The latest folks to spread the DDT hoax are Kopel, Gallant and Eisen. They claim:
[Malaria] is a disaster manufactured by First World political correctness; DDT prohibition is scientifically indefensible, and is responsible for millions of deaths every year.
However, as explained in my posts on DDT, DDT is not banned from use against malaria, and while it is still helps against malaria in some places, it is not the panacea that Kopel et al make it out to be.
They also write
But rather than limiting DDT use, the United Nations is actively encouraging a worldwide ban on DDT.63
But reference 63 is to the Stockholm Convention on Persistant Organic Pollutants, which specifically exempts DDT use for vector control from the ban. Banning agricultural use of DDT greatly aids its use against malaria, since mosquitoes will be much less likely to develop resistance.
More like this
Gary Becker and Richard Posner have written a pair of posts about DDT and there is much wrong with what they have written.
Becker writes:
The world Trade Organization (WTO) declared in 1998 a "war on malaria" that aimed to cut malaria deaths in half by 2010. Instead, deaths from malaria have been…
In a recent post I observed that the Junk Central Station crew were ignorantly advocating the use of DDT in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, apparently unaware that mosquitoes in Sri Lanka were resistant to DDT. The World Health Organization's plan for malaria prevention in the wake…
Now it's the "Rachel Carson killed millions" nonsense over at Uncommon Descent and it's based upon this WSJ editorial from Dr. Zaramba, the health minister for Uganda.
What's really embarrassing is how they link the entire article and it's clear they didn't even read it.
BarryA writes:
When I got…
Last year I wrote about the inaccurate claims that the World Health Organization had reversed its policy on DDT when it had in fact supported its use all along.
A recent paper in Lancet Infectious Diseases 2007; 7:632-633 also concludes that there has been little real change. Authors Hans J…
Yes, very good points. I think Laurie Garrett has a nice several page piece on the history of this whole DDT thing in the malaria chapter of "The Coming Plague." Apparently, even Rachel Carson was not opposed to using DDT for public health purposes.
Good point, Tim. That does seem to be an important distinction that a lot of people who should know better are missing.
Tim,
Are you aware of Belmont Club's post on this subject?
http://www.wretchard.com/blogs/the_belmont_club/archive/2005/03/26/Mal_…
Thanks for the tip. I guess I'll do a post on Roberts' tripe.
Is Roberts's Lancet article included in the "tripe"?
N.B.: That's Dr. Donald R. Roberts of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.
Not the other Dr. Roberts who has also published in the Lancet.
jre,
See http://www.malaria.org/ddtlancet.html#consequencesoftheban
In that paper, Roberts has
He seems to have the year wrong (1964, not 1961) and fails to note that the
reason spraying was stopped was that malaria cases had dropped to near zero.
The resurgence of malaria was, indeed, a public health disaster. We need to learn from it, and keep it from happening again. Using a deliberate misconstruction of its causes as a rhetorical weapon against environmentalists is shameful, if you ask me.