Excerpt:
My real problem is simply that in my 48 years I've lived through so many pack-panic attacks over nothing that I won't fall so easily for the next.Update: In my comment section, "LFC" disputes some of Bolt's examples. I agree with LFC on the millenium bug issue, however, I disagree on the DDT issue.
Your parents or grandparents may know what I mean. Go ask if they remember all those plagues we were told would surely smite us if we didn't sign some cheque, praise some god, or vote for some politician.
Ask if they remember scares like the nuclear winter, DDT, mega-famines, global cooling, acid rain, Repetitive Strain Injury, bird flu, the millennium bug, SARS, toxic PVC, poisonous breast implants, the end of oil, death by fluoride, the Chernobyl doom, the BSE beef that would eat your brains, and other oldies and mouldies.
It's amazing we're still alive after all that, let alone richer and healthier.
So, my furious friend, don't try to panic me now about global warming, GM food, peak oil or ADHD. I've seen too many.
This article presents Bolt's side on DDT and malaria:
According to the World Health Organization, worldwide malaria infects 300 million people. About 1 million die of malaria each year. Most of the victims are in Africa, and most are children.To me, it seems that the overall cost/benefit of limited DDT house spraying is very good, while the overall cost/benefit of widespread use of DDT outdoors may be very bad.
In Sri Lanka, in 1948, there were 2.8 million malaria cases and 7,300 malaria deaths. With widespread DDT use, malaria cases fell to 17 and no deaths in 1963. After DDT use was discontinued, Sri Lankan malaria cases rose to 2.5 million in the years 1968 and 1969, and the disease remains a killer in Sri Lanka today. More than 100,000 people died during malaria epidemics in Swaziland and Madagascar in the mid-1980s, following the suspension of DDT house spraying. After South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996, the number of malaria cases in KwaZulu-Natal province skyrocketed from 8,000 to 42,000. By 2000, there had been an approximate 400 percent increase in malaria deaths. Now that DDT is being used again, the number of deaths from malaria in the region has dropped from 340 in 2000 to none at the last reporting in February 2003.
In South America, where malaria is endemic, malaria rates soared in countries that halted house spraying with DDT after 1993 -- Guyana, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. In Ecuador, DDT spraying was increased after 1993, and the malaria rate of infection was reduced by 60 percent. In a 2001 study published by the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs, "Malaria and the DDT Story," Richard Tren and Roger Bate say that "Malaria is a human tragedy," adding, "Over 1 million people, mostly children, die from the disease each year, and over 300 million fall sick."
LFC--I'm interested in hearing the specifics of your side of the argument regarding DDT and malaria. How do you "debunk" the information above?
Posts
19 comments:
There have certainly been some hysteria, but this list is far from a pure set of good examples. Some really bad ones include:
nuclear winter - If he doesn't think that the U.S. and Russia weren't standing toe to toe for decades, he needs to read a history book.
DDT - It caused lots of problems. Why did the problems suddenly stop? Because we banned it! We reacted, Andrew! (And please don't bring up the malaria death crap. That was debunked ages ago.)
acid rain - Lots of current documented issues, including dead streams and quicker deterioration of auto paint.
Repetitive Strain Injury - Many steps taken to reduce this. We reacted, Andrew!
bird flu - Pretty much the same virus that caused the single biggest pandemic ever (see "Spanish Flu"), killing hundreds of thousands. If Andrew thinks this is nothing to worry about, he's got his head up his ... well, in the sand. And smarter people people are reacting to contain it.
the millennium bug - Spoken by somebody who wasn't in IT at the time. He obviously has no idea of how much work went into preventing it. I was there. I found bugs that would have crashed systems. We reacted, Andrew!
the Chernobyl doom - Continuing health problems.
BSE beef that would eat your brains - We reacted, Andrew!
I have no idea who this guy is, but he's night the brightest "Bolt" in the pack.
DDT is not a "silver bullet". It has (and continues) to be used in some places effectively, but the claims of a core of anti-environmentalists are the worst brand of political garbage. The fact that the claims pretty much say we can wipe out malaria with one silver bullet should get anybody's skeptical antennae up.
Here are a few links:
Here is a pretty balanced article.
Wikipedia has some good info too.
This one is a little more frothing, but filled with good info.
The bottom line is that there are still valid uses for DDT in the fight against malaria. It's also true that it is still being used. There are also many places where it can't help. Oh, and there's no current patent, so any country can manufacture it.
The anti-environmental crowd lumps all malaria deaths together, ignores facts, spins (i.e. lies), and tries to attack conservation as killing children. They blame every malaria death on the vastly reduced use of DDT. People like Bolt get pulled in by the frothing and swallow it like an Ivory-billed video.
I'm not sure if any of the articles mentioned it, but one of the most effective preventive measures for malaria in some area are the use of insect nets while sleeping. You'll never hear that from the frothing "ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE KILLING MILLIONS!!!" crowd.
"They blame every malaria death on the vastly reduced use of DDT."
