Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

[woodsmoke]

One might ponder these two items:

a) Where are the environmental groups who used to "rage against corporate America" in the last century about DDT now?
b) Why is there no Occupy WHO group protesting outside the WHO?

Ooops....sorry....you ask why?

Because the WHO began spraying in 2007 with DDT in "third world countries"....because oh.... a coupla million people had died because of malaria...

Here is a BIG REPORT on the SUCCESS of reducing malaria death.....and NOT ONE WORD about "DDT"....

I quote:

The improvement is down to several factors. A total of 145 million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets were delivered to sub-Saharan Africa last year, a huge increase on 2009. Spraying the walls of homes with insecticide is another effective means of reducing malaria.

Notice the word...."insecticide".....well one might ask....just WHICH insecticide?

If one googles enough one will find the following downloadable pdf from the WHO.

"Long-lasting insecticidal nets for malaria prevention

hmmm again....WHAT long lasting "insecticide"....

Buried on page....SEVENTY THREE!!! spraying walls with DDT and pyrethroids in bed netting

I mean......what about the bird eggs?

OH....I get it................in the U.S. bird eggs are more important than people but in "third world countries".... people are more important than bird eggs.

I get it..

So here is a fact page on all the deaths and there are TOO MANY:

http://www.rbm.who.int/keyfacts.html

Malaria, as of 2007, as been eliminated in the U.S. except as brought in from abroad.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/297/20/2264.full

And that is a good thing WE.....in the U.S. get to have bird eggs and nobody dying from malaria and not be using DDT.

But....just why is it that we can't seem to call a spade a spade?

It is buried in the WHO report....

the only thing that kills mosquitoes effectively is DDT and what we use in the U.S. which is usually pyrethroids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethroid

One might ask why the link to the EPA on the banning of DDT is a dead link....hmmmm since it is one of the flagship things that the EPA has done one would think that it would not be broken....hmmm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

As a sidenote, Bedbugs are particularly resistant to anything but the most concentrated alternatives and DDT. And we all know about the bedbug problem last year in the U.S.

Sooooooo again just WHAT is the "insecticide" use in the spraying and the bed nets?

The only mention of the letters DDT are buried in the "references" to a 1994 article on....using DDT in spraying ....

Try this site and verify it yourself... a "full write up" by the WHO...

https://www.who.int/malaria/publicat...paperfinal.pdf

it is number 10, at least it goes to the trouble to say spraying DDT and bednets impregnated with pyrethroids.

Well, I guess I was wrong after all, changing a name does indeed change the stuff....just ask a reporter for the BBC.

woodsmoke

[oshunluvr]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

I haven't read through all your stuff yet - busy season and all - but I'll comment that the biggest issue with DDT was how it was applied and administered. Government stupidity being what it is, they sprayed and sprayed until everything was covered by DDT and then announced it was dangerous and outlawed it completely. They actually had propaganda films in the 60's showing families happily picnicking while a truck rolled by leaving behind a fog of DDT in it's wake.

Net result was any country that had malaria problems could no longer get or use DDT and millions of people - especially children - die every year. We should have never used it to clear parks of naturally occurring insects (stay home if you can't handle the bugs) but if the judicious application of DDT saves generations of children, I'm OK with that. Call me crazy...

[dibl]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

Here's something google turned up when I fed it "who-recommended insecticides": https://www.who.int/whopes/Insectici...alaria_ok3.pdf

[GreyGeek]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

The latest recommendations are here, but the issue seems to be one of quality control of the agent or device, not environmental matters. A search on that page for "DDT" resulted in 1,570 results. The first listed, a document with a 2007 date, makes the following statement:

Indoor residual spraying (IRS) is a major intervention for malaria control (1).

There are currently 12 insecticides recommended for IRS, including DDT.

The production and use of DDT are strictly restricted by an international agreement known as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2). The Convention’s objective is to protect both human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants. DDT is one of 12 chemicals identified as a persistent organic pollutant that the Convention restricts. In May 2007, 147 countries were parties to the Convention.

The Convention has given an exemption for the production and public health use of DDT for indoor application to vector-borne diseases, mainly because of the absence of equally effective and efficient alternatives. WHO actively supports the promotion of chemical safety1 and, together with the United Nations Environment Programme, shares a common commitment to the global goal of reducing and eventually eliminating the use of DDT while minimizing the burden of vector-borne diseases.

It is expected that there will be a continued role for DDT in malaria control until equally cost-effective alternatives are developed.

The fourth listing, "WHO gives indoor use of DDT a clean bill of health for controlling malaria", states:

15 September 2006 | Washington, D.C. - Nearly thirty years after phasing out the widespread use of indoor spraying with DDT and other insecticides to control malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that this intervention will once again play a major role in its efforts to fight the disease. WHO is now recommending the use of indoor residual spraying (IRS) not only in epidemic areas but also in areas with constant and high malaria transmission, including throughout Africa.

