No evidence DDT is bad, say researchers
Source: Agencies |
April 22, 2010, Thursday
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SIX years after the insect killer DDT was globally outlawed on grounds of environmental damage, two researchers say there are new reasons for doubting the chemical is harmful and are urging its use against malaria.
In a book launched yesterday, Donald Roberts, professor of tropical medicine at the United States military's Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, and Richard Tren, head of the pro-DDT lobby group Africa Fighting Malaria, argue that DDT is the only effective weapon against the deadly mosquito-borne parasite.
DDT's unprecedented power to kill insects won its inventor a Nobel prize in the 1940s and it was considered a wonder chemical until evidence emerged of its toxicity to wildlife and people, leading Western nations to ban it in the 1970s.
A treaty to forbid its use worldwide along with a dozen other industrial chemicals came into effect in 2004, but some countries such as South Africa and Ethiopia still take advantage of tightly limited exemptions allowing indoor spraying. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloromethylmethane (DDT) has been blamed for birth defects in humans and threatening endangered birds such as the bald eagle by thinning their egg shells.
"There are an almost endless list of claims that DDT causes one kind of harm or another but ... with each claim, the evidence that the DDT is the cause is simply not there," Roberts said.
"The Excellent Powder" claims new evidence shows DDT is harmless because it is similar to organic chemicals found in nature that animal life can deal with.
Malaria kills roughly a million children a year, mostly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
In the humid, tropical West African nation of Ivory Coast, malaria kills 176 children under five each day, the government's top malaria official, said Dr Sam Koffi Moise. "The challenge is to give access to better prevention. We need mosquito nets but also insecticides like DDT," he said.
In a book launched yesterday, Donald Roberts, professor of tropical medicine at the United States military's Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, and Richard Tren, head of the pro-DDT lobby group Africa Fighting Malaria, argue that DDT is the only effective weapon against the deadly mosquito-borne parasite.
DDT's unprecedented power to kill insects won its inventor a Nobel prize in the 1940s and it was considered a wonder chemical until evidence emerged of its toxicity to wildlife and people, leading Western nations to ban it in the 1970s.
A treaty to forbid its use worldwide along with a dozen other industrial chemicals came into effect in 2004, but some countries such as South Africa and Ethiopia still take advantage of tightly limited exemptions allowing indoor spraying. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloromethylmethane (DDT) has been blamed for birth defects in humans and threatening endangered birds such as the bald eagle by thinning their egg shells.
"There are an almost endless list of claims that DDT causes one kind of harm or another but ... with each claim, the evidence that the DDT is the cause is simply not there," Roberts said.
"The Excellent Powder" claims new evidence shows DDT is harmless because it is similar to organic chemicals found in nature that animal life can deal with.
Malaria kills roughly a million children a year, mostly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
In the humid, tropical West African nation of Ivory Coast, malaria kills 176 children under five each day, the government's top malaria official, said Dr Sam Koffi Moise. "The challenge is to give access to better prevention. We need mosquito nets but also insecticides like DDT," he said.
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