DDT

: For other uses, see DDT (disambiguation).

Criticism of environmental groups

Many critics of environmentalism state that millions of malaria deaths are due to an international DDT ban: 89,000,000 as of May, 2005, according to the ever-increasing "deathclock" at junkscience.comhttp://junkscience.com/malaria_clock.htm; hundreds of thousands according to Nicholas Kristofhttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40B1EFB3F580C718DDDAA0894DD404482&n=Top%252fOpinion%252fEditorials%2520and%2520Op%252dEd%252fOp%252dEd%252fColumnists%252fNicholas%2520D%2520Kristof. Popular author Michael Crichton states in his novel State of Fear:

Related Topics:
Michael Crichton - State of Fear

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:"Since the ban, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. The ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler." (page 487).

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Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, the president of the ACSH (American Council on Science and Health) claims that 60 million or more lives "have been needlessly lost since the ban on DDT took effect. ... It's a real tragedy that DDT has been so demonized over the years by activist organizations such as Environmental Defense and the regulatory bodies that they have duped." Whelan's estimates come from estimates that 2.5 million people die of malaria each year: mostly African children and pregnant mothers. According to the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO), malaria kills one child under the age of 5 every 30 seconds. Whelan's critics question her credibility; according to the Congressional Quarterly's Public Interest Profiles, the ACSH receives more than 75 percent of its funding from the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. (See ACSH for more details).

Related Topics:
American Council on Science and Health - World Health Organization

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However, environmental groups have been criticized for trying to ban all use of DDT. The pesticide was nearly banned along with several other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) by a UNEP summit in Johannesberg in 2000. Extensive lobbying and public awareness campaigns by malaria organizations convinced the summit to create an exception for DDT, allowing its continued use for public health purposes only. Subsequently, many environmentalist groups continued to fight against the public health exception of DDT in the 2001 Stockholm Convention, again against the objections of third world governments and many malaria researchers. "Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Physicians for Social Responsibility and over 300 other environmental organizations advocated for a total DDT ban, starting as early as 2007 in some cases." http://www.malaria.org/DDTpage.html. The WWF officially continue to support a gradual phase-out and eventual total ban on DDT, arguing that DDT is environmentally persistent and thus any use represents a hazard http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/toxics/our_solutions/ddt_work.cfm. The WHO and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) review the DDT exemption every three years. Critics argue that rules and regulations regarding the trade, storage and use of DDT under the convention have made its use more difficult and expensive while few malarial countries can afford this burden, and these restrictions could cause the delayed procurement of DDT even in cases where there is a malaria emergency, which could cost lives.http://www.fightingmalaria.org/faq.php.

Related Topics:
Persistent organic pollutants - UNEP - Johannesberg - 2000 - Stockholm Convention - WWF

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