$25.00 / Perfectbound
ISBN: 9781608443765
452 pages
Also available at fine
bookstores everywhere

Preface

Modern medicine continues to deliver on its promise of conquest over infectious diseases, yet old infectious diseases continue to rebound and expand in the poorer countries of the world. In our medical arsenal, we have the tools to identify and prevent threats and to treat many health problems we fail to prevent. Possessing these tools, however, will not protect us if we refuse to deploy them, putting ideological and political barriers blindly in the way of the most effective controls. This book discusses one such example of this problem—the environmental crusade that began in the 1960s against the use of DDT and other insecticides in vector control (the preventive measures directed against insects that transmit diseases to humans). Over time, this crusade has shaped the actions of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the agencies and organizations that follow its advice, allowing preventable diseases such as malaria, dengue, and leishmaniasis to infect and kill millions.

DDT is unique in its power to cheaply, effectively, and safely protect poor people in poor countries against diseases. Indeed, because some environmentalists worried about population growth and precisely because of DDT’s effectiveness, they became fixated on eliminating it. DDT allowed poor people in developing countries, and the children of poor people, to survive. Leading environmentalists of the time, such as Paul Ehrlich, author of the best-selling book, The Population Bomb, railed against growth in human populations and the use of DDT for disease control because they believed that “every life saved this year in a poor country diminishes the quality of life for subsequent generations.”1 Opposition to DDT, as prescribed by Paul Ehrlich, was a means to stop “exported death control.”2 In 1970, Science magazine published a paper by self-described ecologist, George Woodwell, whose work we discuss in detail in this book, which offered a solution to his characterizations of environmental pollution: “Fewer people, unpopular but increasing restrictions on technology (making it more and more expensive).”3 His approach represented a consensus view of the major stakeholders within the environmental movement. European nations and the United States used insecticides to rid themselves of diseases and then pulled up the ladder, denying Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans the benefits of those same insecticides. As a result of these and other environmentalist attacks, DDT was removed from malaria-control programs, costs of malaria control skyrocketed, and the health and welfare of poor people in poor countries plummeted.

Over time, DDT elimination became a global phenomenon. A modern version of this phenomenon and the overwhelming dominance of environmental advocacy over public health was on display at the negotiations of the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (of which DDT is one). These negotiations took place over several years ending in 2003. In chapter 7 we present statistics on the composition of those attending the negotiations. The magnitude and inequity of antiinsecticide advocacy compared to representation of the legitimate public health concerns in preserving the use of DDT in developing countries was staggering.

1 Hardin, G., “Stalking the wild taboo.” http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/hardin.html (accessed Apr. 11, 2009).
2 Ehrlich, P.R., The Population Bomb (Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books, 1971), 15.
3 Woodwell, G.M., “Effects of pollution on the structure and physiology of ecosystems.” Science, 20 April 1970, 168:429-433