The way the "Rachel Carson was worse than Hitler" folks tell the story, the all-powerful environmentalists were poised to ban DDT at the end of the 90s. For example, here's Tren and Bate's
version of the negotiations leading to the Stockholm Treaty:
Five Inter-governmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meetings
were held between June 1998 and December 2000 in order to
agree on the final text of the POPs treaty. The fate of DDT under
the POPs treaty changed dramatically during the five negotiating
meetings. Initially it appeared that DDT would probably be
banned for all uses.Delegates of developing nations faced several difficulties at the
INC meetings. Perhaps the most important impediment to their
ability to negotiate an agreement that would have been suitable
and beneficial to developing countries was that they were
swamped by delegates from developed countries and representatives
of environmental pressure groups.
Walker et al's paper in the Int J of Hygiene and Environmental Health (2003) tells a rather different story:
Early in the
negotiating process, many participants recognized
that, due to the continued use of DDT for disease
control, it could not be completely banned or quickly
phased-out like the other pesticides. ...The 120-plus countries involved in the global
POPs negotiations brought a wide range of perspectives
and national interests in the DDT issue.
Developed countries from non-malarious, temperate
regions generally viewed DDT as a long-range
pollutant. Among developing countries, most of
which have malarious regions, perspectives were
more widely diverging.A minority of those countries
still used DDT for malaria control, including many
southern and east African countries as well as the
two remaining DDT producers, India and China.
Interestingly, some of the countries in west Africa
with the highest malaria burdens had never used
much DDT at all, and their delegates generally did
not express interest in using DDT in the future.
Other developing countries, such as Vietnam and
Brazil, had used DDT in the past but had switched to
alternative insecticides or approaches in recent
years. Delegates from some developing countries
expressed concern about the illegal trade and
potential diversion of DDT from disease vector
control to agricultural uses. In spite of these
differences, the DDT issue was not particularly
controversial among the government negotiators.
Plenary and contact group discussions on DDT
began at INC-3 and were generally thoughtful and
congenial, focusing on how to design a DDT public
health use provision that adequately balanced
disease control and environmental protection goals.In contrast, the DDT issue was vigorously debated
within the NGO community. Environmental NGOs,
particularly World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Physicians
for Social Responsibility (PSR), pointed to
the high levels of DDT found in wildlife and in
human breast milk and argued that DDT sprayed
inside homes could harm the environment and
jeopardize human health, given DDT's possible
endocrine disrupting activity (WWF 1999a). At the
same time, both groups recognized the public health
value of DDT and published information documents
suggesting possible alternatives (WWF 1998; PSR
1999). The WWF in particular focused considerable
attention on the question of balancing public health
and conservation interests and pointed to successful
vector control programs that did not use DDT
(WWF 1999b). WWF initially proposed a time limited
exemption for public health use of DDT,
with investments of technical and financial assistance
to facilitate development and adoption of
alternative disease vector controls, based on Mexico's
planned phase-out of the use of DDT by 2007.However, as an NGO observer, WWF could not
propose actual treaty language, and no participating
country formally supported the suggested ban.
WWF's proposed 2007 deadline provoked a
strong negative reaction from malaria control advocates.
A public health NGO, the Malaria Foundation
International (MFI), mobilized 371 scientists,
including three Nobel laureates, to sign a letter
warning the negotiators that a firm deadline to ban
DDT would place an unethical burden on the world's
poorest countries. Prominent malariologists argued
that while an eventual ban of public health use of
DDT could be acceptable if cost-effective alternatives
were in place, significant and long-term
investments in malaria research and public health
capacity building in developing countries would
have to come first from the developed world (Curtis
and Lines 2000). The global POPs negotiation
process was also criticized as lacking sufficient
participation by health officials from malarious
countries (Attaran et al. 2000). The media was
alerted to the imagined threat of an imminent ban on
public health use of DDT, and articles appeared in
the New York Times, the Economist, Science News
and elsewhere describing the issue (Stolberg 1999;
Raloff 2000).