I've never heard a single person say this. Can you please link me to a source?
What's your personal estimate of the number of additional worldwide malaria deaths that resulted from cutbacks in DDT use inside homes?
I don't need the exact number, but do you think the number is likely more or less than 100,000 people?
Try this one.
FYI, I've seen Junk Science quoted often by those who are fervently (no judiciously) pro-DDT.
Ok, that site says 95 million deaths.
Again I ask--what's your estimate?
LFC--before I allow any further comments on this subject from you, I'm going to need to see your estimate.
Note that the site you linked claims that 86 million of the preventable malaria deaths were pregnant women and children under 5.
If wise DDT use doesn't prevent many malaria deaths, I also want you to explain the astounding correlation between DDT use and sharply lowered malaria death rates (note that I cut/pasted specific statistics in the main post).
I have no estimate. Any estimate I made on where DDT house spraying would or would not be effective would be meaningless. Too many questions:
- How effective was the house spraying REALLY. Was it properly and fully studied?
- If it aids resistance, what's the impact on its effectiveness today? Could it potentially cause more disease in neighboring areas?
- What are the reasons for reducing house spraying? Loss of effectiveness? Cultural? Political pressure? Lack of finances?
- Has house spraying been compared to bed nets? The one source said house spraying costs about $1.44 per year per house. Assuming they'd last for 10 years, are you telling me you can't buy nets for less? And nets don't lose effectiveness.
- The one site said "mosquitoes that didn’t rest inside houses became more important malaria vectors, for example." Is this true? If so, effectiveness of house spraying is of decreasing value. Some might correlate rising disease rates to spraying rather than a shift of vectors, but that would be somebody making an estimate without knowledge.
- The blog entry also mentioned that house spraying in Western style homes with painted walls was less effective due to lack of absorption. Has this been a major factor? Should countries force people to have permeable walls?
As in almost all things, the truth is highly complex. I see no real evidence that banning DDT in the U.S. is the cause of millions of deaths, just a lot of agenda fueled inference with holes you can drive a truck through.
"I see no real evidence that banning DDT in the U.S. is the cause of millions of deaths"
?? Neither do I. We've been talking about house spraying in non-US locations.
I also am seeing no real evidence that you've read or understood the statistics from the main post.
I also want you to explain the astounding correlation between DDT use and sharply lowered malaria death rates...
One only needs to look at anti-malarial drugs or antibiotics to understand. As resistance increases, effectiveness drops. From Wikipedia:
Malaria infections are treated through the use of antimalarial drugs, such as quinine or artemisinin derivatives, although drug resistance is increasingly common.
It's the same with pesticides. If the intended target becomes resistant, effectiveness drops.
Note that some of the countries named where it was effective did a relatively short, hard hitting program and stopped. The longer one uses a product at low levels (e.g. perpetual annual house spraying), the higher likelihood of resistance. That's why so many antibiotics have become ineffective. The users didn't take the full course, hitting the bacteria with a strong dose, but not finishing the job.
Until this discussion, I hadn't really thought hard about the specifics of resistance. The more I think about house spraying, the more it seems like its probably doomed to eventual failure. It's low dose and perpetual usage seems perfect for increasing resistance in a population.
LFC said... "I see no real evidence that banning DDT in the U.S. is the cause of millions of deaths"
Tom replied... ?? Neither do I. We've been talking about house spraying in non-US locations.
Research a bit more. African deaths are being tied to the U.S. and European bans for political purposes. I agree with you. The two are not related.
??
Please read this paragraph carefully, then read it again:
---
After South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996, the number of malaria cases in KwaZulu-Natal province skyrocketed from 8,000 to 42,000. By 2000, there had been an approximate 400 percent increase in malaria deaths. Now that DDT is being used again, the number of deaths from malaria in the region has dropped from 340 in 2000 to none at the last reporting in February 2003.
---
Resistance has nothing to do with these stats.
When they were initially using DDT, malaria was low. When they stopped using it, malaria was high. When they resumed using DDT, malaria went back down.
Not much time, but let me try to explain what the South Africa shows compared to others...
Resistance has nothing to do with these stats.
You've picked one country. Research India and Sri Lanka. They've had terrible resistance issues for decades. Europe had DDT resistant houseflies over 50 years ago. Resistance has been proven.
When they were initially using DDT, malaria was low. When they stopped using it, malaria was high. When they resumed using DDT, malaria went back down.
So would you advocate constant, annual, never-ending use of DDT? What then if resistance occurs as I pointed out has been documented in multiple other places and for multiple insect species. Again, you're looking at one part of the solution and thinking it's the end all, be all.
The guidelines for appropriate use (from WHO, I believe) is to spray potential breeding sites only for several years straight and to couple this with medication. This prevents re-infection of the mosquitoes via humans. The process then stops and is monitored. The reason it's done like this is because of the resistance lessons learned in places like India.
This method also needs to be coupled with control of stagnant water, both in and out of towns. (I read a stat somewhere that a styrofoam cup left out that fills with rain can breed literally tens of thousands of mosquitoes).
