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0ZB0N · Guest

Eco Imperialism's Deadly Consequences

December 2003

http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.php3?id=13

EXCERPT:

Driessen's book isn't limited to global warming and third world energy
problems. The chapter "Sustainable Mosquitoes -- Expendable People"
describes the ongoing tragedy of the eco-activist crusade against DDT.

"Our family and community are suffering and dying from malaria, and too
many Europeans and environmentalists only talk about protecting the
environment," says 34-year old Ugandan businesswoman with malaria. "But
what about the people? The mosquitoes are everywhere. You think you're
safe, and you're not. Europeans and Americans can afford to deceive
themselves about malaria and pesticides. But we can't," she added.

The Ugandan woman is only one of more than 300 million annual victims of
malaria in the third world. Between 2-3 million die every year. "Over
half the victims are children, who die at a rate of two per minute or
3,000 per day -- the equivalent of 80 fully loaded school buses plunging
over a cliff every day of the year," explains Driessen.

Despite this ongoing public health horror story, the United Nations
Environment Programme, World Bank, Greenpeace, Pesticide Action Network,
World Wildlife Fund, Physicians for Social Responsibility and other
eco-imperialist groups oppose the use of DDT -- the only practical
solution to the malaria crisis. The eco-imperialists' disturbing
attitude toward the third world is perhaps most frighteningly described
by Robert S. Desowitz in another must-read, "The Malaria Capers," (W.W.
Norton, 1991).

Desowitz reports a U.S. Agency for International Development official
named Edwin Cohn as saying, "The third world didn't require a healthy
labor force because there was a surplus of workers; better some people
should be sick with malaria and spread the job opportunities around."
Even more bluntly, Cohn reportedly said people in the third world were
"better [off] dead than alive and riotously reproducing."

There should be no question, then, about Eco-Imperialism's subtitle:
Green power does indeed mean black death.
--

Warmest Regards

Bonzo

"It's very appropriate that it [An Inconvenient Truth] got an Oscar from
the land of make-believe." Dr. Timothy Ball, Chairman of the Natural
Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP.com), Former Professor Of
Climatology, University of Winnipeg

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http://kenethmiles.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_kenethmiles_archive.html

Monday, February 02, 2004

Putting Myths to Bed

Published in today's Australian is a letter which should (but won't, there
is
always another mule in the wings) put to rest the nonsense on ddt recently
peddled by Christopher Pearson.

====================================================

CHRISTOPHER Pearson (Inquirer, 24-25/1) blames "the environmental lobby . .
..
with direct responsibility for millions of needless deaths, mostly of
children
in the Third World, from malaria". The argument is that Rachel Carson's book
Silent Spring falsely accused the insecticide DDT of dangers to both human
health and the environment, that this accusation led to the banning of DDT
in
mosquito control programs in areas where malaria is endemic (mostly the
tropics), and as a direct result of this ban, millions of people died.

This argument is arrant nonsense, recycled from an article in Quadrant, in
turn
recycled from a number of unscientific and unsubstantiated websites. As
professionals and teachers in the field of parasite disease control, we are
only too well aware of how such rubbish can be transmuted from cyberspace
junk
to popular folklore. Your readers should be aware of the facts:

The manufacture and use of DDT was banned in the US in 1972, on the advice
of
the US Environmental Protection Agency. The use of DDT has since been banned
in
most other developed nations, but it is not banned for public health use in
most areas of the world where malaria is endemic. Indeed, DDT was recently
exempted from a proposed worldwide ban on organophosphate chemicals.

DDT usage for malaria control involves spraying the walls and backs of
furniture, so as to kill and repel adult mosquitoes that may carry the
malaria
parasite. Other chemicals are available for this purpose, but DDT is cheap
and
persistent and is often a very effective indoor insecticide which is still
used
in many parts of the world.

DDT is not used for outdoor mosquito control, partly because scientific
studies
have demonstrated toxicity to wildlife, but mainly because its persistence
in
the environment rapidly leads to the development of resistance to the
insecticide in mosquito populations. There are now much more effective and
acceptable insecticides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis, to kill larval
mosquitoes outdoors.

Reductions in the use of DDT did occur in a number of developing nations
after
the US ban in 1972. This reflected concerns over environmental consequences
of
DDT, but was also a result of many other factors. One of the important
factors
in declining use of DDT was decreasing effectiveness and greater costs
because
of the development of resistance in mosquitoes. Resistance was largely
caused
by the indiscriminate, widespread use of DDT to control agricultural pests
in
the tropics. This problem, in fact, was anticipated by Carson: "No
responsible
person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored . . . The
question
that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is wise or responsible
to
attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse."

Malaria is a major, ongoing disease problem in much of the developing world.
Increases in the incidence of the disease have occurred for complex reasons.
Reduced insecticide usage is one, but others include the resistance to
treatment in both the parasite and the mosquito vectors, changes in land use
that have provided new mosquito habitat, and the movement of people into
new,
high-risk areas.

Most nations where malaria is a problem, and most health professionals
working
in the field of malaria control, support the targeted use of DDT, as part of
the tool kit for malaria control. Most also agree that more cost-effective,
less environmentally persistent alternatives are needed. There are some
effective alternative chemicals for the control of adult mosquitoes, but
preventing their further development is lack of invest ment by industry,
because malaria is largely a disease of the poor.

Malaria is responsible for enormous suffering and death. The facts are
readily
available in the scientific literature. To blame a reduction in DDT usage
for
the death of 10-30 million people from malaria is not just simple-minded, it
is
demonstrably wrong. To blame a mythical, monolithic entity called the
environmental lobby for the total reduction in DDT usage is not just
paranoid,
it is also demonstrably wrong. Your article is not only poor journalism, it
is
an insult to the people who work for the control of parasitic diseases that
afflict developing nations.

Dr Alan Lymbery
Professor Andrew Thompson
Parasitology Unit
Division of Health Sciences
Murdoch University

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