Yes, that's right, the threat of an imminent ban was purely imaginary and was sensationalized by the media. Such a ban would have required unanimous support from the governments involved, but was actually supported by none of them. None of them.
Walker concludes:
The DDT provision of the Stockholm Convention
was designed to preserve access to DDT for countries
that rely on it for WHO-approved disease control
while preventing agricultural use and subsequent
harm to the environment. At the same time the
provision encourages countries with sufficient resources
(i.e. developed countries) to support research
and development of alternative disease control
products and strategies. It is interesting to note
that while some issues were highly contentious and
politicized within the negotiation process (e.g.
reduction vs. elimination of dioxins and furans,
technical and financial assistance), the development
of the DDT provision was not marked by significant
debate among governments. Through the negotiations,
the international community became more
informed about both the environmental and possible
human health hazards of DDT and the significant
human health benefits.
Is there any aspect of the use of DDT against Malaria that has not been misrepresented by Bate and the rest of the Junk Tech Science Central Station crowd?
"Yes, that's right, the threat of an imminent ban was purely imaginary and was sensationalized by the media."
Really, Tim.
Next you'll be claiming environmentalists don't kidnap unbaptised infants to sacrifice to their Satanic master.
Hi Tim,
I have trouble following your stuff on DDT - not just this post but your 'rants' more generally.
I think you would do well to read a bit wider about pesticides and how their registration/use is approved, why sometimes they are withdrawn from sale, how resistance to pesticides develops, how resistance to pesticides can be managed.
I would also read about environmental campaigns and try and understand the fundamental aversion of groups like WWF to pesticides - and what drives this.
If I was going to write about IT (like you write about environmental issues), I would read a lot more first. You write so much about DDT, but you don't seem to understand the basics.
Jennifer, given your past statements on John Quiggin's publication record, it's a bit hypocritical for you to state that somebody else should read some more before opening their mouth.
Also, if youre going to state that Tim doesn't understand the basics; it would be nice if you could actually point out a specific area where Tim is going wrong (and to supply some evidence). Otherwise people may get the impression that youre just a hack pushing an ideological point irrespective of reality.
Jennifer, you 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. You are the one who needs to learn more about these issues.
And yes, resistance can be managed the way you do that is to switch to an insecticde that will kill the mosquitoes.
The good old DDT ban argument is always one that people bat back and forth until everyone is too tired to keep going.
Carson's book certainly 'gave legs' to a variety of specious environmentalist arguments at the time the consequences of which were much more drastic for those in poor countries than the pseudo-intellectual do-gooders in the West.
It is indisputable that the reduction in access to DDT and promotion of DDT by the WHO has led to many, many deaths. Key to the statements above is that use of DDT needs to be approved by the WHO and this approval has not been forthcoming. I have spent a lot of time researching (and am waiting for return emails from WHO) the programs where they've approved DDT use. If anyone has a recent list of programs (< 5 years) then please come forward.
Thanks
Jack
Jennifier - what is wrong with Tim's assessment? I trust Tim's research skills specially compared to those have (wrongfully) accussed the NSW Chief Scientist of not being a scientist.
It is indisputable that the reduction in access to DDT and promotion of DDT by the WHO has led to many, many deaths.
You're the second person in this thread to try "argument by bald assertion". Please write up your arguments in favour of this assertion. I look forward to hearing what Tim and others have to say about them.
"It is indisputable that the reduction in access to DDT and promotion of DDT by the WHO has led to many, many deaths.
"You're the second person in this thread to try "argument by bald assertion". Please write up your arguments in favour of this assertion."
You miss the point; it is "indisputable". Just as global warming is "unproved" and the Hopkins estimate of Iraqi casualties is "unlikely".
Faith based science means never having to say "you're right".
Ppl
The reason that it is indisputable that it caused deaths was that during the review process DDT was not made freely available whereas use could have continued with some benefit (even allowing for resistance etc).
Nothing religious or remotely politically biased in that assertion.
And, please, help find those WHO-approved malaria control programs.
Thanks
Jack
"The reason that it is indisputable that it caused deaths was that during the review process DDT was not made freely available whereas use could have continued with some benefit (even allowing for resistance etc)."
