. Based on this reading, which from memory was mostly of reports written by South Africans for South Africans, I wrote in The Land that:
“For example, in response to international pressure, South Africa stopped using DDT for malaria control in 1996. The number of deaths from malaria increased from less than 50 per year over the period 1971 to 1995, to 450 in 2000. The South African Health Department switched back to DDT with an 85 per cent reduction in malaria cases within 18 months – the DDT spraying is believed to have controlled the case load to such an extent that all malaria patients could be treated with a new drug, Coartem.”
Why do you think South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996?
Do you think there was a misunderstanding between, for example, the South African authorities and the international community?
Why do you think Nature and Reuters got it so wrong?
Rog – please read my words – I have NOT advocated a ban !
I’m saying that as a bioaccumulator and with other alternatives I’m questioning you all frothing at the mouth to INSIST on its exclusive use. And if had some personal experience of insect resistance which Jen looks like she has not you might be more concerned.
Despite Jen’s selective protection of her favourites and IMHO provocative comments by David in the first place – I apologise and withdraw any remarks that may have caused personal offence and will aspire to more civility. I don’t withdraw the core message in my very small point however.
Too used to dealing with Motty I’m afraid. Ann Novek – excuse we uncouth Australians (including myself) – we do enjoy roughhouse debating styles. Our national parliament inspires us you see. But we mean well.
Haha Luke, rog and all aussies,
This is a comment that I have always wanted to post here – you aussies are immensely popular in our part of the world( OK, maybe Ian C ain’t too popular in Norway), but what we really appreciate is your humourous way of life!
for an in depth discussion of the pros and cons of the various options for treatment of malaria, including Indoor Residual Spraying see the following link –
http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309092183/html/206.html
This link is to an online book published by The National Academies Press entitled,
Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malarial Drugs 2004
Again, my reading of the relevant passages in this book indicate that there never was a complete ban on DDT -it’s always been a part of the arsenal against malaria but its use has declined for a number of reasons…..not just because of environmental concerns about DDT. What the information in this book shows is that the correct approach is to make decisions on a country by country basis about the right mix of interventions required to combat malaria, and that, for a number of reasons DDT is not the panacea it is claimed to be.
Personally I have no problem with the use of DDT for Indoor Residual Spraying if that is the most effective method of treatment for a particular region.
But as a resident of Nigeria, where transmission rates are in excess of 90% (and yes, I have had malaria here), I am certain that use of DDT will be limited in effectiveness here for a number of reasons that also apply to all the other interventions and include:
1. Total lack of interest among the elite here about the impact of this disease (and many others) on the population.
2. Widespread corruption at every level of society such that funds for public health initiatives typically do not reach the targets (ie the population).
3. Complete absence of any infrastructure that coould reliably conduct any public health campaign that required universal coverage and repeated treatments – eg impending failure of the river blindness eradication campaign where the drugs are supplied free.
4. Widespread suspiscion among many of the target population about any national govt campaign on any issue (often justified) -eg recent problems with the national census.
5. Widespread beliefs that malaria is not conveyed by mosquitoes but is due to other things – witchcraft, evil spirits, etc.
6. complete lack of understanding about the link between poor drainage and the incidence of A.gambensis.
Given these kinds of issues its is easy to understand why on virtually every indicator of health Nigeria is sliding backwards, despite increased funding on public health provided by Donors.
An oil rich country where, according to WHO more than 2,500,000 cases of malaria were reported in 2004, spends currently USD 2,500,000 on its malaria control program -icidentally Nigeria’s income from oil is running at about 95 million USD per day.
From my own observations and discussions with many doctors here the WHO data are not correct, the number of people with malaria is much higher. The population of this country is about 140 million – or 20% of the total population of sub-saharan Africa, hence if you cannot improve the stats for Nigeria it will affect the total for sub-saharan Africa and is one of the main reasons the Millenium Goals are beginning to look out of reach for this part of the world.
