Europeans blackmail Uganda over DDT

DDT is very effective in fighting Malaria....but that doesn't impress the Europeans. Here's an excerpt from a report from the Wall Street Journal.

"DDT is often considered to be a relic of our industrial past -- but it also happens to be very effective at preventing malaria-carrying mosquitoes from transmitting the disease to humans. Although often eclipsed in the public eye by news about HIV/AIDS, malaria kills one million children and women each year and contributes indirectly to many more deaths. It also takes an often overlooked toll by incapacitating, for weeks every year, hundreds of millions of otherwise productive people.

A few months ago, though, EU representatives casually suggested to Ugandan ministers that if Uganda chooses to use DDT for malaria control, exporters will have to procure expensive equipment to ensure that their products do not contain any amount of residual DDT; otherwise they will face sanctions against their agricultural products. This negotiating technique is also known as blackmail.

Given the chemical's success at reducing the incidence of malaria in southern African nations, it is only natural that Uganda and other African countries are also considering using the chemical to battle one of their biggest human and economic scourges. "DDT has been proven, over and over again, to be the most effective and least expensive method of fighting malaria," said Ugandan health minister Jim Muhwezi. "Europe and America became malaria-free because of using DDT, and now we too intend to get rid of malaria by using it."

But thanks to the EU's not-so-subtle threats, many Ugandans have now second thoughts whether they can afford to save their people from dying. The country's $32 billion in annual agricultural exports to the EU are at risk." (Kendra Okonski and Niger Innis, The Wall Street Journal)

Thanks for Junk Science for posting this.