Ok, you get the benefit of the doubt, but you realize that amidst all the variously skewed spew, trail leading back to a primary source or such reference is worth a lot.
I agree with the assessment that "science by pissing contest" is unlikely to get us anywhere. Any lit cites (other than those Tim provided?) Not casting aspersions on anyone, but only peer review counts, even acknowledging how bad that can be. Name calling is fun, but not productive.
It's pretty clear that DDT got rid of malaria in the US, for which I am grateful. I'm dubious about its effectiveness now, since overuse led to resistance (though I understand that even resistant mosquitoes are repelled by it). I'm a little surprised nothing as good has been developed (legal reasons, maybe? I wonder.)
All these environmental debates end up down the same toilet, with each side decrying the other as corporate shills/religious wackos or commies/tree huggers. But the primate dominance and display behavior that is exhibited makes it an interesting exercise to participate, even when things go to hell.
Dave, insecticides just as good, if not better have been developed. Trouble is, mosquitoes develop resistance to them as well.
David Easton: "It's pretty clear that DDT got rid of malaria in the US, for which I am grateful."
DDT had been eliminated from most of the US before WWII - including in the Tennessee Valley which had bene one of the main centres.
DDT was useful in the final elimination of DDT from the South East and the Rio Grande valley but I don't think you can say it "got rid" of DDT when US malaria cases had declined by something like 80 or 90% prior to its introduction.
Jack Lacton:
Err ... reference?
If the ban threat was imagined, why did these people sign this letter?
"I'm a little surprised nothing as good has been developed"
It is indisputable that insecticides as good as DDT have been developed. Some of them are under patent still, those are more expensive. And since they don't give the rightwingers any reason for hectoring contrarian ranting, they don't get the same amount of coverage.
JF Beck, did you read the passage I quoted from Walker? That's the MFI letter described in the last paragraph from Walker.
Mr Lambert, yes, I read the whole post.
Your claim is, based on Walker's assertion, that the MFI was so out of touch with reality that a letter was drafted in response to an imagined threat of a DDT ban. Further, some 400 notables -� the letter's signers -� also imagined the ban threat. Is that basically correct?
No, it's not basically correct. Walker did not make the assertion you claim she did.
Mr Lambert, you state, based on Walker, that the "imminent ban was purely imaginary". Thus, is it not fair to conclude that you believe the MFI was out of touch with reality in writing to treaty negotiators opposing an imaginary ban and that those who signed the letter were equally deluded? Bear in mind that the letter states, in part:
Further, the MFI homepage states:
Obviously MFI and the letters signers were out of touch with reality, right?
"If the ban threat was imagined, why did these people sign this letter?"
The letter that says:
"Plainly, it is the agricultural uses of DDT which are a major environmental danger and which must be immediately banned. There is far less urgency in banning public health uses of DDT. Although this should eventually be done, we can safely postpone doing so until satisfactory alternatives to DDT are found and implemented. To do otherwise, or to tie DDT elimination to an deadline that may pass without implementation of alternatives, is to endanger the health of the developing world for an environmental goal."?
J F Beck:
Not out of touch with reality, but most likely misinformed over the likelihood of a imminent bad or quick phasing out. Experts in the use of pesticides and malaria they may be, but probably not in the mechanics of international treaties.
The MFI and the letter's signers were fully aware of what was going on with the treaty. Either that or they are a bunch of fools:
Thank God we have Tim Lambert and his crew of commenters to set the record straight.
The letter was a response to the WWF's proposal to end DDT use by 2007. It was not a statement about the POP negotiations. The statment that you quote is mistaken according to Walker (who was actually part of the negotiations). It seems like a perfectly natural mistake to make -- to think that your efforts made a crucial difference, It is wrong for Beck to call MFI "fools".
Mr Lambert,
The MFI wrote the letter and the notables signed it because it was felt that a ban was imminent. You say the ban threat was imagined. Your refusal to acknowledge the MFI's concern is tantamount to claiming you know more about the matter than the MFI and the letter's signers. Just exactly how did you come to know so much more about the situation than the MFI and the letter's signers?