Luke,
Who’s advocating the use of DDT exclusively!?
You are putting words in others mouths! detribe, myself and others talk about it as an option?
As an entomologist I worked mostly in the area of weed biological control – so limited first hand experience with insecticides or resistence.
I have studied the cane grub situation in the Queensland sugar industry – access to industry data when I was environment manager – and there was a step increase in incidence of canegrub with the phasing out of DDT and other organocholorides. They’ve never found a reasonable replacement – but I’m not advocating its reintroduction!
My university training was in the early 1980s, and everyone was talking Integrated Pest Management to avoid resistance.
My first job as an entomologist was with a cotton consultant in Dalby. That was in the early 1980s and ‘everything’ was about avoiding the development of heliothis resistence to the chemicals that were then available.
“Apologies for being a bit paranoid here, but which company lies behind this bad mouthing of the greens and Rachel Carson? Is it Monsanto?”
First of all, why the assumption that there is a company behind this, and why Monsanto, they don’t make DDT. It’s now made in India and China. What makes you suggest this Ann?
Second, why are comments about previous campaigns to stop DDT usage “bad mouthing” if made on basis is whether (or not) mistakes were actually made, and whether of not they are being duely recognised by the main policy advocates, and whether or not the community has been adequately educated about them.
I am convinced they were made, and that they are not widely recognised. For those people who support these mistakes it fair game to point out where they are wrong. We don’t want to continue allowing people to die.
As far as Rachel Carson or any other influential historical figure ( Sig. Freud, C Darwin, Marx, Teller, Linus Pauling, or Winston Churchill) if they made errors, ignored the truth or are intellectually shoddy, and this causes harm, so beit. I bought Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring book when it was first published, have read it about 3 times, have read several serious critiques ( eg Edith Efron’s The Apocalyptics, Charles Rubin’s The Green Crusade) of it and know she where falsified evidence page by page and where she did good and was right. It’s certainly not good quality peer reviewed science – its journalism. If we are going to treat her as an untouchable hero we’re taking religion, not science.
I suggest that if you don’t know about these errors by Rachel Carson you would be wise to tread carefully in commenting about malaria policy.
‘Detribe – am I advocating a ban on DDT”. If this is not a typo it represents massive ignorance of the world of malaria or simple moral stupidity.
I withdraw this comment, I misread Luke
I read your words Luke, it appears you enjoy running with the foxes and hunting with the hounds.
Why not rephrase your original statement so that your point is more clear.
PS who is frothing at the mouth? (see, I did read your message)
Let’s at least get some relevant history accurate.
The question was raised “Why did South Africa stop using DDT?”
It’s answered in the British Medical Journal of 2000.
QUOTE
“Facing pressure from environmentalists, the national malaria control programme abandoned DDT in favour of more expensive pyrethroid nsecticides in 1996.”
Co-author of this BMJ article Mahraj is from South Africa Department of Health, Communicable Disease Control, Private Bag X828, Pretoria 0001, South Africa (Rajendra Maharaj deputy director), vectorborne diseases, so they should know.
Who were the organisations pushing for the ban globally up till 2000?: Its answered here in this BMJ paper too.
To my knowledge, of these organisations, only the WWF (to their credit) now has a defensible policy and done of those responsible for the attempted ban, and the widespread anti-DDT propaganda prior to 2000 have made an effort to re-educate the public about these issues accurately.
This widespread prpaganda, as much as any factor, is why re-introduction of DDT has been so difficult.
DDT for malaria control should not be banned
Amir Attaran,
Rajendra Maharaj
British Med Journal
BMJ (2000);Vol321:pp1403–5
Center for International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
South Africa Department of Health, Communicable Disease Control, Private Bag X828, Pretoria 0001, South Africa Rajendra Maharaj deputy director, vectorborne diseases
Quote
Last year, deaths from malaria in Africa reached an all time high. Next year they will probably do so again, claiming around a million children. Yet in this deadly upward spiral, political pressure is building at the United Nations Environment Programme to pass a treaty by the end of 2000 to internationally ban or restrict one of the world’s best antimalarial tools.
