Arnold Kling decides to spread the DDT ban myth:
According to Iain Murray's new book, the worst disasters come from environmental policy. It is remarkable the magnitude of the harm caused by government relative to the harm caused by the private sector from which it protects us. ...
The total death and illness caused by all of the chemical pollution ever created vs. the death and illness caused by the ban on DDT.
After he was corrected by commenters he added an update, but did not correct his false claim. To justify this he just made more more false claims:
The term "banned" may not be correct, but countries can be punished in many ways for using DDT--they can lose foreign aid, they can have imports of their crops banned, etc. The restrictions on crop imports apply even when a country uses DDT on homes, not on crops.
Of course, that's not true either, but even when a commentor told him the truth, citing scientific papers and the World Health Organization, Kling did not correct his post. Instead he trumped the WHO and peer-reviewed science with:
I met a student from Ghana who said that they could not spray their houses with DDT without having their crops declared "not organic" by the EU, making them effectively unexportable.
So there you have it. Kling believes that the use of DDT against malaria is banned because some random person told his something untrue about the EU policy and Kling isn't going to believe anything to the contrary.
Our Word is Our Weapon has much more on Kling's cavalier approach to evidence, while Ed Darrell notices a pattern in the books on science published by Regnery (who published Iain Murray's book).
So the EU now only allows the import of organic food?
Without following the issue very closely, I was nonetheless aware of the debate raging in cyberspace over the use of DDT. It was however to my utter amazment, that this issue managed to find its way on to the pages of Dive Log Austalasia. Dive Log is a magazine covering topics of interest to recreational divers. It is distributed to dive shops and clubs throughout Austalia and overseas. One could hardly imagine any issue further removed from the interest of the average recreational diver, than the debate over DDT. Enter Bob Halstead. Bob writes an article for Dive Log under the heading "Adult Section" Anyone who has followed Bob's writings over the years would be aware he has no time for "greenies." Bob as a dive instuctor and former dive charter boat operator is certainly qualified to comment on matters relating to recreational diving. Unfortunately Bob sees his regular piece in Dive Log as a license to comment on issues ranging from climate change to bans on DDT, and does so in a most partisan way. The following is an example from the May issue of Dive Log. "Who was the biggest mass murderer of the 20th century? Hitler? Stalin? No top of the list was a little old lady who would not hurt a fly. That was the trouble. When Rachel Carson wrote 'The Silent Spring' in 1962 she included alarmist stuff about DDT. Instead of a scientific program to examine the truth of her statements there was hysteria." Does some of the rhetoric sound familiar? It goes to show how such propaganda manages to find traction in the wider community. A publication like Dive Log might seem insignificant when compared to a major daily newspaper but when all those dive shops and clubs are tallied up it is read by a significant number of people. Although a lot of the Dive Log readership would not share Bob Halstead's view of the world, if history is any guide, very few would be willing to take him on. I enjoy your blog keep up the good work. Kind Regards Richard McGuire.
Richard,
Your dive instructor has nothing on 15 year old Kristen Byrnes, http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunder/index.html , who single handedly has destroyed one hundred years worth of dedicated research performed by those pesky real scientists.
Yet another post about the "DDT Ban myth" which does not explain what exactly the difference is to a family whose children are suffering from malaria, whether DDT was not being used in their country because it had been banned, or because the green lobby had persuaded their government and/or the aid agencies not to use it.
Romkuil: None, but that's a strawman.
1) There ISN'T a worldwide ban on DDT for malarial control purposes. Which means that the idea of a "ban" would come as a surprise to those countries that ARE using DDT still.
2) Just because a country doesn't use DDT doesn't mean that they aren't using alternative forms of vector control. DDT is not unique or special in it's effectiveness, and other factors, like treated bed nets have been similarly effective.
3) Evolved resistance to DDT is making it ineffective in several countries that have continued using it. Had nations around the world been using DDT for standard agricultural pest control AS WELL as malaria control, this problem would be much greater today.
The whole ban myth is taking a stupidly simplistic idea; that DDT is the ONLY effective malarial control, and that the mean environmentalists took it away for no good reason. In reality, DDT remains one of several methods of fighting malaria, around the world, and the only people propegating this nonsense are those who have a political or economic axe to grind against environmentalists.
he only people propagating this nonsense are those who have a political or economic axe to grind against environmentalists. Or who have never looked at the work done on the development in mosquitos of resistance to DDT when used on the larger, agricultural scale. I'm speculating, but it might just be possible that any increase in the incidence of malaria is as attributable to resistance as it is to the cessation of its use.
For forty years the green lobby campaigned against any use of DDT. They were pretty successful in persuading governments and aid agencies not to use it. To point out that the campaign did not actually achieve its aim of a total ban, but instead brought about its non-use in many countries, is an irrelevant nit-pick which misses the point that DDT is - when used correctly for indoor spraying only - a cheap, effective, practical and safe way to combat malaria. There can be no doubt whatsover that if the green lobbies had not succeeded in greatly reducing the use of DDT the disease would not have killed so many poor children.
Surely one should be more concerned about the children who have died because of the mistake by the green lobby, rather than the irrelevant inaccuracy in saying that environmentalists were able to ban it - when the effects of the campaign was the same as if it had managed to bring about a full legal ban.
Talking point, talking point, talking all the way...
Romkiul, DDT is often not effective (which is why it isn't used in some areas for malaria control), while things like bed nets are. Why do you want to push ineffecitve approaches to a deadly problem? Why do you want these people to die?
Romkiul, exactly what countries stopped using DDT due to the "green lobby"?
OK so it is conceeded that whether or not DDT was actually banned is totally irrelevant if:
- it is true that it was the green lobby who persuaded many countries and agencies not to use DDT .
- it is true that used properly DDT is a safe, cheap, practical and effective way of fighting against malaria.
- the actual effect of DDT not being used against malaria was the death of many poor children.
I am quite prepared to argue about each those three issues, they are completely self-evident to me. However to argue that the green lobby is off the hook because DDT was not actually legally banned, which Tim Lambert keeps bringing up, seems simply ridiculous.
Romkiul said:
I don't think there is any nation in that category, but I'll grant you benefit of the doubt: Name the nation, name the year, name the "green lobby" organization. Has it ever occurred to you how stupid it would sound were you to try to put that to fact? "Oh," you would say, "Uganda is worse of because the Sierra Club convinced Idi Amin not to use DDT."
And yet, so long as you don't put actual names to it, you say it as if it weren't one of the silliest things anyone ever said.
Name the country, name the date, name the lobbyists. Bet you can't find such an example that stands up to scrutiny.
If DDT were safe, it wouldn't be useful in killing mosquitoes.
If DDT were effective against malaria, governments would have kept using it -- not all Africans are so stupid as to stop using effective means of fighting disease, as you appear to make them out to be.
Do you seriously think you have evidence to back any of those claims? Holy mother of the Wizard of Oz, what have you been reading?
Shoulda been "worse off."
Oh, come one and confess: You never read Silent Spring at all, did you? Nor have you ever thought about environmental protection, nor about DDT, before last Tuesday:
"There can be no doubt whatsover that if the green lobbies had not succeeded in greatly reducing the use of DDT the disease would not have killed so many poor children."
The way the Junk Science "96 million" figure is arrived at is by taking the interval of years and multiplying by the estimated number of malaria deaths. The assumption, then, is that malaria could really have been ERADICATED if DDT had only been allowed to exist.
But this is false for two reasons:
(1) There WAS an eradication program, but it failed before the DDT ban was in place simply on its own grounds. Eradication was impossible, world public health organizations decided, and we should focus on vector control.
(2) The primary source of modern malarial deaths (Africa, due to the much greater prevalence of P. falciparum there) has grown greatly in the past few decades, and it was precisely in this region that eradication efforts were rejected, simply because it was logistically too difficult. In other words, even if DDT had remained, and eradication efforts had succeeded in the other parts of the world, Africa would have proceeded on more or less the same lines as it did, since there was no eradication campaign there, and a very high fraction of those malarial deaths would have happened anyway.
In other words, the DDT ban has nothing to do with all the malarial deaths in the past few decades.
This seems to be a pure "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy. Some "green" advocates opposed DDT for malaria control (others did not, and in fact supported restrictions on agricultural use to preserve the value of DDT for malaria control, but never mind that). Some countries stopped using DDT. Therefore, the green organizations forced them to stop.
