THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 96, May 25, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WHY DON'T THEY VALUE HUMAN LIFE?
Activists Who Oppose DDT Prolong Malaria, Misery, & Death in Africa
By Fiona Kobusingye
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM & ANTI-INSECTICIDE ACTIVISM VERSUS HUMAN HEALTH IN AFRICA: POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISTS & THE ANTI-INSECTICIDE MOVEMENT OPPOSE THE USE OF DDT TO CONTROL MOSQUITOES &
PROTECT UGANDANS FROM MALARIA -- OPPOSING & OBSTRUCTING ANTI-MALARIA PROGRAMS THAT SAVE MILLIONS
OF LIVES
FULL STORY:
The 2007 World Health Assembly is wrapping up and people are commemorating the birthday of Silent Spring
author Rachel Carson. Meanwhile, millions of Africans are commemorating still more deaths from a disease that the
chemical she vilified could help control.
I just got out of the hospital, after another nasty case of malaria. I’ve had it dozens of times. I lost my son, two sisters and
three nephews to it. Fifty out of 500 children in our local school for orphans died from malaria in 2005.
Virtually every Ugandan family has buried babies, children, mothers, and fathers because of this disease, which kills
100,000 of us every year. Even today, 50 years after it was eradicated in the United States, malaria is the biggest killer of
African children, sending 3,000 to their graves every day.
In between convulsions and fever, I thought about the progress we’re making – and about those who would stop that
progress. I ask myself, why do some people care more about minor, hypothetical risks to people or animals than about
human life?
Last year, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reversed 30 years of bad policy and reauthorized DDT
to help combat malaria in Africa, by spraying it on the walls of houses to keep mosquitoes out. The World Health
Organization (WHO) also came out strongly in support of DDT.
Both reviewed decades of scientific studies and concluded that using DDT this way is perfectly safe for people and the
environment. So did Uganda’s Ministry of Health and its National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA).
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Europe supports the right of countries to use DDT, in accord
with Stockholm Convention and WHO guidelines.
DDT has worked in South Africa and Swaziland. USAID is now using it in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zambia. Uganda
and other African countries are preparing to add DDT to indoor-spraying programs.
We don’t see DDT as a “magic bullet” that can eradicate malaria by itself. We don’t advocate outdoor spraying with it.
But we strongly support spraying tiny amounts on houses – as part of comprehensive strategies that also include other
insecticides, larvacides and better sanitation to control mosquito populations, Artemisninin-based combination drugs
to treat patients, and bednets, education, better hospitals, and sound management practices.
No other chemical, at any price, does what DDT does. It keeps mosquitoes from entering homes, irritates the few that do
enter, so they don’t bite, kills those that land, and reduces malaria rates by 75% – all with a single inexpensive spraying
once or twice a year.
DDT was dusted on American soldiers during World War II to prevent malaria, and on millions of Europeans after the war,
to prevent typhus. It was sprayed all over the U.S.A. to protect crops and eradicate malaria. Contrary to what Ms. Carson
claimed, DDT did not cause cancer, or decimate eagle and other bird populations.
DDT was also used 46 years ago to slash malaria rates in western Uganda’s Kanungu District. It can and must be used
again – according to storage, handling and indoor spraying guidelines – to stop disease and save lives.
Why do some people want to prevent its use? Pesticide Action Network exists solely to battle life-saving insecticides. The
environmentalist movement became a powerful political force by embracing Rachel Carson’s erroneous claims. But what
about other opponents? What is wrong with them?
WHO Public Health and Environment Director Maria Neira wants to stop all use of DDT. The Uganda Network on
Toxic-Free Control plans to sue NEMA, if it doesn’t stop the DDT spraying program. Both worry about its hypothetical
health effects.
We wish they would worry more about malaria, and focus on DDT’s health benefits – on the diseases it can prevent, the
lives it can save.
Instead, they claim every imaginable health problem and deformity is due to DDT. To support their exaggerations and
fables, they list articles that say there is a “link” between these problems and DDT. But, as Professor Donald Roberts
emphasizes, there are many more studies that show no such connection.
“After decades of research, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, there is no proof at all that DDT directly harms human
health,” say Dr. Roberts. “There is extensive evidence, though, that DDT reduces disease and saves lives.”
DDT opponents want to return to strategies that were a devastating failure for 30 years. Hundreds of millions of Africans
got malaria. Tens of millions died. Entire countries were kept impoverished.
We say, Enough! No more malaria. No more brain damage. No more workers who can’t work, students who can’t study. No
more families that can’t afford food, because they must pay for drugs and hospitals. No more death.
We support bednets. But we also need insecticides to kill mosquitoes. And we want a DDT shield or “net” over entire
houses in malaria-infested areas – 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to protect everyone inside, whether they are
sleeping or working.
Uganda’s Vice President Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya, Health Minister Dr. Stephen Mallinga, NEMA Executive Director
Dr. Henry Arymanya-Mugisha and members of Parliament support DDT spraying and comprehensive programs to eradicate
Killer Malaria. May people of conscience everywhere stand with us. Praise Rachel Carson, if you wish – but support DDT
spraying, to reduce disease and save lives.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Africa South of the Sahara -- Black Africa
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Fiona Kobusingye is a human rights acitvist, as well as Coordinator of Congress of Racial Equality Uganda and the Kill
Malarial Mosquitoes Now Brigade. Readers can contact her at fiokob@yahoo.com.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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