That tool is, of course, DDT—dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane. The campaign to ban it, joined by 260 environmental groups, reads like a who’s who of the environmental movement and includes names such as Greenpeace, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and (ironically) the Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Together, they are “demanding action to eliminate” DDT and its sources.1
(Citation 1. International POPs Elimination Network. Background statement and POPs elimination platform. http://www.ipen.org/pops_platform.htm (accessed
17 Nov 2000) URL active in the leadup up to the Johannesberg UNEP Conference to BAN PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS (POP), DDT included.)
South Africa illustrates these limitations in practice.
Facing pressure from environmentalists, the national malaria control programme abandoned DDT in favour of more expensive pyrethroid insecticides in 1996.
Within three years, pyrethroid resistant A funestus mos quitoes invaded KwaZuluNatal province, where they had not been seen since DDT spraying began in the
1940s. Malaria cases then promptly soared, from just 4117 cases in 1995 to 27 238 cases in 1999 (or possibly 120 000 cases, judging by pharmacy records). Other provinces experienced similar catastrophes, and South Africa was forced to return to DDT spraying this year. It had little alternative: no other insecticide, at any price, was known to be equally effective.
These same miguided emotional activities that demonised DDT are being continued by the same organsisations, with different deminising targets. The general outcomes are the same: the poor in the developing world bear the consequences of bad policy formulation.
There is little evident that the main players are aware of the harmful consequences of these actions. What we have is a failure to communicate.
Jen – I’m reading the implied tone as exclusivity given the hostile reaction to my suggestion to some consideration of alternatives.
As with use as termiticides the organochlorines were good on cane grubs because of the their persistence in the environment. And Heliothis now Helicoverpa went on to develop resistance to DDT, endosulfan, organophosphates, carbamates and synthetic pyrethroids. That resistance goes back to the 20-30 washday sprays of the 1970s cotton industry. That heavens for BT cotton which we hope is used wisely.
Once these genes are selected they can re-emerge in only a few generations given adequate selection pressure.
Old pesticides and new ones are too precious to waste in massive ongoing spraying. Resistance seems inevitable. Although perhaps chitin inhibitors or the like may be more fundamental to physiology.
David – I was not idolising Rachel Carson either. DDT has always been fairly safe in terms of acute toxicity with humans. However is it wise to have a bioaccumulating compound in the natural and human environment if we don’t have to. Long term effects ??
Just for the record (from my hard disk malaria collection):
S.Africa says DDT helping to slash malaria rate
Thu Jun 15, 2006 4:16 PM GMT Reuters
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South Africa’s use of controversial pesticide DDT has helped it achieve a huge reduction in malaria cases over the past five years, the health minister said on Thursday.
DDT is effective in killing malaria-spreading mosquitoes but is blamed for deaths, cancer and birth defects and is outlawed by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, except when used for disease control.
South Africa stopped using the insecticide in 1996 due to international pressure but re-introduced it four years later after other insecticides were found to be less effective due to drug resistance.
“This change in insecticide was one of the main contributing factors to the decline in malaria cases in the past five years in South Africa,” Health Minister Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang said in written reply to a parliamentary question.
“South Africa has reduced malaria morbidity and mortality by approximately 88 percent and 86 percent, respectively, compared to the year 2000,” she said.
Official data shows the country had 7,754 reported cases of malaria and 64 deaths from the disease in 2005 compared to 64,622 cases and 438 deaths in 2000.
Malaria, a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes, is one of the biggest killers in sub-Saharan Africa, with the vast majority of the one million, mostly children, it kills a year living in that region.
Tshabalala-Msimang said South Africa was aware of the controversy around the use of DDT for malaria control and invested heavily in training staff to use the chemical safely.