I'm sure that many "green organizations" wish that they had the power to order governments around. But the reality is that there were other reasons why DDT use declined, including the decision to shift funds away from malaria control and the declining effectiveness of DDT due to rising resistance. It is doubtful whether "green organizations" ever had any actual say in the matter.
I see that nobody is defending Tim Lambert's notion that whether or not DDT was actually banned has any importance at all in the discussion.
The substantive issues are pretty clear:
1. Did the green lobby seek to stop all use of DDT?
2. Did this lobbying lead to many countries and aid agencies not using DDT against malaria?
3. Is indoor spraying of DDT a safe, practical, effective and cheap tool in the battle against malaria?
4. Did stopping the use of DDT without replacing it with an alternative practical, safe, efficient and cheap method lead to death of many poor children?
Each of those four questions is a serious issue that deserves proper treatment on its own.
However the topic of this thread as presented by Mr Lambert is not one of those questions. We have been invited to read and comment upon the misuse of the term "banned".
This nit-picking about whether or not DDT was actually banned is a very odd way to deal with this subject, since if governments and agencies were persuaded by powerful lobbying not to use DDT, it made no difference to the children who were dying from malaria that it had not been actually banned.
DDT was banned in Tanzania, nobody ever suggested I should spray my walls when I lived there. In all anti-malaria documentation I received during my stay between 1997 and 2000 I NEVER read ANYTHING about DDT as a possible usable agent for malaria prevention.
The anti-DDT campain was therefore very succesful.
Furthermore I assisted the FAO Obsolete Pesticide programme in Tanzania, which made an inventory of i.a. DDT stockpiles. These stockpiles were not used but incinerated in Wales.
But the Welsh didn't like that...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/1902269.stm
However the topic of this thread as presented by Mr Lambert is not one of those questions. We have been invited to read and comment upon the misuse of the term "banned".
you might want to read the topic, before making false claims what it is about.
the wrong use of the term "banned" was one of many errors that have been pointed out.
This nit-picking about whether or not DDT was actually banned is a very odd way to deal with this subject, since if governments and agencies were persuaded by powerful lobbying not to use DDT, it made no difference to the children who were dying from malaria that it had not been actually banned.
why have you failed to name one of the countries?
why not name one of those powerful environmental groups, who can just "ban" the use of chemicals?
"Yet another post about the "DDT Ban myth" which does not explain what exactly the difference is to a family whose children are suffering from malaria, whether DDT was not being used in their country because it had been banned, or because the green lobby had persuaded their government and/or the aid agencies not to use it."
Yey another DDT Blood Libel post that fails to provide a single example of a country which banned DDT due to "the green lobby".
http://www.malaria.org.zw/malaria_burden.html#malaria
Hans neglects to mention that Tanzania's death rate from Malaria is lower than for several neighbouring countries.
It's almost as if there were other malaria control which were as effective (or ineffective) as DDT.
Hans has asserted buiy proven that there was a DDT ban in Tanazania.
He offers anecdotal evidence about disposal of obsolete agricultural stores of DDT to support his claim. At no point has he shown that DDT was ever banned from use in malaria control much less shown that any such ban was due to "green groups" rather than, for example, vector resistance.
From the Southern African Malaria Centre website linked to above:
"Qualitative reports as well as surveillance data indicate that malaria deaths are rising in some countries (Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe). If this is the case, it is likely to be due to a combination of factors including late-treatment seeking behaviour, quality of care, inadequate transport and communication for referral systems to function properly, growing drug resistance and, possibly, HIV.'
Funny how they neglect to mention the Green Nazis conspiracy to exterminate Africans by denying them magicalk pixie dust - sorry DDT.
But I guess they've been terrorised into silence by the Green Gestapo.
DDT was banned in Tanzania, nobody ever suggested I should spray my walls when I lived there.
an incredibly stupid sentence, of course.
DDT was NOT banned in Tanzania, but restricted.
http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_ChemReg.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33482
and if Hans had bothered to go to a local store, he might simply have bought it:
http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Issue/Pn35/pn35p10a.htm
Zanzibar, Tansania is a major study project of DDT RESISTANCE. try a google scholar search on the subject...
Romkiul, effective measures against malaria were instituted in places where use of DDT was ineffective, but people like you have been fighting those efforts and backing the use of ineffective measures like DDT use against DDT-resistant mosquitos. Why do you do this, since it causes the deaths of countless people? Why do you want these people to die?
if you are not spraying ddt in your house, then clearly you are part of the conspiracy too, and have no right to comment on others who do not.
"Yet another post about the "DDT Ban myth" which does not explain what exactly the difference is to a family whose children are suffering from malaria, whether DDT was not being used in their country because it had been banned, or because the green lobby had persuaded their government and/or the aid agencies not to use it."
or because it has lost its effectiveness against mosquitoes after decades of vast overuse on agricultural production, which is what the ban has in fact banned.
" However to argue that the green lobby is off the hook because DDT was not actually legally banned, which Tim Lambert keeps bringing up, seems simply ridiculous. "
certainly is. something is banned, or it's not. and it's not.
The following is an excerpt from a 2006 Nature Medicine article (DDT returns, subscription required) by notorious axe-grinding right-wing hack Apoorva Mandavilli (at the time Nature Medicine's senior news editor):
"In theory, any country is free to use DDT. The
Stockholm Convention of 2001 sought a global
ban on DDT, but many countries and scientists
argued against the ban, citing its value in malaria
control. The final treaty made an exemption
for DDT's use in public health, but called for
countries to gradually phase out the pesticide.
Still, in places where malaria was still endemic,
the treaty spelled disaster.
Most African nations are heavily dependent
on foreign aid and can ill afford to cross a line
drawn by donor agencies.
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. The WHO
supported the use of bednets dipped in insecticide
over indoor spraying, even though malaria rates
continued to increase. DDT was "further ignored
and intentionally or unintentionally suppressed,"
by these agencies, says Kochi.
"People are very emotional about DDT, even
within the WHO," Kochi says, adding that much
of the reaction to DDT was a response to political
pressure."
Computer scientist Tim Lambert and his army of armchair experts are not about to be fooled, however.
Strange.... the environmentalists never seemed to lobby against the use of Methoxychlor, which is in the same family of Pesticides as DDT, has a higher LD50, and is effective against Mosquitos........yet there is still a Malaria problem.
The problem is Mosquitos began developing a resistance to Methoxychlor, the same as DDT.
To blame a ban or limit on the use of DDT for the problem, one would also have to blame a ban or limit on the use of Methoxychlor.....
In addition, if DDT were banned, it would no longer be manufactured.......which it is.
Wanna bet Betula?
I had never read anything by Murray before: In the excerpt of Murray's book at Amazon (click on "look inside this book,") you will learn that Al Gore's left-wing goal is "socialist-style central control of the economy," that "liberals demand control over all forms of energy use," that the oil companies have engaged in no price-gouging because the Federal Trade Commission says so; that the climate models are "guesswork based on guesswork," that global warming is better explained by solar cycles than by CO2 build-up, --and the reader may sense too the intimation that economic disaster is certain to follow upon efforts to curtail carbon emission. This, all in the first 6 pages of the book!: a concentrated display of nonsense and self-contradiction from someone advertised by his fellows to "have the facts on his side."
Those commenting on this thread have failed to deal with any of the four questions I posed earlier. There seems some confusion with: some people suggesting that the green lobby was never actually against DDT at all; others that it might be hard to find countries which stopped using DDT; others that DDT is ineffective anyway; and others that when DDT was stopped safe alternatives were always provided. It is very hard to argue against such a mish-mash of responses so for the sake of clarity I repeat the four questions and invite responses.
1. Did the green lobby seek a total ban on DDT? Yes or No?
2. Did this lobbying lead to many countries and aid agencies not using DDT against malaria? Yes or No?
3. Is indoor spraying of DDT a safe, practical, effective and cheap tool in the battle against malaria? Yes or No?
4. Did stopping the use of DDT without replacing it with an alternative practical, safe, efficient and cheap method lead to death of many poor children? Yes or No?
