DDT/Malaria Archives

(Courtesy of Indur Goklany)

Although the SPM has some useful and apt things to say about the need for adaptation, it is flawed by the fact that it:
-- Overstates negative impacts and understates positive impacts of climate change
-- Overstates the level of confidence that should be attached to the impacts on both human systems as well as "natural" systems (because the latter are also affected by human actions)
-- Fails to examine the impacts of climate change in the wider context of other stresses affecting humanity and the rest of nature, which would allow us to gauge the importance of climate change relative to other stresses.
-- Fails to examine the relationship between climate change and sustainable economic development more fully, which could mislead policymakers into opting for policies that would divert scarce resources from dealing with today's urgent problems in favor of policies to pursue longer term, and more uncertain, problems.

Among the several problems regarding the SPM are the following:

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On Friday, the World Health Organization announced that it will recommend indoor residual spraying with DDT as part of its malaria prevention strategy. According to its press release:

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.

In an open letter to Greenpeace International, Richard Tren, Director of the organization "Africa Fighting Malaria", calls on Grenpeace to clarify its stance on the use of DDT for controlling malaria, and asks that it account for what it has done to follow through on its stated commitment "to seeing more effective methods for combating malaria" -- presumably because DDT is either ineffective or is saddled with unacceptable side effects.

Excerpts from the full letter follow:

[O]ver 1 million people, mostly children, die from malaria every year, and the parasites cause approximately 500 million cases annually. A highly effective method of malaria control is to spray small amounts of insecticide on the inside walls of houses -- a process known as Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) … DDT is one of the most effective public health insecticides for IRS programs ...

Thousands of studies into the possible human health effects of DDT have failed to definitively demonstrate any actual human harm attributable to DDT. [Comment by IMGrant: This is not for lack of trying. Researchers have tried to pin some adverse public health effect on DDT for half a century, and yet failed to come up with something definitive. This suggests that if DDT has an adverse impact on public health, it's pretty minor. In this case, the answer to Sherlock Holmes' question as to "why the dog didn't bark" is that there probably was no dog in the first place.] Given the colossal burden caused by malaria, any rational risk-benefit assessment would conclude that DDT should be used. [Aside: Indeed Richard Tren is right on this one. See: Indur M. Goklany, The Precautionary Principle: A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk Assessment (Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 2001), available from Amazon.]

Due to its ongoing efficacy and its long record of safe use in malaria control, many countries continue to use DDT. Others, such as Uganda and Tanzania, are attempting to revitalize their IRS programs and use DDT, other insecticides and other interventions. The use of DDT in this way is specifically authorized by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

On 2 August, 2006, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) ran a story on the World Health Organization's (WHO) endorsement of the public health insecticide DDT for malaria control. The report quoted Greenpeace scientist Dr David Santillo's reaction to the endorsement:

"That certainly raises some quite substantial concerns and, if there's substantial funding coming from the US to support that, then that does sound very much like a step in the wrong direction … I think where that funding is better placed is in developing the availability of alternative strategies.

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The folks at Africa Fighting Malaria have written to the Council of the European Union requesting official clarification of their position on the use of DDT in Uganda's malaria control programme.

We therefore request a clear statement on the EU’s position on the use of DDT in malaria control and its position regarding agricultural exports from any country that uses DDT in malaria control. The confusion and misinformation following the EU’s statements in Uganda has cost lives and damaged Uganda’s malaria control program and this must halt immediately. We would appreciate a response before 25 April, which marks Africa Malaria Day.

AFM has highlighted the fact that US AID recently committed to using DDT in several indoor residual spraying programmes. (See previous posts for background on the topic.)

At the Campaign for Fighting Diseases website, Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, writes that German chemical company Bayer has supported the European Union's threats against Uganda should the country decide to use DDT in its malaria control programme.

Not only is this scandalous -- it is a major conflict of interest. Tren points out that "[A Bayer representative] sits on the board of the World Health Organization's Roll Back Malaria (RBM) coalition - as do other commercial contractors to US Agency for International Development (USAID)."

Tren is a signatory to the Kill Malarial Mosquitoes Now (KMMN) declaration, what Tren calls "A new coalition which has emerged in the US to focus the minds of USAID in their malaria control efforts."

Richard Tren and Marion Tupy write about the EU's threat to blackmail Uganda (should it decide to use DDT in its malaria control programme) in today's Washington Times, a subject covered recently at The Commons.

If any EU bureaucrat stumbles upon our blogs at The Commons, please do feel free to post a comment to explain this perverse position...

(shameless self promotion) Niger Innis (National Spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality in New York) and I jointly wrote an editorial which has been published in today's Wall Street Journal Europe, called 'The real bloodsuckers'.

The article explores threats made by the EU against Uganda if it decides to use DDT in its public health programme. This has been widely reported in the Ugandan media. A newsletter on the EU's own website outlines the perverse rationale of their threats.

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An interesting story in the NYT.

Roger Pielke demonstrates again why the Prometheus blog is must reading for those interested in the intersection of science and public policy. I don't always agree with Pielke, but he's very thoughtful, insightful and provocative. Here's an excerpt from his latest post:

efforts to justify greenhouse gas mitigation policies on preventing human impacts run up against the reality that if it is human lives that you really care about, then there are obvious, straightforward and comparatively inexpensive ways to reduce human death and suffering that do not involve first reordering the global energy system. . . .

. . . adaptation to climate change by focusing on reducing societal vulnerability to climate-related impacts deserves a much more prominent role in discussion of climate change. At the same time, advocates of climate mitigation should think carefully about the use of human death and suffering as a justification for adoption of greenhouse gas emissions -- the numbers don’t make a strong case.

Nick Kristof begins today's NYT column thusly:

If the U.S. wants to help people in tsunami-hit countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia - not to mention other poor countries in Africa - there's one step that would cost us nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

It would be to allow DDT in malaria-ravaged countries.

Of note, none of the environmentalists Kristof called was willing to oppose DDT use across the board. Even Rick Hind of Greenpeace -- the group that has called for phasing out the use of all chlorine compounds for any purpose -- said "If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it." Now that's progress.