“For this reason DDT is used judiciously strictly for public health reasons and its application is on the inside walls of houses and under the eaves of mud structures,” she added.
Luke, there is a lot you say in your last comment I fully agree with. Actually my remarks about Carson were not directed at you, but were mainly a response to Ann’s remarks about Carson.
“However is it wise to have a bioaccumulating compound in the natural and human environment if we don’t have to. Long term effects ?”
The key issues are (i) “dont have to” and (ii) the actual short term effects of restricting DDT.
In South Africa “Official data shows the country had 7,754 reported cases of malaria and 64 deaths from the disease in 2005 compared to 64,622 cases and 438 deaths in 2000.” (last comment), so tens of thousands of cases and several hundred deaths per year to be traded in one region ALONE off against ill defined long term effects.
My guestimate is there may be 10-20 similar region in the world so we are taking about 100,000s thousand cases and some 5000 avoidable deaths per year, so, per decade its “only” millions of cases and 50,000 deaths per decade, so to that extent I agree with Tim Lambert that the pro-DDT critics have overstated things.
Even so, I think Lambert’s overall stance of DDT is a huge mistake.
Millions of miserable malaria sufferers and 100,000 plus deaths is worth an internet virtual argument anyday. That’s why I don’t care one little bit about some of the uncharitable things said earlier in this thread about me.
I’m assuming the the widspread distribution of DDT was caused by use of hundreds of tons in agriculture in the 1950-1980s (mainly cotton.)
I accept Attaran’s argument that local use of kg quantities of DDT where it does save lives does not cause significant global harm. I thing aggressive pursuit of alternatives such as vaccines is extremely important. But there is no proof these atlernatives are fully effective and as the Nigerian man commented previously, a lot of thing make malaria control a challege in Africa. All the more reason to keep DDT “on the table” (but out of the field.)
Detribe, all,
Thanks for the discussion on this important topic..
Detribe, regarding this Monasanto stuff, it was actually meant as a joke, don’t we Greenpeacers know that Monsanto lies behind all evil things;)? Like GMO seeds, Agent Orange, PCB’s and in the past manufactoring DDT.
Thanks for pointing out this is made in China and India now.
Maybe it’s all lies but I have read and heard that Monsanto has been campaigning against Rachel Carson, can you confirm this?
I think it is also unfair to accuse greenies for “the death of millions “, as we have read on the Internet.
Personally, I haven’t checked out any links on this topic yet, but I have personal experience from DDT exposure on birds( white tailed eagles) where I live. I’m very glad that the population now has recovered.
When we see thes effects on animals, in this case the thinning of eggshells, it is only natural to ask, what kind of a effect has DDT on humans? Why do we have lab animals if not to study these effects?
Here in Scandinavia and especially in the Arctic region, there is right now much talk about DDTs in the food chain.
Isn’t it strange that Arctic people are the ones most affected by DDTs.
How does it come that in the clear Arctic waters most DDTs and organochlorides accumulate, despite on “old” ban on DDTs?
And what additional stress would a “new spring” for DDT usage mean to humans?
None as you say, or would the reports on neurological impairments increase in children in the Arctic?
Thank also for the info on Rachel Carson’s book, hope though the criticism was fair.
Hi Ann,
What did you mean by “Isn’t it strange that Arctic people are the ones most affected by DDTs.”
How are artic people most affected? Is there more DDT in tissue samples from artic people?
In addition to their potential to cause cancer, many of the compounds found in Arctic inhabitants are capable of altering sex hormones and reproductive systems, suppressing immune systems, and obstructing brain development. Infants are the most vulnerable — subject to exposure both in utero and through breast milk, because contaminants such as PCB and DDT accumulate in the fatty nourishment — and are harmed in subtle but profound ways. Arctic babies with high PCB and DDT exposure suffer greater rates of infectious diseases. A study of such infants in Nunavik found that they have more ear and respiratory infections, a quarter of them severe enough to cause hearing loss. “Nunavik has a cluster of sick babies,” says Dewailly. “They fill the waiting rooms of the clinics.”
