Sanity on DDT? At the UN? Pinch Me
Maybe 30 years of millions needlessly dying, and not listening to the pleas of the underdeveloped world, is finally enough:
WHO backs DDT for malaria control
The World Health Organization (WHO) has reversed a 30-year policy by endorsing the use of DDT for malaria control.
The chemical is sprayed inside houses to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
DDT has been banned globally for every use except fighting disease because of its environmental impacts and fears for human health.
WHO says there is no health risk, and DDT should rank with bednets and drugs as a tool for combating malaria, which kills more than one million each year.
“The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment,” said Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.
Besides rooting out and shaking off the shackles of corruption, and implementing market-based capitalism, a final approval of DDT use may be the most important factor in helping the Third World pull itself up.
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UPDATE: A Wall Street Journal subscription-only editorial expresses similar surprise and delight:
The World Health Organization announced Friday that it will begin actively promoting use of the pesticide DDT to combat malaria in developing nations. Do you believe in miracles?
Malaria is the number one killer of pregnant women and children in Africa and among the top killers in Asia and South America. It’s long been known that DDT is the cheapest and most effective way to contain the disease, which is spread by infected mosquitoes. But United Nations health agencies and others have for decades resisted employing DDT under pressure from anti-pesticide environmentalists. After tens of millions of preventable malarial deaths in these poor countries, it’s nice to see WHO finally come to its senses.
….. For decades, the science and empirical data about DDT’s effectiveness have been distorted or suppressed. Nevertheless, and Rachel Carson’s scare-mongering notwithstanding, there is no evidence that DDT use in the amounts necessary to ward off malarial mosquitoes is harmful to humans, wildlife or the environment. Period.
UPDATE 2: Pamela at Atlas Shrugs notes that Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn deserves a large share of the credit for moving WHO in the necessary direction on DDT.