Incredibly enough there are still some who do not understand that whether DDT was the subject of a legal ban, or simply not used as a matter of government or agency policy, has any relevance at all to the debate. So to those I add another question:
What difference does it make to poor people who were unable to use DDT because their governments and aid agencies have been persuaded not to provide it by the green lobby, whether or not it was actually "banned"?
No, No, No and No
This has been another in the series of short answers to stupid questions.
>1 Did the green lobby seek a total ban on DDT? Yes or No?
No. In fact in Silent Spring Rachel Carson argues for a ban on the agricultural use of DDT precisely because it was accelerating the development of resistant pests and making DDT less effective for malria control.
>2 Did this lobbying lead to many countries and aid agencies not using DDT against malaria? Yes or No?
No. DDT has been using is many countries throughout the developing world during the entirety of the so-called ban. Some governments stopped using DDT - not because of green pressure but because the emergence of resistant strains of mosquito. If we'd listened to Carson earlier and stopped the use of DDT in agriculture sooner, resistance would have developed more slowly. THAT has probably killed millions of people.
>3 Is indoor spraying of DDT a safe, practical, effective and cheap tool in the battle against malaria? Yes or No?
It depends.
In many areas it is - which is why it has continued to be used in those areas.
In areas where DDT resistance has emerged it obviously isn't effective.
In some areas it isn't effective because because people live in mudbrick or pressed-earth homes. The interior walls of such homes need to be resurfaced each year -which covers the DDT and makes it ineffective. In other areas its ineffective because there's no effective government to pay for spray teams. Bed nets are more effective in these areas.
The cost issue re. DDT as compared with other insecticides (and in most areas DDT WAS replaced, spraying wasn't simply stopped) depends on several factors.
DDT is much cheaper on a per litre basis than, say, Malathion. But the effective dose of DDT is also much higher - you need about ten times as much DDT to spray a house. This higher dose means transport costs are higher, it also means that when you're using back-mounted spray-packs, a spray team can spray far fewer houses in a day with DDT than with other insecticides.
Determining whether DDT is the most cost-effective insecticide in a given area depends on the interaction between material cost, transport costs and labor costs. In Thailand, studies show that Malathion is actually cheaper than DDT because of these factors.
>4 Did stopping the use of DDT without replacing it with an alternative practical, safe, efficient and cheap method lead to death of many poor children? Yes or No?
No. In Sri Lanka and numerous other areas, the malaria death toll was rising again BEFORE DDT was withdrawn.
Furthermore bed-nets ARE "practical, safe, efficient and cheap". As are Malathion and the other insecticides used in place of DDT.
But hey it's obvious much more fun to say "Rachel Carson is worse than Hitler and the Greens area bunch of crazy baby killers therefore global warming can't be true so I should buy a new SUV and vote the straight Republican ticket - and that Obama fella's really a Muslim anyhow."
Furthermore bed-nets ARE "practical, safe, efficient and cheap". As are Malathion and the other insecticides used in place of DDT.
The problem with Malathion is that it is extremeley toxic to aquatic life, and as an organophosphate, is a Cholinesterase inhibitor. This is why we don't use in in Connecticut as a tool against West Nile Virus.
Synthetic pyrethroids such as "Scourge" are used here.
The point Ian makes is a good one however, as there are tools other than DDT that are available, and the problem still exists.....DDT was not and is not the Panacea.
As far as the last part of Ians comment.....vote McCain.
Tim wrote: "Kling believes that the use of malaria against DDT is banned because..."
Shouldn't that be "Kling believes that the use of DDT against malaria is banned because..."?
[my emphasis]
*[Yes it should. Thanks. Tim]*
Romkiul posts:
There's a lot of doubt about it. In fact, most people who have studied the question think it's not true. It's a right-wing fantasy.
Romkiul posts:
No. They lobbied against routine use of it in agriculture.
No. Lobbying on obscure pollution issues in the US has little or no effect on other countries, many of whom make a big local propaganda point about not going along with the US on anything.
Darned if I know. But since it's not banned, go ahead and do it.
No. And there are all kinds of alternatives, so your question rather makes some counterfactual suppositions. One early method of combatting mosquitoes was draining swamps. Nowadays we try to preserve wetlands. Other alternativies include pesticides like methoxychlor, importing mosquito predators, pesticide bed nets, treatment with quinine, etc., etc., etc.
romkiul,
You've stated it was "self-evident" that green lobbying stopped the use of DDT for insect vector control, yet when you are asked for any evidence, you don't give any. I assume you have no evidence. The fact that you would believe something without evidence is quite telling.
So, the real story is that the Green Lobby is responsible for Hans being too dumb to visit a local store? It's those brain rays we're emitting from our evil machines, coupled with the Green Lobby worldwide ban on tinfoil (go to your store, you'll only find aluminum foil!), that did the trick?
I understand that the U.S. exports DDT so to hell with their environments and non-users of DDT get a lot of it back on our food, e.g. 48% of coffee imports are contaminated with pesticides. I don't have citations; the was from a TV documentary.
1) Did the agricultural and chemical industries use enormous quantities of DDT in the third world without regard for anything other than maximizing crop yield? Yes or No?
2) Did this vast blanketing of the ecology with DDT lead to malaria vectors in many countries becoming resistant to DDT? Yes or No?
3) Did an end to this wholesale selection of DDT resistant malaria vectors preserve a window, however reduced in capacity, for the use of DDT against malaria in those regions where resistance had not yet taken hold? Yes or No?
4) Did the ban on AGRICULTURAL use of DDT therefore actually result in a reduction in malarial "death of many poor children"? Yes or No?
"The outcome of the treaty is arguably better than the statuÂÂs quo going into the negotiations over two years ago. For the firsÂt timeÂ, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector coÂntrol onlÂy, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes wiÂll be slower thÂan before."
"unwÂise use of DDT, rather than improving life, actually resulted in a resuÂrgence of malaria. According to Chapin & Wasserstrom (page 183) 'CorrÂelating the use of DDT in El Salvador with renewed malaria transmission, it can be
estimated that at current rates each kilo of insecticide addÂed to the environment will generate 105 new cases of malaria.'"
I don't think the US manufactures DDT, but there are in fact quite a few pesticides which are illegal in the US and, in fact, do contaminate our imported food. Including some which are manufactured in the US and illegal for use in the US but legal for sale abroad.
"The results of our annual market basket survey are in excellent agreement with similar surveys conducted by other regulatory agencies (See Figure 1, Table 4). The percentage of samples containing residues and violations is remarkably similar to those found by the FDA (FDA, 1999), and the states of California (California Residue Monitoring, 1999) and Florida (Florida Division of Food Safety, 2001). Even more remarkable may be the fact that overseas laboratories in countries such as Portugal (Portugal, 1999) find similar percentages of samples containing residues and similar
violation rates. Consistently in all these surveys, approximately 36% of the samples tested contained at least one pesticide residue. About 1% of the produce tested which
originated in the United States contained violative pesticide residues, while approximately 4% of the produce tested which originated outside of the United States contained violative pesticide residues. Due to the higher number of foreign violative samples, it is important to continue this market basket survey and to increase the number of imported samples analyzed in the survey."
-Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station Bulletin
As they say, they come up with remarkably consistent results for this every year.
Betula, I tend to use Malathion as a short hand for alternative pesticides because it was the oen mentioned in the couple of reports on the issue I read.
There are, of course, a whole range of pesticide alternatives to DDT. All have their positive and negative features.
Z, my understanding is that while agricultural use of DDT is banned in the US (and it isn't currently used for malaria control there) it is still manufactured in the US for export to developing countries - you know the countries which have supposedly been forced to stop using it. I guess they just like filling up warehouses with pesticides they never intend to use.
Eli notes that Betula does not want to bet. He awaits her withdrawing her claims about environmentalists never lobbying against the use of Methoxychlor.
[USAID policy](http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/id/malaria/news/afrmal_ddt…)
"USAID has never had a "policy" as such either "for" or "against" DDT for IRS. The real change in the past two years has been a new interest and emphasis on the use of IRS in general, - with DDT or any other insecticide - as an effective malaria prevention strategy in tropical Africa. (Recent successful applications of IRS, particularly in the southern Africa region, have also contributed to the keen interest among donors and among African malaria control programs.) For example, in fiscalyYear 2005, USAID supported less than $1 million of IRS in Africa, with programs utilizing insecticides purchased by the host government or another donor. For fiscal year 2007, in the PMI and in other bilateral programs, USAID will support over $20 million in IRS programs in Africa, including the direct purchase of insecticides. This dramatic increase in the scale of our IRS programs overall is the greatest factor in DDT's recent prominence in USAID programs."
