Mosquito Pesticides, What Are The Health And Environmental Costs Of DDT?
The Bald Eagle was nearly extinct in the lower 48 U.S. states by the middle of the 20th century, pushed to the brink by its sensitivity to DDT. ![]()
Dear EarthTalk: I read a disturbing report recently that the long-banned pesticide, DDT, was being used in Mozambique to combat malaria. Malaria is a killer , but isn’t a return to DDT even scarier?
– Graeme Campbell, South Africa
Much of the developed world banned the use of DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) within about 10 years of the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring.”
Carson’s book, which is credited by many as having spurred the creation of the modern environmental movement.
She documented the ecosystem damage caused by DDT crop spraying throughout the United States and linked the pesticide’s use to the disappearance of songbirds and raptors.
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Health officials at the time also linked DDT exposure to nerve damage in humans, and blamed DDT for causing cancer in people who had applied it recklessly. Today, because of widespread indiscriminate use up through the 1960s, most people have traces of DDT in their bodies. DDT has since become increasingly associated with childhood developmental problems, according to the organization, Beyond Pesticides (BP).
Today, two dozen countries–including Mozambique and nine other African nations–permit the use of small amounts of DDT for controlling specific insect-borne diseases, including malaria . Malaria kills one million people, including 800,000 African children, every year. Dr. Arata Kochi, leader of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) global malaria program, strongly advocates using DDT to fight malaria, claiming that it poses little or no health risk when sprayed in small amounts on the inner walls of people’s homes.
“Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of infections caused by malaria-carrying mosquitoes…and presents no health risk when used properly,” agrees Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO’s assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Asamoa-Baah insists that DDT’s public health benefits for mosquito bite treatment and prevention far outweigh its risks.
Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, disagrees and advocates for techniques that do not rely on pesticides like DDT. “The international community has a social responsibility to reject the use of this chemical and to practice sound and safe pest management practices,” he says. Feldman cites a recent study showing South African women living in DDT-treated dwellings to have 77 times the internationally accepted limit of the chemical in their breast milk. Researchers postulate that large amounts of DDT may have contaminated drinking water, exposing entire villages. “This highlights why no society can be unconcerned with DDT’s impact” on health and the worldwide ecosystem, Feldman says.
Feldman is calling for alternative strategies for disease control, including addressing the conditions of poverty that lead to mosquito breeding. We should “no longer treat poverty and development with poisonous band-aids, but join together to address the root causes of insect-borne disease, because the chemical-dependent alternatives are ultimately deadly for everyone,” says Feldman.
CONTACTS Beyond Pesticides, www.beyondpesticides.org; World Health Organization Malaria Information, www.who.int/topics/malaria/en/
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DDT Spray Does Uganda Need It?
“Food products originating from Uganda would have to be tested and if levels of DDT exceed the MRL, they would be denied entry into the EU,” she said. Aryada said the DDT debate should be less driven by concerns of the EU
The Debate Over DDT And Malaria Continues
The debate over using DDT to control Malaria has continued since the insecticide was banned in the USA in Dec. 1972. However, the 2006 controversial decision of WHO to actively support the use of DDT in Malaria control stirred a heated discussion
Bill Gates Demonstrates Why We Should Make DDT Legal Again In The US
I suspect much of the debate boils down to the insoluble difference between those who value human life above insects and those who do not. I realize that insects outmass humanity, outmass mammalia, and outmass vertebrates on Earth.
The DDT Debate: To Spray Or Not To Spray?
Collins Vumiria Kakaire’s blog – It all started with a severe headache – got me thinking about malaria, about DDT, and about the potential for conflict between environmental concerns and health. Uganda is rightly worried
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So, each time your pet is outside in mosquito territory, it is a sitting target for a hungry female mosquito that is eager to reproduce.
Now, pet owners have an even greater concern about mosquito bites to their pets. While rare, West Nile virus has been reported in both dogs and cats. There are very few reported cases of pet fatalities in dogs and cats, but the risk still exists. Instead, most of the time, the animal may test positive for the virus, without having symptoms.