Let me see if I get this straight. Previously there were assertions of a ban that did not exist. When that was proven false, now the argument has fallen to the fact that some people may have believed that a ban may occur but that ban never did occur. Whats next, an argument over whether people who knew no ban was immeninet right now but might become an issue in the future and so have to fight vigioursly to protect DDT from some imagined possible future banning?
Rob:
When nothing's all you got, you pound the table with made up stuff.
Best,
D
"Let me see if I get this straight. Previously there were assertions of a ban that did not exist. When that was proven false, now the argument has fallen to the fact that some people may have believed that a ban may occur but that ban never did occur. Whats next, an argument over whether people who knew no ban was immeninet right now but might become an issue in the future and so have to fight vigioursly to protect DDT from some imagined possible future banning?"
As long as one person exists (or existed) who advocates (or advocated) a total ban on DDT, there is a de facto ban, which therefore proves unarguably that liberals are mass murderers. Since we can find some people who advocated such a total ban on DDT, it is therefore conclusively proved that
"The death toll (difficult to measure) is roughly, Hitlers holocaust 6 million, Stalins famine and terror 8 million, and Maos famine 30 million. But the greens have topped them all. In a single crime they have killed about 50 million people. In purely numerical terms, it was the worst crime of the 20th century. It took place in the USA in 1972. It was the banning of DDT."
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200505/ai_n14903608
Once again, the liberals of the reality-based community somehow confuse reality with significance. I remind you that it is obviously just as possible to get all stirred up over this liberal environmental holocaust as if it had really happened; thus proving that whether it happened or not is irrelevant and immaterial. Next you'll be getting all atwitter over AGW, just because "more and more evidence points to it every day". That has nothing to do with whether we should pay attention to it! People shouldn't compromise their principles just to react to real threats, any more than they should ignore threats just because they are totally imaginary!
Oh. For. Crying. Out. Loud.
If there is anything harder to eradicate than malaria, it has to be the notion, so beloved of the loonosphere, that WHO (banned | tried to ban | is banning) the use of DDT for malaria vector control, and (did it | is doing it) out of an unfounded fear of pesticides, abject obedience to environmentalists, or both.
The opposite is true.
The WHO was the single most powerful early advocate of DDT for malaria control, submitting at the World Health Assembly in 1955 an ambitious proposal for the eradication of malaria worldwide. It was the startling speed with which mosquitoes developed resistance to DDT that caused the WHO to adopt the targeted approach it recommends today. That approach is the direct result of the failure of blanket spraying to control malaria. It explicitly includes the use of DDT, but requires that it be used with care and precision:
Ah, but why are scientists and policymakers at WHO so cautious in their recommendations, choosing to stop short of the enthusiastic, blanket application of DDT that Junk Tech Fumento Central Science Station (JTFCSS) so passionately desire?
Because people at WHO, unlike those at JTFCSS, actually have experience with DDT and malaria, and know something about the subject!
Sheesh.
z channels The Poor Man!
You go z!
Best,
D
Somebody is still trying to get DDT banned:
WWF's Efforts to Phase Out DDT
DDT should be phased out of use and ultimately banned
More on DDT...
WWF's work to phase out DDT
DDT alternatives
While banned decades ago in industrialized countries, thousands of tons of the deadly pesticide DDT are still produced each year, causing health and environmental hazards in [non-industrialised countries like] the U.S. and throughout the world because of its long life and ability to travel great distances...
[from WWF home pages]
...in business or first class?
"Somebody is still trying to get DDT banned:
WWF's Efforts to Phase Out DDT
DDT should be phased out of use and ultimately banned"
"WWF initially called for a global phaseout and eventual ban on DDT production and use by the year 2007, together with financial and technical assistance to the developing world. The 2007 deadline was intended as a motivational tool to encourage the necessary financial and technical assistance. The proposal of a 2007 deadline drew considerable public attention to the scope of the world's malaria problem and the need to implement alternatives to DDT.