Thanks Ann for your advice about the arctic.It would be helpful to locate sources for the evidence so it can be better understood.
As far as stories circulating about Monsanto, there are so many, I dont think I’d have a chance of tracking them. I’ve havn’t heard any about Rachel Carson. But why not cite the source of your comment. It seems to be to be wrong the transmit remarks that you do not back up with an explanation of where they came from. There is a commandment in old ethical writings to not bear false witness against your neighbour.
As far as the possible impact of extra DDT use today it worth looking at numbers for the total quantities used in its hey day.
Parasitology Today, 2000 -Vol 16 No 3 p119
Should DDT be Banned by
International Treaty?
C.F. Curtis and J.D. Lines
http://www.impact-malaria.com/FR/EPS/Formations_et_cours_internationaux/Formation_de_la_Liverpool_School_LSTMH/cours_liverpool/PDFs/DDT1.pdf
mention that in India alone in the 1960s 18,000 tonnes (yes 18 thousand tonnes)were used annually which is grotesque.
This vast overuse plus bioaccumulation can explain why it if found in the actic.
The amounts currently proposed are a very small fraction of this (~0.5 kg/ family per year)~ 2 to 20 tonnes per country by my estimate, or about 0.1%
Fair enough detribe,
My above excerpt from Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/01/12_402.html
Regarding neurological impairments I read this in a study by a PhD student at the University of Stockholm. Trying to find an English link.
And to be fair I think other contaminants as PCB was also mentioned in this study, not exclusively DDT. These two toxics are the two dominant contaminants in the Arctic.
detribe, banning the agricultural use of DDT has saved lives. If it had continued to be used in agriculture more DDT resistance would have evolved making it less useful against malaria. Yet you will not admit this. Do you even believe in evolution?
Tim,
“Yet you will not admit this”.
Well Tim, this particular supposition is patently incorrect. Where have I disputed this assertion?: certainly not here, and I certainly won’t in this response – I’ve only ever discussed bans on DDT in the context of their effects on management of malaria and other vector spread disease.
“Do you even believe in evolution?”
Crikey Tim , these last few days I’ve mentioned in blog comments (here or at JF Beck’s), evolutionary selection of mosquito dislike of the aroma of DDT as a mosquito behavioural trait. DDT itself selected for survival evolution of mosquitos who detect its molecular traces as an aroma they avoid, even when they can survive its effects at higher doses.
The problem Tim, is that the poltical campaign to ban persistent organic pollutants had certain side effects which included, for instance,
QUOTin Attara BMJ 2000
“Facing pressure from environmentalists, the national malaria control programme abandoned DDT in favour of more expensive pyrethroid insecticides in 1996.”
in South Africa.
The instutional side effects included the way WHO and other agencies positioned DDT. The organisations responsible for this political campaign included
QUOTE-ing Attaran BMJ 2000
” 260 environmental groups, reads like a who’s who of the environmental movement and includes names such as Greenpeace, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and (ironically) the Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Together, they are “demanding action to eliminate” DDT and its sources.1
(Citation 1. International POPs Elimination Network. Background statement and POPs elimination platform. http://www.ipen.org/pops_platform.htm (accessed
17 Nov 2000) URL active in the leadup up to the Johannesberg UNEP Conference to BAN PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS (POP), DDT included.)”
They got world wide attention in the lead up to formulation the Stockholm convention of POPs.
One must have not been reading newspapers books and magazines in the 70s 80s and nineties if one didnt pick up on that.
These organisations, in the main, continue to follow a policy of trying to ban things they don’t agree with for mindless irresponsible political reasons and often detrimentally to the fundamental welfare interests of others, particularly those in the developing world.
Fundamentally, their political power consists of simplifying the world to black and white, rather than shades of grey, or as a “marriage of heaven and hell”. When they do this, even if they believe they come from heaven, they also create hell.
