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Kill Malarial Mosquitoes NOW! Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., and Robert J. Cihak, M.D., The Medicine Men Vaccines may be available in ten years, but inexpensive DDT would save millions of African lives now.
Once a year or more, The Medicine Men column has spoken out on the medical urgency to use DDT to fight malaria. But no matter the scientific facts, the tree huggers still stick with their fiction – and half a billion people yearly are infected with malaria. The disease is responsible for a million deaths per year, most of them in children under 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa. This in spite of proof that DDT in the required low doses is not harmful to the environment. A recent Association of American Physician and Surgeons (AAPS) article notes, "The Kill Malarial Mosquitoes NOW! Declaration asks that two-thirds of world malaria control monies be spent on DDT, or any more cost-effective insecticide, plus artemisia-based combination therapies (ACTs)." Currently, almost none of the $200 million that U.S. taxpayers contribute to world malaria control each year is spent on controlling the vector. In a courageous statement, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is calling for DDT use to fight malaria. Nobel Laureate Tutu has joined an international coalition calling on the Bush administration and Congress to deploy DDT as a primary weapon in a world malaria control policy. Story Continues Below
South Africa slashed malaria rates by 96 percent in just three years by using a combination of DDT and ACT. Zambia reduced malaria by 75 percent in two years, through private efforts, also using DDT. A single spraying of household walls protects everyone in the home for at least six months. In contrast, insecticide-treated bed nets "could" reduce childhood malaria deaths "by as much as one-fifth," according to the World Bank. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged more than a quarter of a billion dollars to research a vaccine, which might be available by 2011. Just last week, a Perspective in the November 3, 2005, New England Journal of Medicine, titled "Betting on a Malaria Vaccine," notes that "Sometime within the next two years, clinical researchers are expected to begin inoculating at least 2000 African infants in the largest trial ever undertaken of an experimental vaccine for malaria. ... If the vaccine is found to reduce significantly the rates of death and severe illness in children with malaria, it will be viewed as a public health triumph. An expensive failure, on the other hand, could slow progress toward controlling the disease." The Perspective further notes that even if a vaccine is developed, it will still require medications, bed nets and mosquito control methods to reduce the morbidity and mortality of the disease. In closing, the NEJM author quotes Brian Greenwood, a researcher in this anti-malaria effort, who offered a prediction that there would be a vaccine in use by 2015 that offers partial protection, "but we don't know which one it will be and whether it will be affordable." In the meantime, while we anxiously wait, hope and pray for 10 years, malaria infects 500 million people and kills more than a million each year. These are mostly African babies and pregnant women, as USAID, the European Union and others have effectively denied African nations access to DDT. Along with Archbishop Tutu, others supporting the Kill Malarial Mosquitoes NOW! Declaration are the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); former Surgeon General of the Navy Admiral Harold Koenig, M.D.; and Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Would you rather destroy the insect that carries the parasite that bites the man (or woman) and gives him (or her) the disease – or allow the malarial parasite in and hope the medicines and a future vaccine will help? It is time for Congress to stop playing politics with a deadly disease and take a stand against malaria – particularly when the DDT solution is so simple, inexpensive, proven to be effective and available now – not ten or more years from now! Editor's Note: Michael Arnold Glueck submitted this week's comment. Additional Information: "DDT: a Case Study in Scientific Fraud," by J Gordon Edwards, J Am Phys Surg, Fall 2004 "New York Times Supports DDT to Fight Malaria," News of the Day, Jan 11, 2005 Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Senior Fellow and Board Member of the Discovery Institute and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple-award-winning writer who comments on medical-legal issues. Contact Drs. Glueck and Cihak by e-mail. Editor's note:
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