WHO gives nod to DDT

The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved the use of insecticide DDT for indoor use to fight malaria and has thus, reversed a 30-year policy which banned the use of the insecticide.

Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general for Malaria said, “Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of infections caused by malaria-carrying mosquitoes; it has proven to be just as cost effective as other malaria prevention measures, and DDT presents no health risk when used properly."

Dr. Arata Kochi, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) malaria department opined that, "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying…Of the dozen pesticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT."

DDT was in common use in the 1930s as an agricultural insecticide. It fell into disrepute with the publication of biologist and ecologist Rachel Carson's book “Silent Spring”. It exposed how widespread and indiscriminate use of DDT entered the food chain, thus killing wildlife and threatening humans. Later, in 1969, the National Cancer Institute announced findings that DDT could cause cancer. This led to a U.S. federal ban on the insecticide in 1972.

Richard Tren, director of the group Africa Fighting Malaria defended the WHO’s approval for indoor spraying of DDT, "The environmental impact associated with spraying insecticides- whether it's DDT or other insecticides- indoors is minimal, it's negligible ... This is as unrelated to 'Silent Spring' as anything…The science is very clear that there are no harmful human effects.”

The director of the Sierra Club's environmental quality program, Ed Hopkins gave a subdued consent to the plan, “Reluctantly, we do support it…Malaria kills millions of people and when there are no other alternatives to indoor use of DDT, and where that use will be well-monitored and controlled, we support it."

Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, hit the nail on the head when he said, “We should be advocating for a just world where we no longer treat poverty and development with poisonous Band-Aids but join together to address the root causes of insect-borne disease, because the chemical-dependent alternatives are ultimately deadly for everyone."