"However, it also raised fears that DDT would be phased out without sufficient guarantees of protection of public health from malaria. To allay these fears, WWF has set aside discussion of the 2007 deadline, while retaining its commitment to eliminating DDT. Both the UNEP and WHO recognize that such elimination can be a "win-win" situation for public health and environmental protection. "
Is the goal here to fight malaria or promote DDT? Is there something morally objectionable to the position that, if something verifiably as good as or better than and less toxic than DDT is available, we should use it rather than DDT? Or the position that it would be desirable to eventually switch entirely to such products?
I don't recall the rightwingers putting up such a fight over the de facto banning of zeppelins.
J F Beck:
The argument is that Walker (not Tim Lambert) knows better since she was at the negotiations. Please stop ducking that point.
Tim Lambert states unequivocally:
Thus, according to Lambert, the MFI was acting on an imagined threat and sensationalized this imagined threat in seeking to "garner the support of the press worldwide".
Sounds to me JF like there was the WWF against DDT, the MFI for it. The MFI lobbied hard, no country ever supported a ban, the WWF as an NGO had observer status only, etc etc ad nauseum ....
So the WWF goes "Boo!" and for years afterward, uberright blog warriors for God bleat about the near death experience they've had, is it?
Tim Lambert:
J F Beck:
Notice the difference? Beck, for God sake stop putting words in peoples mouths!
So the WWF goes "Boo!" and for years afterward, uberright blog warriors for God bleat about the near death experience they've had, is it?
I respectfully ask Krusty's kind permission to use this excellent phrase in some form. Is there copyright on this phrase, sir?
Best,
D
The wench I stole it from is dead anyway Dano, so I'm sure I'd be honoured :)
Meyrick Kirby, this really isn't that difficult; if you try, I mean really try, you should be able to follow.
Tim Lambert wrote:
The MFI homepage contradicts Lambert's assertion that the ban threat was imagined and claims credit for organising the media campaign Lambert claims was sensational:
The MFI DDT page adds:
The MFI letter to treaty negotiators states, in part:
There is a direct conflict between the MFI's position and that taken by Lambert. I choose to believe the MFI and those who signed the letter to treaty negotiators - including three Nobel laureates - had it right. You choose to believe Lambert that the MFI imagined the threat and participated in a sensationalist media campaign.
"Thus, according to Lambert, the MFI was acting on an imagined threat and sensationalized this imagined threat in seeking to "garner the support of the press worldwide"."
Don't be silly, that's only the province of climatologists who whip the world into a frenzy over so called global warming.
J F Beck:
Beck, do you have some sort of mind-eye coordination problem such that you totally ignore certain passages?
Let me repeat:
The argument is that Walker (not Tim Lambert) knows better since she was at the negotiations. Please stop ducking that point.
"There is a direct conflict between the MFI's position and that taken by Lambert. I choose to believe the MFI and those who signed the letter to treaty negotiators - including three Nobel laureates - had it right. You choose to believe Lambert that the MFI imagined the threat and participated in a sensationalist media campaign. "
Just to check; the original assertion, repeated many times in many places, was that "the DDT ban was responsible for more deaths than Hitler". Do you feel that your evidence, assuming its truth, in any way supports this statement?
You have to give JFB points for tenacity. He started out supporting the claim that DDT was banned worldwide causing millions of deaths, retreated to the claim of a "de facto" ban, and is now doing his best with an unsuccessful proposal five years ago by a single NGO for an accelerated phaseout (even in this case, not an immediate ban). Yet in the whole time, he's never once admitted he was wrong.
Meyrick Kirby, let's test your eye-brain coordination. Did Walker or Lambert write this?
John Quiggin, my position has been consistent throughout.
Give it up Becky boy. You've already had your arse handed to you on a plate here like little tim.
When will your sort realise that reality is just not your forte?
Boo!
Nobby, try to stay on topic. Maybe if you get someone to hide your corkscrew...
Beck, this is getting pathetic. As you know only too well, but keep ignoring, Tim Lambert is merely summarising the work of Walker, the latter of whom was in a better place to summarise the process of the POP negotiations than the signatories of the MFI letter.