Something else to note is that South Africa has two other issues that make it unique. Even if they get things under control, government stats estimate that 20%-40% of cases are brought in from outside. Unless you wipe out the entire population of any mosquito that can be a vector, re-infection is going to happen. A related problem is that the gov't of Mozambique refuses to spray or, it seems, do much of anything. That means any portion of South Africa bordering them is likely to have its mosquito populations get re-infected.
FYI, from the CDC...
With the success of DDT, the advent of less toxic, more effective synthetic antimalarials, and the enthusiastic and urgent belief that time and money were of the essence, the World Health Organization (WHO) submitted at the World Health Assembly in 1955 an ambitious proposal for the eradication of malaria worldwide. Eradication efforts began and focused on house spraying with residual insecticides, antimalarial drug treatment, and surveillance, and would be carried out in 4 successive steps: preparation, attack, consolidation, and maintenance. Successes included eradication in nations with temperate climates and seasonal malaria transmission. Some countries such as India and Sri Lanka had sharp reductions in the number of cases, followed by increases to substantial levels after efforts ceased. Other nations had negligible progress (such as Indonesia, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Nicaragua). Some nations were excluded completely from the eradication campaign (most of sub-Saharan Africa). The emergence of drug resistance, widespread resistance to available insecticides, wars and massive population movements, difficulties in obtaining sustained funding from donor countries, and lack of community participation made the long-term maintenance of the effort untenable. Completion of the eradication campaign was eventually abandoned to one of control.
In other words there are lots of factors, some permanent successes, some temporary successes, and some outright failures. The view that some non-existent worldwide ban on DDT means that environmentalists are dooming people to die of malaria is bunk.
Of course I'm not for using only DDT forever, even after it stops working and even if other measures are better. I'm all for anything that saves lives (bednets, vaccines, other sprays, etc etc).
It certainly looks to me that banning in-house DDT spraying (while it was still working, and when people evidently weren't ready to implement an effective replacement measure) was a bad idea.
...and when people evidently weren't ready to implement an effective replacement measure...
Classic gub'ment. The techniques and methodologies are known, the costs are known and reasonable, there is international support available, and still they can't pull together a coherent comprehensive program.
I think "UGH!" just about sums it up.
From malaria.org on DDT resistance:
Resistance of Anopheles spp mosquitoes to DDT is not a major barrier to the continued use of DDT for malaria control (ie, where DDT is still effective, it should be used). Resistance slowly appeared in the 1960s in response to intensive agricultural uses of DDT, especially in cotton production. The current distribution of DDT resistance among malaria vectors covers limited regions located in West Africa (A gambiae), southwest Asia (Iran, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka; A culicifacies), Greece (A sacharovi), Egypt (A pharoensis), Central America (A albimanus), and a small area of Colombia in South America (A darlingi).
This list represents a massive geographic area. Note that it says DDT should be used "where DDT is still effective". Sri Lanka, your first example, isn't one of them.
Here's a link about the myth of how a supposed (i.e. didn't happen) worldwide ban on DDT is supposed to be the cause of resurgent malaria. Note the paragraphs on resistance:
There were suspensions in the spraying programs, but they were not the result of any "environmental hysteria". To understand what actually happened, it is necessary to learn about the realities of pesticide use. One of the major problems with using pesticides is that insect populations soon develop resistance to the chemicals. Insects resistant to DDT began appearing one year after its first public health use (Garrett, page 50). As new insecticides were introduced, resistance to them also developed. Much of Silent Spring is a cataloging of reports of resistance to insecticides. With the problem of mosquito resistance to DDT in mind, a plan to eradicate malaria was developed--several years of spraying, accompanied by treating patients with anti-malaria drugs, would be followed by several years of monitoring. Here is how Paul Russell, who would head the eradication effort, explained it in 1956 (Quoted in Garrett, page 48):
Generally, it takes four years of spraying and four years of surveillance to make sure of three consecutive years of no mosquito transmission in an area. After that, normal health department activities can be depended upon to deal with occasional introduced cases. . . . Eradication can be pushed through in a community in a period of eight to ten years, with not more than four to six years of actual spraying, without much danger of resistance. But if countries, due to lack of funds, have to proceed slowly, resistance is almost certain to appear and eradication will become economically impossible. Time is of the essence [his emphasis] because DDT resistance has appeared in six or seven years.
Here's a book excerpt about the speed of resistance to DDT with a nice graph. Here's part of it:
When it is first sprayed on a local mosquito population, the population goes into abrupt decline. What happens then depends on whether DDT has been sprayed before.
DDT becomes ineffective quickly.
I noticed that the article you cited completely ignores extremely well documented resistance to DDT that goes back some 50 years. So why does your source ignore this and assume that it was from a reduction in spraying? And why does he assume (without evidence) that any cessations are due to the environmental community?
Sounds to me like the author has an agenda.
Are you saying that banning house spraying of DDT is always (or ever) a good idea?
Post a Comment