In other words, Mandavilli may not be a "notorious axe-grinding right-wing hack" but Jeff Beck is.
I am also fascinated by the idea that the (supposed) failure of the US government ot fund DDT amounts to a ban. Presumably Bck et al believe there's a world wide ban on condoms and abortions.
I documented all the things Mandavilli got wrong [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/08/zombie_ddt_myth_will_not_die.php).
Ian Gould,
The following is the full text of a letter from Environmental Defense's John Balbus to USAID:
"As the organization that led the successful campaign to ban use of DDT in the United States in the early
1970Âs, we have read with concern recent reports that US AID is unwilling to consider even limited use of
DDT in anti-malaria programs in developing countries. According to the New York Times Magazine, you
recently stated that part of the reason US AID Âdoesn't finance DDT is that doing so would require a
battle for public opinion. 'You'd have to explain to everybody why this is really O.K. and safe every time
you do it.  (ÂWhat the World Needs Now Is DDT, April 11, 2004).
"We acknowledge your concern, as quoted in the article, that Â'For us to be buying and using in another
country something we don't allow in our own country raises the specter of preferential treatment,'' and
your view that ''We certainly have to think about 'What would the American people think and want?' and
'What would Africans think if we're going to do to them what we wouldn't do to our own people?''
While these are important questions, we urge you not to allow them to take precedence over the key
public health question  namely, how best to combat malaria with the tools now available.
"While Environmental Defense sees absolutely no justification for re-introducing use of DDT in the US,
we believe that indoor spraying of small quantities of DDT in developing countries areas where malaria is
spread by indoor-dwelling mosquitoes is an important tool given the limited alternatives now available.
But it is not a silver bullet. Without an effective public-health system  one that tracks and treats infected
people and safeguards against DDT misuse  malaria control will be at best partial. The Persistent
Organic Pollutants (POPS) treaty expressly allows limited indoor use of the pesticide for malaria control
until viable alternatives are found.
"We urge US AID not to forego consideration of indoor spraying of small quantities of DDT in
developing countries areas where malaria is spread by indoor-dwelling mosquitoes. At the same time, we
urge US AID to support rebuilding the public-health system in developing countries, and efforts to find
better alternatives to DDT use. For example, it appears that indoor use of DDT may function primarily
by repelling mosquitoes rather than killing them (see e.g., Grieco et al., J Vector Ecol. 2000 Jun;25(1):62-
73). Development of less-toxic repellents should thus be a priority."
http://www.edf.org/documents/5046_DDT-letterUSAID.pdf
Balbus says USAID refused to fund DDT IRS but you know better, do you?
Lambert's critique of Mandavilli's article is misleading, as usual.
No more need be said to all the vile lying fascists who infest science blogs than this:
You are all, with no exceptions, creepy little death cultists. You live and die by the feudal model where the CEO is God's chosen royalty and you may get some perks or treats by being a particulary obsequious and bullying henchman - a paradigm kiss up, kick down sociopath.
The people whose water you carry and whose coats you hold are the ones, if any, who killed hundreds of thousands, or millions, with malaria. This is simply their usual defensive strike of projection to hide their own psycopathic behavior. In order to save a few pennies per hundred acres of crops, they decided to breed resistant strains of malaria. And you are their goons, their thugs, their lynch mob.
Very similar people decided to breed resistant strains of bacteria and kill thousands of people all over the developed world with them. This enabled their meat factories to produce water-weighted animals in unsanitary conditions. They even chose to sue a powerful celebrity simply for saying the words "I've eaten my last hamburger" on her own TV show.
It's very interesting that you are willing to be the brownshirts for people creating resistant malaria (and even denying that evolution itself is possible) AS LONG AS they take species like the national bird of the United States down with the people they kill.
I'm not sure Satan's lapdogs quite covers it, really.
There is obviously no point in debating this issue on this site if everyone believes that the green lobby never sought a total ban on any use of DDT. The amount of re-writing of history required to believe that the green lobby has always been in favour of DDT in the fight against malaria is Orwellian.
I regret wasting my time, and promise never to return.
@romkiul:
What is this monolithic "green lobby" of which you speak? Where is your evidence that every commentator on this blog believes that no green group has ever sought a total ban on DDT use?
There is obviously no point in debating this issue on this site if everyone believes that the green lobby never sought a total ban on any use of DDT. The amount of re-writing of history required to believe that the green lobby has always been in favour of DDT in the fight against malaria is Orwellian.
take some lessons with you:
it is hard to argue AGAINST the FACTS.
it helps when you are able to NAME the "green lobby" you are talking about...
Romkiul.
Don't let the door slam on your backside as you leave.
Oh, and on your way out, look up "Dunning-Kruger effect" on your favourite search engine...
...the whole 'DDT was scuttled by greenies' canard is one of the classic examples of the conservative, denialist, blogopsphere pseudo-expert expression of this condition.
The carcass of this DDT myth refuses to die, it seems. Just goes to show how the denio-zombies replicate like the magician's apprentice's brooms, all without adding even a sprinkle of education-dust or a whiff of essence-of-objective-research.
"Eli notes that Betula does not want to bet. He awaits her withdrawing her claims about environmentalists never lobbying against the use of Methoxychlor."
ELI is being a bit presumtuous in assuming he knows the gender of someone who goes by the name Betula.
Eli, when you stated "Wanna bet Betula?"......you failed to mention what you were refering to....you could have been refering to my comment about DDT still being manufactured.
Now that you have clarified the subject of your challenge, it will be easier to reply.
My statement could be wrong, environmentalists may have lobbied against the use of Methoxychlor. In retrospect,I wouldn't be surprised.....
I do know that here in the U.S.,it is no longer used, but as far as I know, not due to lobbying.
Here in the U.S., Methoxychlor was ineligible for reregistration due to the insufficient data needed to meet the EPA registration standards, and was voluntarily canceled under FIFRA section 6(f).
If environmentalists lobbied against it....I wave the white flag.
JF Beck says:
>Ian Gould, The following is the full text of a letter from Environmental Defense's John Balbus to USAID: "... According to the New York Times Magazine, you recently stated that part of the reason US AID Âdoesn't finance DDT ..." Balbus says USAID refused to fund DDT IRS but you know better, do you?
Well yes, since he quoted the actual policy from USAID, rather than get his information from an [error-filled NYT story](http://timlambert.org/2005/08/ddt11/).
DDT Ban - killed millions.
Biofuels - Will starve to death millions.
Environmentalists = death to humans
"Silent Spring took Carson four years to complete. It meticulously described how DDT entered the food chain and accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals, including human beings, and caused cancer and genetic damage. A single application on a crop, she wrote, killed insects for weeks and months, and not only the targeted insects but countless more, and remained toxic in the environment even after it was diluted by rainwater. Carson concluded that DDT and other pesticides had irrevocably harmed birds and animals and had contaminated the entire world food supply. The book's most haunting and famous chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow," depicted a nameless American town where all life -- from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children -- had been "silenced" by the insidious effects of DDT.
...
Her careful preparation, however, had paid off. Anticipating the reaction of the chemical industry, she had compiled Silent Spring as one would a lawyer's brief, with no fewer than 55 pages of notes and a list of experts who had read and approved the manuscript. Many eminent scientists rose to her defense, and when President John F. Kennedy ordered the President's Science Advisory Committee to examine the issues the book raised, its report thoroughly vindicated both Silent Spring and its author. As a result, DDT came under much closer government supervision and was eventually banned."
http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp
Aw, when you can't provide evidence, you whine. Everything is "self-evident" to you and we should just swallow all the right wing garbage you can spew. You complain about "rewriting history," but you can't even point to the history that's ostensibly being rewritten.
Again, if there were any evidence you would have provided it by now. It is just stupidity to complain that people won't agree with you when you offer no proof. Go sow your magic beans elsewhere.
As I note above, the NRDC thinks DDT as banned.
The Natural Resources Defense Counci is one of the top environmental lobby groups.
The Left's capacity for hysterical error followed by shameless revisionism is truly astounding.
