Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., and Robert J. Cihak, M.D., The Medicine Men
Thursday, Dec. 7, 2006

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At long last, we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel vision on malaria that we've deplored in the past.

The United Nations and its World Health Organization (WHO) have endorsed a new (for the U.N., anyway) policy of spraying the inside walls of homes with DDT (indoor residual spraying) to repel and kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

On Sept. 15 this year, Dr. Arata Kochi, director of the World Health Organization's Malaria Department spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

In a press statement issued by WHO, he said, "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying. Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT."

He implored us to "Help save African babies as you are helping to save the environment."

Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria said, "The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment. Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of infections caused by malaria-carrying mosquitoes. [Indoor residual spraying] has proven to be just as cost effective as other malaria prevention measures, and DDT presents no health risk when used properly."

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Adm. R. Timothy Ziemer, coordinator of the president's Malaria Initiative, says "Because it is relatively inexpensive and very effective, USAID supports the spraying of homes with insecticides as a part of a balanced, comprehensive malaria prevention and treatment program."

Why did we stop using DDT in the first place? Once malaria was wiped out in the United States, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, William Ruckelshaus, banned the use of DDT in the United States in 1972; he did so against the advice of his own scientists and court judgments.

Ruckelshaus used political criteria, not medical or scientific ones, for banning DDT.

Other U.S. and foreign government officials followed his lead and prohibited their governments and agencies from supplying or paying for DDT use in other, poorer countries, despite the effectiveness of DDT in controlling malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Some of these officials required people in other countries to stop using DDT if they wanted funding, even for non-DDT projects.

These decisions amounted to a malarial death sentence for tens of millions of children, mostly in Africa. Malaria needlessly sickened hundreds of millions of others.

Why this waste of human life and potential?

We believe there is a "total lack of a sense of proportion about where we are in terms of the environment but also on non-environmental issues" in the words of environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg.

Real world decisions usually involved trade-offs among several or multiple possible benefits and risks. Comparing the possible risks of DDT (such as eggshell thinning in carnivorous, flesh-eating raptors and theoretical concerns about endocrine disruption in mammals) with the proven life-saving anti-malaria effects is a no-brainer, except for some birdbrains who can't get DDT off their minds.

The lack of proportion in analysing DDT use is even worse than only looking at the bad effects of penicillin. Some few people suffer an extreme allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, and die when given penicillin.

In addition, we might worry about penicillin killing many innocent germs just living out their own life cycles. Perhaps someday we'll see a "Ban Evil and Dangerous Penicillin, And Now" movement. "Whoa!" you might say, "Don't forget about all the human lives penicillin saves."

Bingo.

The anti-DDT brigades chose to ignore or at least demean the lives saved by DDT.

Some DDT opponents even believe "the earth, untouched by human hands is the ideal" and "Planet Earth could use another major human pandemic, and pronto!" according to Dr. Jay Richards of the Acton Institute.

Recent African publications are full of DDT good news. The "New Vision," of Uganda, features an article "New Form of DDT to Fight Malaria." In another article, it notes malaria "kills 320 Ugandans everyday." In Zimbabwe, a Herald headline reads "Anti-Malaria Drive Gets Boost" with new shipments of DDT to combat malaria.

Some former opponents now endorse DDT for indoor residual spraying. "Environmental Defense, which launched the anti-DDT campaign in the 1960s, now endorses the indoor use of DDT for malaria control, as does the Sierra Club and the Endangered Wildlife Trust" according to the WHO press statement.

As physicians trained in science, we see a similar lack of proportion in the global warming debates. The earth's climate has always fluctuated. Recent scientific analyses suggest that changes in climate precede changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in cycles totally beyond human influence or control.

The proposals, including the Kyoto treaty, purporting to do something about CO2 levels will actually accomplish very little, even according to the proponents. The proposed measure will drastically reduce resources available to improve health and living conditions, especially for the world's poor.

These reductions will dwarf any possible benefit from the current vain attempts to control climate change. Because of this politically-induced poverty, many people will needlessly suffer and die.

We hope the current professional (such as NASA scientist James Hansen) and amateur (such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Sen. Olympia Snowe, and former Sen. Al Gore) global warming worriers will soon find themselves floating away in the same boat with DDT opponents.

We also hope it doesn't take another 35 years to clear the good name of carbon dioxide, as it did with DDT. It's a matter of life and death.

Editor's Note: Robert J. Cihak wrote this week's column.

Contact Drs. Glueck and Cihak by e-mail.

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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., comments on medical-legal issues and is a visiting fellow in Economics and Citizenship at the International Trade Education Foundation of the Washington International Trade Council.

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