The only way in which they will develop more responsible behaviour is to hold them accountable for the adverse consequences of their actions. It’s a tough job, Tim, as you so evidently illustrate, but someone’s got to do it, else we’ll continue to get more of the same old, same old nonsense.
I do not always find the stuff at wikkipedia to be encyclopedic, but here is what appears to be a very good review of the whole issue,and, in my opinion is pretty much an objective view.
Its long, but it is detailed and shows that this issue has beeen misrepresented consistently by those pushing one particular line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Oh, and detribe, I’m not actually a Nigerian, I’m an Aussie who currently lives in Nigeria and my visa describes me as a resident alien.
Attaran is hardly the most reliable source of information about DDT. Here is rather opinion on the reason why S Africa switched to pyrethroids:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1365-3156.2001.00700.x
Comparison of the cost and cost-effectiveness of insecticide-treated bednets and residual house-spraying in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
C. A. Goodman, A. E. P. Mnzava, S. S. Dlamini, B. L. Sharp, D. J. Mthembu & J. K. Gumede
However, in recent years several shortcomings of RHS have been highlighted. The effectiveness of DDT was compromised by the insecticide’s irritant effect, which led to a high proportion of bloodfed mosquitoes leaving huts and not resting indoors (Sharp et al. 1990). Frequent replastering and painting over sprayed walls has also impaired effectiveness. In 1995, more than 48% of the homesteads replastered at least some of their walls, rendering the insecticide ineffective (Mnzava et al. 1998). The switch to pyrethroid insecticides, which do not smell or leave visible deposits, has reduced the prevalence of this practice, but it remains a common occurrence, with a fifth of homesteads replastering or painting before the end of the malaria season in 1997±1998 … Other households avoid RHS altogether by locking their houses during the spraying round.
That interesting Tim,
But subsequent events in South Africa to the study you just mention involved an epidemic of malaria post-DDT discontinuation due to faiure of pyrythoids followed by reintroductionn of DDT spraying that has bought that epidemic under control. So that the point you are making has been outflanked by subsequent events that demonstrated that nets without RHS were insufficient to prevent an epidemic.
Its thus not a case or nets OR DDT spraying, but nets alone versus nets plus RHS. The latter wins hands down in terms of effectiveness over the failure of nets without DDT RHS which you seem to be advocating.
Why do you assert that Attaran’s arguments should be dismissed? You don’t actually give a reason.
Mr Lambert, you are not a reliable source of DDT information, as I have repeatedly proven. Please do me a favour and point out which of my posts on your numerous DDT misrepresentations is incorrect: I ask you to do this here because you have banned me from commenting at your blog and refuse to comment at my blog.
You recently linked to a World Bank report you claim proves your contention that the World Bank funds DDT use. As best I can tell, contrary to your claim, the report does not discuss World Bank support or funding for DDT use in the Solomon Islands.
Further, the linked report clearly indicates that the efficacy of bed-nets is questionable. The title of the report: Impregnated Nets Cannot Fully Substitute for DDT.
Finally, could you please substantiate your claim that Attaran is not a reliable source of DDT information.
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2003/06/06/000094946_03052804040537/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
detribe, you are confused about what happened in South Africa. They did not discontinue RHS, they just switched to RHS using pyrethroids. And when resistence to pyrethroids was found that partially switched back to DDT. (They still used pyrethroids in some structures.) Furthermore, your account of what brought the epidemic under control leaves us some important facts. The epidemic was caused by resistence to anti-malarial drugs as well as insectide resistance as well unusually wet weather that helped mosquitoes to breed. The reduction of case was as result of switching back to DDT for spraying, switching to artemensin and drier weather. Usually the DDT fans try to give all the credit to DDT.
And for the umpteenth time I’m not opposed to using DDT against malaria. What I am opposed to are efforts to present DDT as a magic bullet against malaria.
