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Pro-malaria forces resurface at WHO
Pro-malaria forces resurface at WHO
Paul Driessen | 16 May 2023
WebCommentary.com
The World Health Organization intends to phase out chemotherapy drugs,
due to concerns about their health effects, WHO Public Health and
Environment director Dr. Maria Neira announced recently. Those effects
include anemia, diarrhea, reduced resistance to infection, potential
birth defects and hair loss.
"These drugs save lives, but they are dangerous," she stated. "WHO is
determined to end their use, motivate researchers to develop safer
cancer treatments, and emphasize acceptable alternatives, like
broccoli."
Imagine the shock and outrage that would follow such an announcement.
Europe and the United States would demand her ouster and threaten to
slash WHO's budget, if it tried such a thing.
But of course Dr. Neira and WHO made no such proposal. Instead, she and
her co-conspirators are promoting something even more irresponsible -
and deadly. They want to reverse the September 2006 decision to restore
DDT to the Organization's malaria-fighting arsenal.
"WHO is concerned about health effects associated with DDT," she said
during a recent conference in Dakar, Senegal. Her position, not the
September decision, represents WHO's position regarding DDT for malaria
control and its commitment to phasing the chemical out, she asserted.
Dr. Arata Kochi, director of WHO's malaria division, made his decision
based on decades of evidence, and because he recognized that no other
chemical in existence, at any price, does what DDT does.
Sprayed just once or twice a year on the walls of houses, this powerful
repellant keeps most mosquitoes from entering; irritates those that do
come in, so they don't bite; and kills any that land. Used this way,
DDT can reduce malaria rates by 75% - and it is perfectly safe for
people and the environment.
In effect, DDT places a huge bednet over the entire house. From dusk to
dawn, it protects the inhabitants, whether they are sleeping or doing
housework and homework.
The US Agency for International Development also reversed its policies
and redeployed DDT. And European Commission President Barroso wrote
that the EU recognizes and supports the right of countries to use DDT,
under Stockholm Convention and WHO guidelines.
Fed up with the sickness and death, African countries are again using
DDT and other sprays, not just to stabilize or "roll back" malaria, but
to eradicate it.
Dr. Neira and her colleagues, however, appear wedded to the disastrous
policies that kept malaria at unconscionable levels: 400 million cases
and up to 2 million deaths a year - half of them children. They
continue to oppose insecticides, especially DDT, and insist that
bednets, drugs, education and other "acceptable," non-chemical
interventions will suffice.
These other interventions are also essential. But they are not enough to end malaria's reign of terror.
The nasty effects of chemo drugs are real. The alleged risks of using
DDT are pure speculation. They are trumpeted by radical groups like
Pesticide Action Network, who insist: Some researchers think DDT could
be inhibiting lactation and might be related to premature births, low
birth weights and slow reflexes in babies.
These risks are unproven and trivial, compared to the undeniable risks that DDT can prevent.
"Millions cannot work or go to school for weeks every year because of
malaria," Uganda's Fiona Kobusingye points out. "Countless people die.
Mothers have anemia, premature births and tiny babies because of it.
Parents and children get severe permanent brain damage from it. And
many people die from HIV/AIDS and other diseases that are made worse by
malaria."
Anti-pesticide activists claim Mexico "greatly reduced malaria without
using DDT," by employing politically correct alternatives to
insecticides. They deliberately ignore two critical points.
* According to the Pan American Health Organization,
Mexico had a mere 3,400 cases of malaria in 2004. In Kenya that year,
34,000 people died from malaria! In Nigeria, 58,000 parents and
children died; in Uganda, 100,000.
* Mexico's real weapon is drugs. To treat those
3,400 cases, it dispensed 10.3 million Chloroquine, Amodiaquine and
Primaquine tablets! These powerful drugs can cause genetic mutations
and physical defects in fetuses. They also carry high risks that the
malaria parasites will become resistant to the drugs.
To say this is preferable to DDT is preposterous. It is medical malpractice.
No wonder people have called anti-insecticide policies
"eco-imperialism," "eco-manslaughter," "neo-colonialism" and "racist
experiments" on the world's poor.
No wonder they ask whether anti-insecticide policies are driven in part
by neo-Malthusian eugenics theorists like Paul Ehrlich, who wrote in
The Population Bomb that "exported death control," in the form of DDT
and other technologies that prevent disease and death, is a major cause
of "over-population."
Club of Rome founder Alexander King said, "My chief quarrel with DDT in
hindsight is that it greatly added to the population problem." And
oceanographer Jacques Cousteau told Novelle Observateur, "In order to
stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people a day."
Whether such obscene attitudes are at the root of anti-insecticide
policies is somewhat beside the point, however. The reality is that
those policies perpetuate disease, poverty and death.
"We continue to squander resources on half-measures, when we could use
proven, effective tools," says, African Union disease control
coordinator John Kabayo. "Bed nets are meaningless in societies that
have no beds. To totally and predictably eradicate malaria, we need a
combination of tools and strategies, applied in a dedicated program of
systematic military-style operations. Bed nets on their own will, at
best, only divert resources and prolong the misery perpetrated by this
needless disease."
Under the Stockholm Convention, whether to use insecticides or spatial
repellants like DDT is a decision for health ministers in countries
that face endemic and epidemic malaria. Bureaucrats in malaria-free
Geneva offices have no right to deny them to malaria victims.
WHO legitimately worries about obesity, cancer and smoking. But malaria
is one of the world's most critical healthcare issues. It should also
be one of the easiest to control, and even eradicate.
WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan needs to give her unqualified
support to Dr. Kochi - and let Dr. Neira know she must put people's
lives first, and stop undermining agency policies, or find other
employment. Returning to the lethal policies of recent years would be
unforgivable.
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