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In the malaria fight, it's people or the environment
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Worker Solomon Conteh dissects a mosquito at Sanaria Inc. facility in Rockville, USA. REUTERS\Jim Young
When you're faced with a disease like malaria, which still kills at least a million people a year, what do you prioritise - the environment or people's lives? It's the environment that gets put first, according Paul Driessen, author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death". "Misguided aid agencies, radical environmentalists and pseudo ethicists" are failing to save lives in Africa because "these activists in malaria-free countries dislike chemicals", he says in the online magazine spiked. The disease kills an African child every 30 seconds, and should top the list of global priorities when it comes to disease eradication, he says. Educational materials, insecticide-treated bed nets and anti-malarial drugs are all very well and may "garner plaudits from environmental activists", but they alone won't wipe out malaria. Another unforgivable move for Driessen is the use of cloriquine when treating malaria-infected children in Africa. These drugs are no longer effective, unlike the successful but more expensive Artemisia-based combination therapies, he says. In effect, "medical malpractitioners are saying it is better to give millions of children cheap drugs that don't work, and let thousands of them die, than it is to give fewer children more expensive drugs that work, and ensure that they live... That is unforgivable, unconscionable and immoral." What is needed is an integrated approach, says Driessen. In other words, an appropriate combination of chemicals such as DDT, larvacides or insecticides together with bed nets and such is the best weapon against the deadly disease. Even big players such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Health Organisation now propagate the use of chemical weapons in the fight against malaria. The results are already visible in South Africa, Botswana, Zanzibar and Swaziland - countries that have virtually managed to eradicate the disease. Kenya, on the other hand, has only managed to reduce the number of malaria-induced deaths by half through its campaign of distributing bed nets. It still means 15,000 people are victims of malaria every year - and that's 15,000 deaths too many, says Driessen. "DDT is dangerous and should be treated as such," says Hans Overgaard of the Norwegian research institute Bioforsk Plantehelse in a response to a pro-DDT article in the Wall Street Journal. Overgaard cites a study that showed that high levels of DDT "predicted a statistically significant five-fold increased risk of breast cancer" among women born after 1931. This and similar claims are nothing but scaremongering by "so-called environmentalists and those companies selling alternatives to DDT", says Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute, who wrote the original article in the Wall Street Journal. Bates laments the fact that because of such studies, some African countries have indefinitely delayed the use of DDT in combating the disease. DDT is certainly not a "magic bullet", argues Overgaard, and we should remember how malaria mosquitoes developed resistance to the chemical during WHO's Malaria Eradication Campaign in the 1960s. Ultimately, malaria deaths are still very much a reality. They are the result of "politically correct policies that are best described as lethal experimentation on African children", says Driessen. That's why, he adds, "ethics cops" and "eco-warriors" should do away with propagating such policies for the sake of preventing unnecessary deaths.
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5 responses to “In the malaria fight, it's people or the environment”
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21 Nov 2007 22:33:57 GMT
We can't poison Africa into economic security. We can't poison mosquitoes to get rid of poverty. We can't poison Africa to make it healthy.
DDT has a role -- a smaller, supporting role -- in integrated pest management. Either Driessen is supporting Rachel Carson's call for integrated pest management (he denies it, I gather) or he's calling for the mass poisoning of Africa. I wish he'd make himself clear. DDT alone cannot stop malaria -- never has, never will. To beat malaria we have to stop mosquitoes breeding close to humans, stop infecting mosquitoes with malaria from humans, which means we have to cure malaria in humans who have it already, and we have to provide prophylactic barriers to stop the mosquitoes from getting to people to bite them. DDT, in some cases according to the experts, can play a role in protecting the interior of homes against mosquitoes; but if DDT is used much more than it is used now, mosquitoes will quickly evolve to immunity, since nearly every mosquito on Earth now has multiple copies of the genes that confer resistance and immunity. If Driessen worries about African children, he needs to quit trying to urinate on Rachel Carson's grave and get out there to promote bednets, screens where feasible, new houses where screens are not feasible, better medical care and more extensive medical care systems, and education on how to drain mosquito breeding sites near homes. DDT can do none of those things.22 Nov 2007 14:36:57 GMT
Today I was at a meeting with some NGO's involved in Zambia, and the issue came up about DDT,the head of the NGO felt that DDT should be banned altogether, as he had read Rachel Carson's book, and did not know better. I agree that DDT has a very important part to play in the eradication of malaria. But what we must understand is that if a house is sprayed with DDT, it does not mean that the occupants will not get malaria, a mosquito carrying the virus, will be attracted to the victim first, have a feed and then land on the DDT, in it's engorged state, and will then perish, after already transmitting the virus. I believe that the the only way we are going to control malaria, is a three pronged attack, first IRS with a pyrethroid or DDT, a treated bed net, but the most important contribution would be the role out of a larvicide program using a granular application of DIMILIN on all open water areas around populated areas
22 Nov 2007 15:56:51 GMT
The eradication of malaria in the US, Panama canal, Darwin Australia and many other places was accomplished by an integrated program much like what Driessen is talking about. No place on Earth has ever controlled malaria without the use of insecticides. If this isn't true, the why do all the mosquito control districts in the developed world rely so heavily on insecticides?
24 Nov 2007 14:21:42 GMT
DDT is the most effective insecticide for use in indoor residual spraying because it not only kills mosquitoes but repels them. Most mosquitoes, even those resistant to DDT, will not enter a house that has been sprayed inside. And most of those mosquitoes that do enter, leave, because DDT is an irritant.
DDT has been used since World War II, when it was dusted on soldiers and refugees, saving millions of lives from typhus and other insect-borne diseases. It has never harmed human beings. To characterize the use of DDT as "poisoning" Africa, as Mr. Darrell did, serves only to support the continuing deaths of 1 to 2 million people per year from malaria. Many of the people who piously attack the use of DDT today are responsible for the take down of the public health infrastructure that used to exist in the 1960s, and for the economic policies that keep Africa undeveloped. The ban on DDT was a political policy, aimed at population control in the developing sector. One of the founders of the Malthusian Club of Rome, Alexander King, was forthright enough to admit this. He had initially supported the use of DDT during World War II, but after he saw how it conquered malaria and allowed population growth, he regretted his decision. Malthusians like Bertrand Russell spoke openly of the need to regularly "cull" the human population using disease and war. Scaremongering about DDT and the environment today is just a more acceptable version of this Malthusianism. 21st Century Science & Technology has several articles on DDT posted on its website: www.21stcenturysciencetech.com .28 Jul 2008 04:06:54 GMT
I'm sorry, but this problem of malarial deaths endemic to these areas is a problem related to population explosion not epidemics. Get the populations under control in these areas, and the problem can be nearly eradicated by higher standards of living and remedial medical care intended to treat the sick, and not stop the effects of poverty.
Foreign aid and misplaced development plans intended to instill progress create the overpopulation and poverty. This in turn gives rise to the problem of all these malarial deaths we see in these children.