I can't wait until Global Warming gets well and truly buried in the next few years. It will be hilarious to read how "nobody claimed a consensus, Global Warming was merely a theory taken to extremes by a few people whom you're now lumping into some mythical 'Global Warming movement' monolith."
Chic, au courant environmental hysteria has millions of Leftist adherents; yesterday's disproven ones are lonely orphans.
See Earth Day 1970 hilarity.
@Bruce:
..and, on that point, is wrong - or incomplete. DDT was banned for agricultural use; but public health uses were preserved.
More fundamentally; does it matter what NRDC thinks happened, when we can look at the legislative record and see that DDT was not banned (save for the agricultural use that Carson was arguing against)?
Does it, by the way, matter to you that the cite you rely upon shows that her account of the science was meticulous - and correct?
The influx of the clueless [is from here](http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/most_bases_covered/).
#63 - No, no, you have the wrong Tim. It's either Tim "Sydney's dams will be dry in two years" FLannery or Tim "Paul Ehrlich never advocated forced sterilization in India" Lambert.
Dave S, your score is 0 out of 2 for accuracy in your quotes. Nice going.
"I am also fascinated by the idea that the (supposed) failure of the US government ot fund DDT amounts to a ban. Presumably Bck et al believe there's a world wide ban on condoms and abortions."?
The ban is, of course, evinced by the failure of righjtwing anti-environmentalist organizations to fund DDT sprayuing for malaria. After all, it's absurd to suggest that others' refusal to do as you wish constitutes a ban, particularly from the rightwing libertarian standpoint. So, given that these rightwing organizations are so insistent that DDT saves millions of lives but they nevertheless do not fund its use, the only logical explanation is that they must be prevented by law from doing so. Otherwise, they would just be silly hypocritical idiots carried away by their own rhetoric, right?
"The influx of the clueless is from here."
Ah, a site where
"you must be logged in to post comments"
and
"new registrations are not permitted at this time"
See, that is what defines a ban. gets more and more ridiculous
DDT was NOT banned in Tanzania, but restricted.
It may be NOW restricted because the ban was lifted in 2006...
http://english.people.com.cn/200605/08/eng20060508_263856.html
I lived in Tanzania between 1997 and 2000, in no documentation available to me as an expat with children I found any information about possible use of DDT! If there had been, I would for certain have applied it for the safety of my children.
I doubt that it even was possible to use DDT during my stay in Tanzania, as there was a ban in place, and even if there weren't a ban NOBODY in the entire expat community, including my dutch doctors with ten years of tropical disease treatment experience, NOBODY EVER TOLD ME I could spray my house with DDT.
"The DDT ban myth"
Sure.
It's not a surprise that the left is working so hard to avoid the stigma of having banned DDT, which continues to cause loss of life in Africa due to malaria. Being on the left means never having to say you're sorry. To have to actually take responsibility for the outcomes of your actions (albeit well intentioned) is not part of the left's make up.
BTW - I spent some years in Africa. I saw the effects of societies ravaged by malaria. The massive cost that is not able to be borne by their health systems. DDT is cheap. It works (even when only as a repellant). It is a profoundly safe substance in the quantities needed to provide malaria protection. To not allow its use is one of the most immoral stances taken by the rich West in the last 100 years.
Hans, did you consider spraying your house with any of the other insecticides used for IRS?
"Dave S, your score is 0 out of 2 for accuracy in your quotes. Nice going."
Oh, really?
[i]"Leading environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery has warned that Australia is now entering long-term climate change, which could cause longer and more frequent droughts.
He also predicts that the ongoing drought could leave Sydney's dams dry in just two years.[/i]" - June 11, 2005
[i]"Berlau's next target is Paul Ehrlich:
'In his best-selling book, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich called for all men in India who had three or more children to be forcibly sterilized.'
But what Ehrlich actually wrote was:
'A few years ago, there was talk in India of compulsory sterilization for all males who were fathers of three or more children.'
And then he went on to say why he felt that such a plan was not a good idea. Are you starting to see a pattern in Berlau's work?
[b]Correction: I was wrong on this point.[/b]"[/i] - Deltoid blog, April 14, 2007.
Where is the inaccuracy, Tim?
Bruce screams:
Grub the wax out of your ears, Bruce - 'environmentalists' did not ban DDT, nor it cause to have been banned. All restrictions placed upon its use were as a consequence of the scientific evidence demonstrating cumulative toxicity in food-chains, and demonstrating insect-resistance which rendered it ineffective when used in broad-scale, ad lib agricultural contexts.
Note too that it is insect resistance to DDT (and specifically mosquito resistance) that is the issue, and not malaria resistance to DDT, as many of your fellow wingnuts claim on other blogs. The latest effort was on Tim Blair's exclusive club linked by Tim Lambert at 63# above:
If you can't even get the basic facts right...
And if you had been paying half a grain of attention over the last half a decade or so you'd know that the warnings of food/biofuel and ecosystem/biofuel conficts originated with 'environmentalists'. The enthusiasm for biofuels is largely driven by industries and governments who only ever seem to see immediate economic or political expediency.
The shortcomings of biofuels are not a discovery of the right-wing, libertarian wingnut brigade. Don't let the soapy water sting your eyes as another of your bubbles pops.
Then Dave S. pontificates:
No David, what is truly astounding is the incessant capacity for hysterical error followed by shameless revisionism demonstrated by trolls such as yourself. The threads on Deltoid are a testament to this, if one cares to read them with impartiality and scientific objectivism (and yes, I am deliberately tempting comment).
I see far, far fewer errors from the 'left' than I do from the 'right', and far more errata from the 'left' than I do from the 'right' when blunders are made.
Oh, and Dave, two years ago I lived in Sydney and I watched the weekly decline in the dam catchments, and at the rate of decrease there was less than two years worth of water. Had the drought continued as it had for the several years prior to Flannery's statement, Sydney would have been in deep do-do. Flannery said nothing that anyone with a pencil and an envelope couldn't have figured out for themselves; and believe me, the hydrologists I know were very concerned folk indeed at that time.
Most water suppliers in just about every Australian capital city still are.
Tim Lambert,
John Balbus's letter (#49 above) is to E. Anne Peterson, Assistant Administrator for Global Health, U.S. Agency for International Development. The letter quotes from the NYT Magazine which quotes Peterson as saying USAID "doesn't finance DDT".
In comment #56 you say you are better informed on USAID funding of DDT use than is Balbus, who took his information from "an error-filled NYT story". In order for Balbus to have been misinformed by the NYT story the extensive Peterson quotes he cites from the story would have to be wrong as he refers to nothing else in the story. The item you link to at #56 says nothing about the NYT misquoting Peterson, however. Can you support your claim that the NYT misquoted Peterson or would you like to withdraw it?
"NOBODY EVER TOLD ME I could spray my house with DDT."
See, this is the reason governments may be reluctant to get involved with DDT, not any phony ban. Does anyone see any problems with providing it to the citizens to spray their houses with on their own? trusting them of course to adjust the concentratiuon correctly, not to mention not reselling the stuff for agricultural use. geezus.
Had the drought continued as it had for the several years prior to Flannery's statement, Sydney would have been in deep do-do.
Ah, but it didn't, did it? And Sydney isn't in deep do-do, is it? And pretty much all of the hysterical, idiotic shrieking coming from others of Flannery's cut has been...you know... wrong? Just like Flannery?
Guess that doesn't matter to the mindless sort of enviro-drones we see here, for whom history begins anew every morning and facts are just mean things to be shouted down, chanted at, and frightened away with big puppets.
Coming from a right-wing anti-government mouth-foaming idiot like Hans Erren, this is friggin' hilarious.
depp=true
notiz=[Cut it out]
Darrell, I'm wondering if you have car or house insurance? I can just you writing to your insurer after a year where you didn't make a claim, blasting them for their "hysterical, idiotic shrieking" claims that your house might burn down and since they were so wrong, you're never going to buy insurance again?
Note to Blairoids: Saying that the worst case scenario is that the dams will be dry in two years, is not the same as a prediction that the dams will be dry in two years.
(the WWF) "wants a global ban on the production and use of DDT by no later than 2007, and for its use until then to be only as "a pesticide of last resort". "
"DDT, which is already banned in 34 countries. It is severely restricted in 34 more..."
from the BBC
The implication in the article is that it was banned by the US government. That in no sense implies a general ban, which is the claim under discussion.
