Originally published September 26 2005
Debate continues over insecticide use in malaria-ridden regions of Africa
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In Africa, where malaria infects up to 500 million people a year, many people rely on insecticides to ward off disease-carrying insects, but the World Health Organization, environmentalists and groups from the United States and Europe warn that pesticides, especially DDT, should be avoided because of environmental and health concerns. However, one columnists argues that such groups should not interfere, and that insecticides, when used with caution, offer a far better alternative to rising malaria rates.
Most people with terminal cancer would jump at the chance to take such risks.
And if an activist stakeholder tried to prevent them from undergoing chemotherapy because of ethical concerns about its dangers or a preference for more appropriate alternatives like surgery, broccoli or hospice care their response would be fast and furious.
Only instead of cancer, the killer is malaria.
Instead of chemotherapy drugs, the interventions are insecticides.
And in addition to activists, patients must contend with healthcare agencies that often oppose insecticides and promote largely ineffective alternatives.
Its hospitals would be overwhelmed, its economy devastated, and citizens would demand immediate action using every pesticide and other weapon in existence.
But the United States and Europe (over) used DDT to eradicate malaria.
They then banned the pesticide and now generally oppose its use.
Nevertheless, a few African nations still spray DDT in tiny amounts on the walls and eaves of cinderblock or mud-and-thatch houses.
For six months, it repels mosquitoes, kills any that land on walls and irritates the rest, so they dont bite.
No other pesticide, at any price, is this effective, and even mosquitoes resistant to DDT's killer talents succumb to its repellent properties.
It spent nothing on actually buying nets, drugs or pesticides.
Too often, USAID, WHO and UNICEF emphasise ultra precaution about alleged risks from pesticides at the expense of millions of deaths from diseases that pesticides could prevent.
They proclaim insecticide-treated bed nets a success for reducing malaria rates by 20 per cent but say DDT was a failure because it did not completely eradicate the disease.
Decisions about which weapons to use, where and when, should be made by health ministers in countries with malaria problems not by anti-pesticide activists and bureaucrats in air-conditioned, malaria-free offices in Washington, Geneva or Brussels.
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