Banning DDT, Malaria, Poverty, Environmentalism - pick four
Back40 at
CrumbTrail found an interesting article linking once again, the ban on the use of DDT with the Malaria epidemic (killing over one million people per year) and its economic implications:
Negligent Homicide
Reynolds points to an Oxblog post and one of his very old posts that wrestle with the DDT and malaria question.
RACHEL CARSON -- MASS MURDERER? That's the thesis of this oped by Sheldon Richman. Richman argues that the near-elimination of DDT, largely as the result of Carson's book, has killed millions. Representative quote: "Deaths from malaria in the developing world had been falling precipitously - until the anti-DDT campaign got under way. Then infections and deaths skyrocketed. The number of cases in Sri Lanka has tracked the use and nonuse of DDT in that country: 2.8 million in 1948; 17 - yes, 17 - in 1963; 500,000 in 1969. Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst hit: A child dies from the disease there every 40 seconds. The United Nations Environment Program says that each year 400 million people are at risk and that "about 1.5 to 2.7 million people, mainly children, die each year from malaria."
ON THE ONE HAND, in my area it's now routine to see bald eagles, blue herons, and other birds that only a few years ago were thought nearly extinct. Their comeback is because of the elimination of DDT spraying. On the other hand, millions of people a year are dying from a disease that we know how to control, if not entirely eradicate.
That was Reynolds. Adesnik examines the swampy ground of international pressure, not least by funding organizations and trade partners in Europe, that prevents the prophylactic use of DDT though it has in the past and could once again relieve human misery.
It seems to me that the combination of malaria and AIDS contributes greatly to the poverty of African and other developing nations. Much environmental damage results from poverty so it isn't clear that resistance to DDT is even smart environmentalism.
Unfortunately, although Nando Times retains a web presence, it shut down in 2003 and does not maintain any archive of the articles.
I have written about DDT before
here,
here,
here, and
here.
A classical example of right heart, wrong brain.
UPDATE: Heh --
The Wayback Machine comes through again...
Posted by DaveH at March 24, 2005 9:47 PM