Darrell.
I shall use small words so that you can follow what I say.
In the 2004-2006 period there was a critical shortage of water in the dams in the Sydney area.
At this time no-one knew when the drought would break.
Tim Flannery stated that if the drought continued (is this word too big?), Sydney would have big problems within two years. The numbers (things you get when you count your fingers) agreed with this fact.
This water shortage was sufficiently grave bad enough that the NSW government (is this word too big?) stuck their toes into the re-verse os-mos-is (squeezing fresh water out of salt water) can of worms.
Everyone was concerned. Did you write in to your local paper at that time to tell everyone that it would all be OK? In fact, how many people wrote to the local paper/university boffin/government (that word again) to tell them that things would be OK and that we did not need to be scared?
How many do this now?
Just how were Tim Flannery, and those who supported the general claim that without rain there would be BIG water issues within two years, being "hysterical, idiotic shrieking... mindless... enviro-drones"?
Who were the voices of (your) reason at this time?
Can you understand the little words that I am using?!
Dolt.
I would use a bigger word for that last, but I do not think that you would un-der-stand.
But hey it's obvious much more fun to say "Rachel Carson is worse than Hitler and the Greens area bunch of crazy baby killers therefore global warming can't be true so I should buy a new SUV and vote the straight Republican ticket - and that Obama fella's really a Muslim anyhow."
You really are a moron, aren't you?
Bruce posts:
DDT ban killed millions - unsupported by any evidence. Biofuels - good when sustainably harvested, bad when not.
Bruce = can't read.
Jack Lacton posts:
Do you often post on a blog without having read any of the previous comments in the thread?
The DDT ban NEVER HAPPENED. DDT is largely unused in many countries BECAUSE OVERUSE MADE THE MOSQUITOES RESISTANT. Your whole issue doesn't exist, it was made up by people with an anti-environmentalist axe to grind and is popularized by useful idiots like you.
Yes, DDT is banned in developed countries. Point?
"Who were the voices of (your) reason at this time?"
Tim Blair.
"The DDT ban NEVER HAPPENED."
"Yes, DDT is banned in developed countries. Point?"
Your voices of reason seem to have trouble staying on message.
Tatterdemalion's answer to "Who were the voices of (your) reason at this time?" was "Tim Blair".
So, what were Tim's scientifically justifiable 'reasons'?
Oh, and is this the same Tim Blair who won't allow any further registrations to his blog, in case it dilutes his coven's cackling?
Yes, reasoned indeed, that...
English people of my advanced years may remember Billy Bunter: "I did not eat your cakes, and anyway they tasted horrible."
Why are people denying that the green lobby campaigned - and still campaigns - for a total ban on DDT? They make themselves sound like Billy Bunter - I did not want DDT banned, but in any case it is dangerous and ineffective. If it is dangerous and ineffective, then surely they should want it banned.
If the 260+ environmental groups are correct that DDT is very dangerous in all circumstances and also pretty ineffective against malaria then their supporters should not be shy in taking pride in the success they had over the years in persuading people not to use it.
Do you believe that DDT is dangerous and/or ineffective? In that case you must want it banned, and should take rejoice in the efforts of the green movement to restrict its use.
Surely there must be someone out there who is happy to say that he or she wants a total ban on DDT and is glad that hundreds of green groups have achieved some success in their fight against this deadly chemical.
The claim at issue is whether there is a general ban on DDT, not whether some industrialized nations have banned it.
Equivocation isn't clever -- it's dishonest.
Ah, the stupid burns!
The worldwide DDT ban never happened. DO you understand now?
"The worldwide DDT ban never happened. DO you understand now?"
You have an interesting definition of "worldwide." The same organizations you regularly cite as authorities on international law have also legally banned DDT. Is not the UN and ICC's authority supposed to be worldwide? Or is it only worldwide when it's convenient for you?
And why would the International Cricket Council have the authority to ban DDT? It's not that kind of cricket, is it?
No.
They.
Didn't.
Try again.
By the way, these are two different things. Treating them as similar is quite stupid.
You're not stupid, are you?
Unofficial reprisals killing millions by enforcing DDT ban
"Spraying of DDT in houses and on mosquito breeding grounds was the primary reason that rates of malaria around the world declined dramatically after the Second World War. Nearly one million Indians died from malaria in 1945, but DDT spraying reduced this to a few thousand by 1960. However, concerns about the environmental harm of DDT led to a decline in spraying, and likewise, a resurgence of malaria."
Today, India again reports millions of cases of malaria every year; there are over 300 million cases reported worldwide, most in sub-Saharan Africa. Roberts said the reported number of malaria cases in South Africa has risen by over 1,000 percent in the past five years. Only countries that have continued to use DDT, such as Ecuador, have contained or reduced malaria.
Noted Bate, "Problems will arise from the restrictions the POPs treaty will erect for DDT use, but of far greater importance is that countries can continue to use DDT without fear of reprisals from western governments--at least official reprisals."
This is a lie.
Development of resistance, shown both in the wild and in the laboratory, had much more to do with it.
This is also a lie.
What part of laboratory confirmed experiments do you have problems with>
Hans, did you consider spraying your house with any of the other insecticides used for IRS?
No, the only recommended precautions for malaria were:
DEET impregnated mosquito nets
stay out of known infested areas, and stay inside at dusk
Have a bloodslide test in case of fever.
Profylaxis Paludrine (proguanil) and chloroquine.
My children did not like the horrible taste of chloroquine. Some of my fellow expats used the just introduced Lariam, but this had horrible side-effects: night sweating and nightmares.
No spraying was recommended in any documentation about malaria precaution that was given to me (1997-2000 Tanzania)
It would be funny if people didn't die.
There are no problems from the POPs Treaty. It specifically allows a government to use DDT against malaria-carrying insects. There are no reprisals, official or unofficial, from any government. No environmental organization has the capacity for "reprisals."
So, who opposed IRS use of DDT? Tobacco companies, Roger
Bates' employers. They argue, in Africa, that the EU will not allow tobacco sales in Europe of tobacco from any nation where DDT is used. The EU issues a statement saying they have no problem with DDT use in IRS. Bate's tobacco growing buddies step up the volume of harangues against EU regulations, against environmentalists, against others they don't like -- and then they file protests with local governments trying to stop DDT spraying.
Who is making noise about reprisals? Bate. Who is making reprisals? Bates' friends in the tobacco industry.
Remember the old psychological game, "Let's you and him fight?"
If Bate worries about reprisals for anyone doing anything rational to fight malaria, Bate can pick up the phone and end the reprisals, now. If there are reprisals, put the blame where it should be, not on nameless "environmentalists," not on non-existant EU regulations, not on a non-existant bans -- but on those fear-mongers vending fear by the ton, wholesale.
It may be NOW restricted because the ban was lifted in 2006... http://english.people.com.cn/200605/08/eng20060508_263856.html
Hans Erren, that source is horrible. most souces speak of a ban SINCE 2004.
May 8, 2006 -- DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania is lifting a 2004 ban on the pesticide DDT so it can be used to fight mosquitoes carrying malaria in the east African nation.
the PAN pesticide database that i cited above is an extremely GOOD source, but slightly OUTDATED. so my claim that DDT was RESTRICTED, NOT banned still stands:
PIC Circular XIV, Appendix IV: Listing of All Importing Country Responses Received from Parties as of November 2001, United Nations Environment Programme, December, 2001, http://www.fao.org/AG/AGP/AGPP/Pesticid/PIC/circular.htm. PAN last checked the currency of this data set on June 24, 2002.
http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Ref_Reg.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33482&Country=Tanzani…
but there is plenty of other documentation around. just look at this guide to TANZANIA: (2005)
programmes.The 2003 DDT inventory revealed an obsolete pesticides stock of about
170,500 kg in Tanzania mainland and 150kg of DDT in Zanzibar.
well, shouldn t that have been enough to spray your living room?
