5 ms·

Question, why was DDT never tried in Africa if it was so successful in Florida and also in Italy after WW2? Why don’t we use DDT today? I’m curious to know the

by jsinai 6y ago

Question, why was DDT never tried in Africa if it was so successful in Florida and also in Italy after WW2? Why don’t we use DDT today? I’m curious to know the answers and have better understanding of the complexity of what makes eradicating malaria in Africa in the 21st century more complex than it was in the 1940’s and 50’s in other parts of the world.

notriddle 6y ago
> why was DDT never tried in Africa It was used in Africa, at least in 2016. http://chm.pops.int/Implementation/DDT/DDTMeetings/DDTEG62016/tabid/5348/Default.aspx http://chm.pops.int/Implementation/DDT/DDTMeetings/DDTEG6201... > Why don’t we use DDT today? You mean for agriculture? Because using DDT for disease vector control was never internationally banned (only banned at the national level). It's banned in agriculture because it kills stuff other than the mosquitoes. In particular, its use is restricted by the "Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants". Persistent Organic Pollutants are pretty much as bad as they sound, and DDT is one.
xyproto 6y ago
Some of the people promoting DDT drank spoonfuls of it to prove how safe it was, but it turned out to be very toxic to nature. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcXXbuR244 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcXXbuR244 > DDT was less effective in tropical regions due to the continuous life cycle of mosquitoes and poor infrastructure. It was not applied at all in sub-Saharan Africa due to these perceived difficulties. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_195...
gostsamo 6y ago
It is devastating chemical, killing not only insects, but all kinds of other creatures. It is one of the reasons for the writing of "Silent Spring". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
rmason 6y ago
We don't use DDT today because of a book by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring. http://www.rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx http://www.rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx Despite the environmental damage of DDT the Africans wanted to wipe out malaria first but were not able to purchase it in the quantities needed. As late as 2004 leading newspapers editorialized that eradicating malaria in Africa outweighed the environmental damage https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-needs-now-is-ddt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-n...
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  What Wikipedia has to say about this: > Carson has been targeted by some organizations opposed to the environmental movement, including Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria and the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute; these sources oppose restrictions on DDT, attribute large numbers of deaths to such restrictions, and argue that Carson was responsible for them. These arguments have been dismissed as "outrageous" by former WHO scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist, says, "to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible." Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this notion as a "myth" promoted principally by Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM).
- mrpopo 6y ago
  > As late as 2004 leading newspapers editorialized that eradicating malaria in Africa outweighed the environmental damage This doesn't make sense. Eradicating malaria in Africa is beneficial to the human species. Environmental damage applies to all other species. I don't understand how one could "outweigh" the other. They are just two different objectives.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Environment also includes the crops, the insects that pollinate the crops, the pests which eat the crops, the predators that keep the crop-eating pests under control, the fish… We’re not (yet) beings of pure thought who can exist independent of our environment, so the damage to the environment does have to be counted before we decide if something is net-positive.
giardini 6y ago
jsinai asks>* Why don’t we use DDT today?*< See "DDT": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Mvandenbergh 6y ago
We do. DDT has never been banned for disease control, it was banned for indiscriminate agricultural use and by that time resistance was already developing anyway. Successful eradication in Florida and Italy was based on aggressive source control (stagnant water), control of re-importation, and use of insecticides (including DDT) for outbreak control. Airborne spraying of more targeted larvicides continues to be used in Florida and other places. Malaria rates in rural areas of Africa are much higher than urban areas so urbanisation also plays a role.

by jsinai 6y ago

notriddle 6y ago

> why was DDT never tried in Africa It was used in Africa, at least in 2016. http://chm.pops.int/Implementation/DDT/DDTMeetings/DDTEG62016/tabid/5348/Default.aspx http://chm.pops.int/Implementation/DDT/DDTMeetings/DDTEG6201... > Why don’t we use DDT today? You mean for agriculture? Because using DDT for disease vector control was never internationally banned (only banned at the national level). It's banned in agriculture because it kills stuff other than the mosquitoes. In particular, its use is restricted by the "Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants". Persistent Organic Pollutants are pretty much as bad as they sound, and DDT is one.

xyproto 6y ago

Some of the people promoting DDT drank spoonfuls of it to prove how safe it was, but it turned out to be very toxic to nature. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcXXbuR244 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcXXbuR244 > DDT was less effective in tropical regions due to the continuous life cycle of mosquitoes and poor infrastructure. It was not applied at all in sub-Saharan Africa due to these perceived difficulties. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_195...

gostsamo 6y ago

It is devastating chemical, killing not only insects, but all kinds of other creatures. It is one of the reasons for the writing of "Silent Spring". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

rmason 6y ago

We don't use DDT today because of a book by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring. http://www.rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx http://www.rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx Despite the environmental damage of DDT the Africans wanted to wipe out malaria first but were not able to purchase it in the quantities needed. As late as 2004 leading newspapers editorialized that eradicating malaria in Africa outweighed the environmental damage https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-needs-now-is-ddt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/what-the-world-n...

heavyset_go 6y ago
What Wikipedia has to say about this: > Carson has been targeted by some organizations opposed to the environmental movement, including Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria and the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute; these sources oppose restrictions on DDT, attribute large numbers of deaths to such restrictions, and argue that Carson was responsible for them. These arguments have been dismissed as "outrageous" by former WHO scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist, says, "to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible." Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this notion as a "myth" promoted principally by Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM).
mrpopo 6y ago
> As late as 2004 leading newspapers editorialized that eradicating malaria in Africa outweighed the environmental damage This doesn't make sense. Eradicating malaria in Africa is beneficial to the human species. Environmental damage applies to all other species. I don't understand how one could "outweigh" the other. They are just two different objectives.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Environment also includes the crops, the insects that pollinate the crops, the pests which eat the crops, the predators that keep the crop-eating pests under control, the fish… We’re not (yet) beings of pure thought who can exist independent of our environment, so the damage to the environment does have to be counted before we decide if something is net-positive.

giardini 6y ago

jsinai asks>* Why don’t we use DDT today?*< See "DDT": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

Mvandenbergh 6y ago

We do. DDT has never been banned for disease control, it was banned for indiscriminate agricultural use and by that time resistance was already developing anyway. Successful eradication in Florida and Italy was based on aggressive source control (stagnant water), control of re-importation, and use of insecticides (including DDT) for outbreak control. Airborne spraying of more targeted larvicides continues to be used in Florida and other places. Malaria rates in rural areas of Africa are much higher than urban areas so urbanisation also plays a role.