As for Attaran, see http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/05/attaran_at_it_again.php
That’s Lambert’s take on DDT use in South Africa. Here’s South Africa’s Health Minister Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang on the importance of the decision to reintroduce DDT:
“This change in insecticide was one of the main contributing factors to the decline in malaria cases in the past five years in South Africa.”
“South Africa has reduced malaria morbidity and mortality by approximately 88 percent and 86 percent, respectively, compared to the year 2000,” she said.
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006/06/lambert-still-wrong-on-ddt.html
If Lambert hasn’t been intentionally misleading his readers, all he need do is go to my past posts and show everyone where I’ve gotten it wrong. That he can’t do that tells you everything you need to know about the guy.
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=lambert+ddt+site%3Arwdb.blogspot.com&btnG=Search&meta=
Tim,
You are adding some valuable information, but you continue to make innaccurate comments about what I am discussing. My comments were about what type of health policy stance we are making a choice about. I did not say they were complete description of all events that actually occured. For the record, I am not making out DDT to be a magic bullet, just an effective weapon we need to use where appropriate. I am discussing the problems that limit that DDT use, and these are problems that should have been anticipated by those who tried to ban DDT.
It’s good that you point out that there are several factors that contributed to the RSA epidemic in addition to actual DDT discontinuation by the RSA government under pressure from environmentalists, but the fact remains that the control measures you describe were not enough to counter the epidemic. Its good also you support DDT use: its a pity you were not effective in doing so in 1995.
But you are still silent about why you discount the Attaran report. You are silent about why a clearly stated comment in that report, co-authored by
Rajendra Maharaj, deputy director, vectorborne disease, South Africa Department of Health, Communicable Disease Control,in a major International medical journal, the BMJ,
which was a statement by a RSA government official that said environmentalist political pressure was “active” in the decision making to phase out DDT around 1995, and a key statement about a decision to discontinue DDT, in a country in where environmentalist groups were later to hold the Johannesberg 2000 international conference that had the aim of complete elimination of DDT and other “POPs”.
You are apparently assuming that these groups took no other political steps to achieve their aims appart from the 2000 J’berg talk fest. This assumption I find highly implausible. A leopard does not change it’s spots.
And it seems that you continue to not give any weight or credence to the adverse consequences of such political actions in which hundreds if not thousands of people died. A simple clarification here would fix that up. I invite you to do so.
This is the issue I am driving at, not magic bullet arguments.
It this lack of precaution and lack of sensitivity to unintended effects, and continuing lack of acknowledgement of a problem, that I am still concerned about, and if you are pushing me to fill out realistic details in my comments, I am puzzeled as to why you don’t do so yourself, but continue to present your own un-nuanced version of history, laced with gratuitous, unproven and largely irrelevant political jibes which you appear to think are a substitute for argumentary detail. I certainly don’t find your link to a vague search engine entry a particularly persuasive or transparent way of making a point, whatever that is.
Sorry, detribe, I don’t subscribe to your theory that all-powerful environmentalists control the world. They don’t have the power to ban DDT and they have only a limited influence on governments. So someone in the RSA government wanted to blame environmentalists for the epidemic. Is it possible that the government wanted to balme environmentalists for the epidemic instead of taking responsibility itself? Did you read the the quote from Goodman? It says that they switched to pyrethroids to improve the effectiveness of the program against malaria, not because of environmentalist pressure.
Moreover, regardless of the reason for the switch to RHS with pyrethroids, it is unfair to blame environmentalists for the epidemic. If resistance to pyrethroids had not developed then spraying pyrethroids would have worked more effectively than spraying DDT. How were they supposed to predict that resistance would develop when it did?
It seems to me that your comments are politically motivated and you are just looking for rocks to throw at environmentalists.
I don’t know why you claimed I made a link to a search engine entry. I did no such thing.
Tim Lambert wrote: “It says that they switched to pyrethroids to improve the effectiveness of the program against malaria, not because of environmentalist pressure.”
Please provide a quote to back up that assertion.