At present there is no specific legal provisions that regulate DDT use for public health in
Tanzania. As a pesticide it is regulated by the Plant Protection Act (1997) and Plant
Protection Regulations (1999) , and the Public Health Act (1980) of Zanzibar.
http://www.pops.int/documents/implementation/nips/submissions/NIP_Tanza…
once again, in parts...
but there is plenty of other documentation around. just look at this guide to TANZANIA: (2005)
programmes.The 2003 DDT inventory revealed an obsolete pesticides stock of about
170,500 kg in Tanzania mainland and 150kg of DDT in Zanzibar.
well, shouldn t that have been enough to spray your living room?
At present there is no specific legal provisions that regulate DDT use for public health in
Tanzania. As a pesticide it is regulated by the Plant Protection Act (1997) and Plant
Protection Regulations (1999) , and the Public Health Act (1980) of Zanzibar.
http://www.pops.int/documents/implementation/nips/submissions/NIP_Tanza…
sorry, my post above was just a short part. i hope Tim will post the restof it. (too many links to REAL sources?)
but in case Hans Erren needs another soucre that show his errors:
The
Government of Zanzibar banned the use of DDT for malaria control programmes
in 1988, whereas in Tanzania Mainland, a Government order to prevent the
formulation and use of DDT for agricultural purposes was made in 1997.
http://www3.webng.com/panukdocs/poverty/Tanzania%20Multistakeholder%20m…
"No spraying was recommended in any documentation about malaria precaution that was given to me (1997-2000 Tanzania)"
Do you expect the government to do everything for you?
My question wasn't "did the government recommend another insecticide" it was more along the lines: "If you were so concerned why didn't you go out and find out what insecticides were available?"
"Why are people denying that the green lobby campaigned - and still campaigns - for a total ban on DDT?"
gee; and to think that back at the top of the topic, it was already banned.
"Only countries that have continued to use DDT, such as Ecuador, have contained or reduced malaria"
well, nothing signifies an international ban better than the fact that countries still use it.
maybe they have trouble with asymmetrical relationships. follow this: the fact that some countries do not use ddt does not signify a ban. but the fact that some countries do use ddt signifies NO ban, very definitely.
"phasing out" ... "banned" ... same thing.
"15 SEPTEMBER 2006 | WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Nearly thirty years after phasing out the widespread use of indoor spraying with DDT and other insecticides to control malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that this intervention will once again play a major role in its efforts to fight the disease."
"WHO actively promoted indoor residual spraying for malaria control until the early 1980s when increased health and environmental concerns surrounding DDT caused the organization to stop promoting its use and to focus instead on other means of prevention. Extensive research and testing has since demonstrated that well-managed indoor residual spraying programmes using DDT pose no harm to wildlife or to humans."
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/index.html
Can someone please tell me why if DDT is dangerous to humans and wildlife and also as ineffective against malaria as the 260 environmental groups believe then it should not be banned as soon as possible?
Also could someone explain what difference it makes to the people who are most at risk from malaria, those who live on less than 2 dollars a day, whether DDT is legally banned in their country or whether it is simply not provided for them because of the campaigns of the green lobby?
DDT is not particularly poisonous to humans in small quantities. It is extremely stable and accumulates in fat tissue, the long term consequences of this are still unknown.
DDT is acutely toxic to arthropods - not just mosquitoes but other species of insects and other arthropods such as crustaceans.
It also damages the shells of birds.
All these things justified the decision to ban the agricultural use of DDT - along with the desire to delay the emergence of DDT-resistant mosquitoes.
Environmentalists from Rachel Carson on have supported the continued use of DDT for indoor residual spraying because the amounts used are orders of magnitude lower than for agricultural use and the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.
This is why contrary to the ban claims, DDT has continued to be used for malaria control in numerous areas of the developed world WHERE DDT RESISTANCE IN MOSQUITOES WAS NOT A PROBLEM.
The 2000 treaty on Persistent Organophosphates (POPs) always made provision for a staged phase-out of the compounds ONCE SUITABLE REPLACEMENTS WERE FOUND.
SOME environmental groups initially wanted DDT treated in the same way as other POPs - that is it would EVENTUALLY be banned once replacements were available.
This PROPOSAL for a ban was dropped quite quickly when it was pointed out that DDT IN SOME AREAS still has a significant cost advantage over other insecticides for malaria control.
"Also could someone explain what difference it makes to the people who are most at risk from malaria, those who live on less than 2 dollars a day, whether DDT is legally banned in their country or whether it is simply not provided for them because of the campaigns of the green lobby?"
Still waiting for the proof that this has actually happened - as opposed to countries stopping the use of DDT for malaria control because of problems with resistance.
If Ian Gould does not believe that DDT is not particularly harmful to humans then he disagrees with Rachel Carson who thought it was a highly dangerous carcinogen as well as being likely to cause reduced lactation, reduced bone mineral density, and reduced birth weight.
It is absolute rubbish to suggest that she would have ever have wanted DDT anywhere near where people lived, far less sprayed inside their homes.
Can he find one word of evidence when in any recorded interview, conversation, article or book Rachel Carson ever suggested that DDT be put in close contact with human beings. She did not rule out all insecticides but most definitely never suggested that DDT be used anywhere.
Tatterdemalian writes:
Try to pay attention. The subject is a DDT ban causing deaths in the Third World. DDT was never banned in the Third World. DDT was banned, for indiscriminate use in agriculture though not for malaria control, in the developed world. The Third World is also called "the developing world." It's not the same group of countries as "the developed world."
This has to be one of the most bizarre displays of mass stupidity ever seen. Reading through the comments, you lurch from laughing out loud at the determination not to get it, to groaning at the failure of the education system to equip some people with a modicum of scientific literacy and reasoning skills.
It's as if the DDT-ban myth is the porch light that attracts the dimmest of the winged-monkeys.
Let me get this straight.
Apparently, a complete ban of DDT would be bad, otherwise, why would environmentalists go to such efforts to deny that it ever happened?
Environmental groups have supported total bans of DDT.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9901/29/ddt.enn/index.html
They were unsuccessful in instituting a complete ban; however one assumes they had some success in discouraging its use.
Since they were unsuccessful in getting the complete ban they wanted, environmental groups bear no responsibility for increases in malaria?
The second argument seems to be that even if the use of DDT was never discouraged, it wouldn't have made a difference since DDT was largely ineffective due to resistance and that other, better alternatives were available.
So is the following, from bmj.com completely fabricated?
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7273/1403#B1-1
"Environmental groups have supported total bans of DDT."
You have to wonder why, if DDT had been banned, green groups were campaigning for to be ... more banned?
"They were unsuccessful in instituting a complete ban; however one assumes they had some success in discouraging its use."
So the "ban" blood libel has progressed from "millions murdered by the Green Nazis" to "Maybe somebody somewhere at some time, but I'm not prepared to say who, when or where was discouraged from using DDT by green groups."
Ian,
I didn't say that DDT had been "banned".
I didn't say that "millions were murdered by the Green Nazis".
So, you're arguing with someone, but it isn't me.
Do you believe that green groups never discouraged the use of DDT for malaria control? If so, let me know and I'll see what I can dig up.
Bill,
Did you read this part of the CNN article you cite?
The anopheles resistance to pyrethroids that Africa is experiencing now is a result of wide-spread agricultural broadcast spraying of same. Same as happened for DDT, previously.
luminous,
Yes, I read that. My point was that environmental groups were arguing for a ban.
Bill,
My point is that what environmental groups were or are arguing against vis~a~vis DDT has nothing to do with the resurgence of malaria in Africa.
Ten points if you can accurately identify exactly what I suspect is the principle proximate cause.
luminous,
Global Warming?
I'll take "Overuse of pesticides in agriculture" for $1000 Alex
I'll take "the same thing that has rendered dozens of insecticides useless over time and what we would expect if we continue to do the same thing over and over" for $1000, Pat (to put a finer point on it, elspi).
Best,
Ã
Bill Boddell posts with total unanswerable clarity, and is met by people simply distorting his arguments.
Ian Gould, - having failed to find a single quote to support his ludicrous claim that Rachel Carson thought it would be a good idea to spray DDT inside people's houses, despite the fact that she was totally convinced that any contact with it could cause cancer - does not understand the difference between campaigning for a total ban and actually achieving one.
There is no total ban on eating GM foods, but the green lobby has succeeded in persuading many people not to do so. In Zambia the government refused to distribute 7000 tons of US surplus GM food, even though 3 million people were suffering from malnutrition. Some green groups applauded that decision. If you get enough people telling you that a food or an insecticide is unsafe you are do not need a ban in order to stop using it.
