A glimmer of uncommon sense
From Steven Milloy, publisher of Junk Science:
As many environmentalists are quick to point out, DDT was never officially banned. However, the U.S. policy of denying aid to any country still using DDT is nearly as effective a prohibition as an outright ban would have been.
No evidence was ever found to support the allegations portraying DDT as a deadly agent - not the egg shell thinning, not the human health risk. Indeed, bird populations were seen to increase during the DDT years, contradicting the claims of scientific journals and environmental organizations antagonistic to DDT.
Additionally, there's evidence to suggest that the World Health Organization viewed overpopulation of Third World nations as a threat, and saw no alternative but to increase the number of childhood deaths through malaria. As one worker for one health agency put it: "Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing."
In short, the malaria epidemic, because of its direct causation by international health agencies and their political motives, appears to have been used as the means to the most significant genocide the world has seen.
The cynical part of me wonders if the existence of a biological population control tool more effective than malaria accounts for the shift in DDT policy, but that remains to be seen.
The U.S. Government has finally begun to reverse policy on the insecticide DDT. Let's hope that this policy shift represents the beginning of the end of what can only be called a crime against humanity: the decades-old withholding of the world's most effective anti-malarial weapon from billions of adults and children at risk of dying from the disease.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told the Washington Times this week (May 3) that it endorses and will fund the indoor spraying of DDT in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria kills more than one million Africans annually, mostly children under five and pregnant women.
The policy change is timely given a recent commentary published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet (April 25) in which a number of researchers accuse the World Bank of deception and medical malpractice in the struggle against malaria.
The researchers charge that the World Bank reneged on its promise to spend $300 million to $500 million for malaria control in Africa; concealed the actual amount of its expenditures; reduced its staff of malaria experts from seven to zero shortly after promising to do more to fight the disease; published false epidemiological studies to exaggerate the performance of its projects; and funded clinically obsolete treatments, against the World Health Organization'?s advice, for malaria in India.
As many environmentalists are quick to point out, DDT was never officially banned. However, the U.S. policy of denying aid to any country still using DDT is nearly as effective a prohibition as an outright ban would have been.
No evidence was ever found to support the allegations portraying DDT as a deadly agent - not the egg shell thinning, not the human health risk. Indeed, bird populations were seen to increase during the DDT years, contradicting the claims of scientific journals and environmental organizations antagonistic to DDT.
Additionally, there's evidence to suggest that the World Health Organization viewed overpopulation of Third World nations as a threat, and saw no alternative but to increase the number of childhood deaths through malaria. As one worker for one health agency put it: "Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing."
In short, the malaria epidemic, because of its direct causation by international health agencies and their political motives, appears to have been used as the means to the most significant genocide the world has seen.
The cynical part of me wonders if the existence of a biological population control tool more effective than malaria accounts for the shift in DDT policy, but that remains to be seen.
Labels: environmentalism, health, nanny state
posted by Gospazha at
9:39 AM