Tim Lambert wrote:”How were they supposed to predict that resistance would develop when it did?”
Because pyrethroids are widely used in agriculture, mosquitoes quickly develop resistance, just as was the case with DDT. It has been known for years that mosquitoes in southern Africa were developing pyrethroid resistance. Further, the development of resistance is monitored. That’s how.
You just can’t admit that you’ve misled yourself into a corner that you’re not going to be able to mislead your way out of, can you?
“I don’t subscribe to your theory that all-powerful environmentalists control the world. They don’t have the power to ban DDT and they have only a limited influence on governments.”
This is hyperbole. I don’t subscribe to a (consiracy) theory that environmentalist’s control the world either, neither do I blame environmentalists in general: I am critical of some NGOs who continue to be irreponsible on certain issues, fail to correct harmful misinformation and exaggeration they themselve create, and who are insensitive to the adverse aspects of policies they pursue and the harms of misinformation they have created, particularly in the third world.
Lambert “So someone in the RSA government wanted to blame environmentalists for the epidemic.”
Attaran “Facing pressure from environmentalists, the national malaria control programme abandoned DDT “.
No Tim “wanting to blame” is your own SPECULATION about motive, Attaran BMJ 200 merely says that they did exert polical pressure to ban DDT prior to the decision being made.
Lambert “[Goodman et al] says that they switched to pyrethroids to improve the effectiveness of the program against malaria, not because of environmentalist pressure.”
Goodman et al’s only relevant section:
“However, in recent years several shortcomings of RHS have been highlighted. The effectiveness of DDT was compromised by the insecticide’s irritant effect, which led to a high proportion of bloodfed mosquitoes leaving huts and not resting indoors (Sharp et al. 1990). Frequent replastering and painting over sprayed walls has also impaired effectiveness. In 1995, more than 48% of the homesteads replastered at least some of their walls, rendering the insecticide ineffective (Mnzava et al. 1998). The switch to pyrethroid insecticides, which do not smell or leave visible deposits, has reduced the prevalence of this practice, but it remains a common occurrence, with a fifth of homesteads replastering or painting before the end of the malaria season in 1997–1998 (S.S. Dlamini, Mnzava AEP, Sharp BL, LeSueur D & Mthembu DJ, unpublished data).”
Nope, Tim it does not actually make the assertion you put forward, or even discuss political pressure.
Lambert “It seems to me that your comments are politically motivated and you are just looking for rocks to throw at environmentalists.”
Here yet again, Tim you resort to speculation about motives instead of factually analysing human welfare policies. It happens that I actually know much more about myself than you do, from direct personal experience. Your speculation here about me is the precise opposite of the truth. My motivation for criticising particular NGOs originates from personal moral antipathy (in fact outrage) for their insensitivity to the harms they cause, and their frequent willingness to say anything, true, false or whatever, to achieve their own political objectives, and is based on direct knowledge of people in these organisations. It’s the NGO ROCK THROWING and its collateral damage that causes my own activity in forums such as this, which is the main way I exert whatever political intentions I personally have.
I’m pleased though, that you seem to have desisted in dealing with Attaran arguments by political jibe. This discussion would make more progress if you eliminated that tendancy completely. I’m dissapointed you do not understand the need for NGOs to accept moral responsibility for predictable consequences of their strongly advocated policies. They expect other organisation to.
I got the feeling some time ago that Tim Lambert was the “Mark Latham” of science bloggers: more interested in fighting that getting to the truthy of the matter.
Dear,
its indeed good to fight the spread of malaria in africa,and my comment is that God may countinue supporting you as we look to control of malaria i africa,my question is do you fund projects on HIV/AIDS and Malaria control in the community,because ther is a small village in south sudan that there are too much spread of malaria in the community,we form another community based organisaation support the community in the control,the organisation is called,SOUTH SUDAN DEVELOPMENT AID,We would be greatfully to hear from you as we look forward to the control of the disease in the community