What difference did it make to the 3 million hungry people in Zambia whether or not there was a ban on GM food, if their government had been persuaded not to distribute it? Does Ian Gould think that people living on less than 2 dollars a day can order the GM food (or the DDT) off the internet?
I'm glad Bernard found Bill's contribution to be "total unanswerable clarity". Because I found it to be just the opposite,
"Apparently, a complete ban of DDT would be bad, otherwise, why would environmentalists go to such efforts to deny that it ever happened?"
Bill then goes to explain that, indeed, it had not happened. Perhaps that might explain the denial?
THe BMJ article isn't "fabricated", but the quote you supplied is just from one-side of a 2 part debate on the merits of DDT use for malaria control. And this is what the 'Green Nazi' advocating a complete ban said for the case against,
"steps must be taken to assure that DDT remains available at an affordable price to those countries that truly need it."
Though the proponents didn't quite get the KwaZulu-Natal malaria outbreak story right. There were several factors that lead to the rise in malaria, an important one being resistance to treatment. This was addressed by introducing the first program of ACT therapy. Vector control was also important, but what the BMJ debate didn't mention was that this was a cross-border program (involving SA, Swaziland and Mozambique as it was believed that a significant portion of the KZ-N cases were originating from Mozambique, where there was no vector control program). The primary focus of this program was IRS in Mozambique. And they didn't use DDT at all in their IRS program. And they dramatically reduced prevelance rates. Even in KZ-N, DDT was only partially re-introduced. Non-DDT sprays continued to be used for IRS in KZ-N.
In summary, the outbreak was contained with minimal use of DDT.
"Also could someone explain what difference it makes to the people who are most at risk from malaria, those who live on less than 2 dollars a day, whether DDT is legally banned in their country or whether it is simply not provided for them because of the campaigns of the green lobby? "
Oh, that's easy; if DDT is not banned, then the bleeding heart conservatives who are so against government action could themselves donate money to provide DDT for spraying. Since they don't, it must mean that DDT is banned. What would the alternative be? that they don't give a damn about ending malaria, and are just engaging in cold-blooded sophistry of the most disgusting sort?
Michael,
You missed the point. I wasn't saying that environmentalists were wrong to deny the banning of DDT (I'll give on the semantics of that), I was using their denial to support the idea that a ban of DDT for malaria control must be considered a bad idea (otherwise, why would anyone need to deny their possible involvement?).
From everything I read here, it seems like people only oppose DDT for malaria control because it is ineffective. All the talk is about DDT resistance, better alternatives, etc. It's almost as if green groups argued against using DDT and, purely coincidentally, for reasons having nothing to do with green group lobbying, many developing nations decided that their previous use of DDT, which had been cheap and effective for decades, needed to be replaced by newer, more expensive and untried alternatives.
Bill,
It's considered not advisable at this point, because DDT remains useful in some circumstances.
The general position, which really isn't that complicated, is that a complete ban for agricultural purposes was necessary and that DDT should be phased out of vector control when an equivalent, non-persistant replacement is found (which might be quite a while).
As others have already pointed out, the ban on agricultural use has had the positive spin-off of helping to avoid the emergence of resistance. I don't expect the ban-myth devotees to thank the 'Green Nazis' for their gift to malaria control.
From Silent Spring:
"No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story--the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting. ... What is the measure of this setback? The list of resistant species now includes practically all of the insect groups of medical importance. ... Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes. ... Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' ..., Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible."
But of course when discussing anti-malarial programs Carson couldn't possibly be talking about DDT.
She was probably advocating spraying with the ground-up corpses of cute little puppies she had personally tortured to death.
As for Zambia - "A Green group supposedly did something bad somewhere once, therefore all allegations against green groups must be true."
I believe this is known as "A Jew burned down the Reichstag" argument.
I am quite happy to criticise Green groups - when they deserve it.
Oh and as for the sanctimonious "3,000,000 people were starving" shmatlz - divide 7,000 tons by 3,000,009.
Then ask yourself - given that Zambia exported over 100,000 tonnes of grain in 2006, whether shipping grain half way around the world (as opposed to sending money to buy it locally) actually serves the interests of the Zambians or of American farmers.
Ian, is that the best you can do?
Rachel Carson was not opposed to all insecticides. Who ever said that she was? The issue we are discussing is the use of DDT, not insecticides in general. The whole point of this debate is that following Silent Spring DDT use was greatly reduced and other insecticides (those approved by Rachel Carson and her successors in the green lobby) were used instead.
She was 100% opposed to all use of DDT for the very good reason that she genuinely believed that even the smallest contact with it could cause cancer and many other serious health problems. How can anyone who has read Silent Spring think that Rachel Carson wanted DDT to be sprayed in people's homes? The very idea is preposterous.
Can you find any quote anywhere from Rachel Carson or from someone who new her saying that she supported the use of DDT inside the home? If not then I invite you to admit that you have invented that line yourself just to back up your argument.
You totally miss the point I made about GM in Zambia. If there is enough adverse publicity about a product then it is not always necessary to introduce a legal ban in order for people to stop using it. Whether or not DDT was ever the subject of a legal ban is utterly irrelevant to poor people vulnerable to malaria if their government and the aid agencies have become prey the myth promoted by the green lobby that it is very dangerous.
Quit lying.
Bernard,
DDT presents a very serious ecological danger. It is no myth.
"Doubts over the safety of genetically modified foods voiced by the British Medical Association were the main reason behind Zambia's decision to reject food aid in 2002, says a Zambian scientist who visited Europe this week. Famine still threatens 2.4 million people in Zambia today.
...
"Vivienne Nathanson, director of professional activities at the BMA, denies the association has said that GM crops are harmful. "It's a misrepresentation of our policy to say that countries should not use these things," she says. "I don't see any reason why Zambia shouldn't accept the maize, but it's up to them." She says the BMA will be holding "round table" talks to decide whether its policy on GM foods needs updating."
The words "green lobby" are missing!
Bernard, I'll give you credit for articulating at least a reasonable argument, and not stooping to willfully ignorant, laughably insubstantial/irrelevant anecdote (paging Hans Erren) or deceitful talking points. What you said about the publicity/pr, though in my estimation wrong, actually brings this discussion forward.
Indeed, Rachel Carson's book and environmental activism more broadly has affected behavior, and that in all probability also includes influencing some bad decisions. I haven't been following the GM issue very closely, but I do seem to recall a lot of resistance to GM food aid, which is, at least as I see it, questionable (and perhaps due to an imprudent abundance of caution).
However, conservatives through heavy application of logical fallacy draw vastly the wrong lesson from this. The broader reality is that environmentalists such as Carson are adding information to the decision making process, and by and large, improving circumstances by having done so. Just because the information added might not be good for corporate profits does not mean that people's knowing the ramifications of various practices on things that we value such as our health and well being, and even God forbid on the environment (which has tangible value, and not just to granola crunching tree huggers), does not add to public welfare. It manifestly does.
Speaking of which, as has been noted a number of times here, (but curiously unanswered), Rachel Carson's advocacy manifestly reduced the use of DDT in agriculture, which slowed the rise of the resistance that makes our defenses against disease vectors mooted and ultimately kills people. This is to say nothing of the medial evidence that has grown up since Carson's work regarding the adverse health impact on humans of DDT. So this is indeed a perfect illustration of the effect of environmental science and advocacy- it improves welfare, and vastly so.
The point here is knowing more is a good thing, even if that doesn't always mean the best decisions are made, (humans are subject to emotion and corruption and a whole host of factors that drive bad decisions, but additional knowledge is not one of them). Conservatives, by obsessively honing in on every mistake (or as is more often the case, perceived mistake, even if the perception is manufactured by ex-PR types, ehem) made in the cause of mitigating the negative consequences of commercial enterprise pointed out by scientists are implicitly rebuking this very simple underlying truth. That they then ostentatiously deride as hysterical the environmentalists, is merely the ironic twist, given it is their own quite irrational hysteria that is impeding good policy.
ddt ban forces fish abuse
No, No, No and No
This has been another in the series of short answers to stupid questions.
No, No, No and No
This has been another in the series of short answers to stupid questions.
No, No, No and No
This has been another in the series of short answers to stupid questions.