“The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment,” said Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. "Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of infections caused by malaria-carrying mosquitoes. IRS has proven to be just as cost effective as other malaria prevention measures, and DDT presents no health risk when used properly.”

WHO actively promoted indoor residual spraying for malaria control until the early 1980s when increased health and environmental concerns surrounding DDT caused the organization to stop promoting its use and to focus instead on other means of prevention. Extensive research and testing has since demonstrated that well-managed indoor residual spraying programmes using DDT pose no harm to wildlife or to humans.

Wikipedia states:

In 1962, Silent Spring by American biologist Rachel Carson was published. The book catalogued the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the US and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects on ecology or human health. The book suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds. Its publication was one of the signature events in the birth of the environmental movement, and resulted in a large public outcry that eventually led to DDT being banned in the US in 1972.[4] DDT was subsequently banned for agricultural use worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but its limited use in disease vector control continues to this day and remains controversial.
...
DDT is classified as "moderately toxic" by the United States National Toxicology Program (NTP) and "moderately hazardous" by the World Health Organization (WHO), based on the rat oral LD50 of 113 mg/kg
DDT ... has been linked to diabetes.
...
DDT ... like other organochlorines, have been shown to have xenoestrogenic activity, meaning they are chemically similar enough to estrogens to trigger hormonal responses in animals. This endocrine disrupting activity has been observed in mice and rat toxicological studies, and available epidemiological evidence indicates that these effects may be occurring in humans as a result of DDT exposure. The US Environmental Protection Agency states that DDT exposure damages the reproductive system and reduces reproductive success. These effects may cause developmental and reproductive toxicity:
...
A review article in The Lancet states, "research has shown that exposure to DDT at amounts that would be needed in malaria control might cause preterm birth and early weaning ... toxicological evidence shows endocrine-disrupting properties; human data also indicate possible disruption in semen quality, menstruation, gestational length, and duration of lactation."

So, while WHO claims they have safe methods of using DDT to control malaria, Lancet states that "DDT at amounts that would be needed in malaria control might cause preterm birth and early weaning", and this in countries who citizens to not have access to Neonatal Intensive Care units.

"LD50" means "median Lethal Dose". When a dose of 113 mg/kg is administered to rats, 50% of them die. I weigh 110 Kg. IF I ingest 12.43 grams of DDT I stand a 50% chance of dying. That's about 2.5 teaspoons of powder. When folks were "deloused" in times pass probably 5 times that much was dusted on them externally.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

oh you guys!!

Good posts.

woodsmoke

[oshunluvr]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

I would say that 750,000 global deaths of children under 5 from malaria every year somewhat outweighs "might cause preterm birth and early weaning" the key word being might.

I'm not advocating the wholesale mis-use of DDT or any other chemical, but it seems prudent to use it in this case. At least until a safer alternative can be found.

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

Yes, 'Tis best to do the spraying in moderation and in a targeted manner, not willy-nilly like we see here.

[eggbert]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

Something has always struck me as odd about the DDT ban.

Here we see a professor actually eating it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcXXbuR244

I've read similar stories where they used to spray entire neighborhoods, without any ill effects.

Granted, I would not want to eat the stuff, or take a bath in it... But still the whole uproar over it never quite made sense to me. I am sure there are pesticides used today that are more toxic than ddt.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

Yeah, I've seen that video before. I think the real issue had more to do with the fact DDT doesn't dissipate naturally. The build-up over time is the problem.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

Yeah, I've seen that video before. I think the real issue had more to do with the fact DDT doesn't dissipate naturally. The build-up over time is the problem.

True. In the environment, depending on soil conditions, that half-life varies between 30 days and 30 years, and in man between 6 to 10 years. Since it is a lipophilic compound it resides in fat and accumulates in the bodies of apex predators, which include raptors and man. Women don't lay eggs so they don't have to worry about thin egg shells, and Eagles don't worry, they just die.

The video was extremely misleading. Sprays were usually around 5% and dusting powders were 10% by weight. When that guy sprayed what appeared to be about 20 ml of spray into a bowl with what appeared to be flour or starch, probably with lots of sugar, his total intake was probably no more than 1 gram of DDT, IF he ate all of it, which he did not. He probably swallowed less than a tenth of a gram because he only swallowed a spoon full. If he had eaten around 10 gram +- 2, depending on his weight, he would have had a 50% chance of surviving.

Basically, WHO lied about being able to "safely" use DDT without harming humans or the environment. The longer it is used the more it will build up in the environment and the more damage it will do, to both man and animals. Choosing between malaria or DDT is being caught between a rock and a hard place.

As our own mosquitoes build resistance to our insecticides, and they become to toxic to all life to use, we will probably have to resort to DDT in America as well.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Putting another name on DDT doesn't make it not DDT

That to which the GreyGeekmeister is referring is called "biological magnification".

And, I agree with GG that the video is misleading.

woodsmoke