The widely circulated claim that the antimalarial use of DDT has been banned, costing millions of lives, seems finally to have been refuted (score one for the self-correcting blogosphere!). For those who haven’t followed this one, here’s one of my contributions, with links.
The last line of treat for this argument is the claim that there is a “de facto” ban on antimalarial use of DDT (agricultural use is banned, and a good thing too, since this builds up resistance). Tim Lambert nails this one, assisted in a lengthy comments thread by Ian Gould, a regular commenter on this site also.
There is a sense, though, in which all antimalarial strategies are subject to a de facto ban: there simply isn’t enough money to implement them. The Roll Back Malaria partnership has a comprehensive program to halve the burden of malaria by 2010, which could be implemented for a fraction of the cost of the Iraq War (or, to be evenhanded with the examples, the EU Common Agricultural Policy), but it’s almost certainly not going to happen.
John Quiggin 
It seems very odd that John Q characterises as being a “last line of defence” very genuine and widely held concerns about unnecessary deaths and disease occuring in tropical/developing countries caused by lack of DDT. Deaths – thousands of them. Real risks – I know Ive recently experienced them near the Saziland border in Kwa-Zulu Natal. To real people – wonderful talented, generous, humourous, struggling human beings.
John Qs apparent implication is that those who raise this councern have been involved, since the beginning of the DDT debate, in a stalling operation to prevent the envronmentally noble withdrawal of DDT from the market.
Lets not forget that people are dying in this supposedly noble cause, but John puts that to one side..
Or have I mis-read you Q, – if so explain what you mean by “last line of defence”.
In any case, the implied slur is not very clean logic or fair-minded thinking, which should worry John..
And let me use this opportuninty to bring to readers attention a very recent article confirming that DDT has still an important role to play in malaria.
From the Recent “Intolerable burden of Malaria II “at NCBI websilte
Impregnated Nets or DDT Residual Spraying? Field Effectiveness of Malaria Prevention Techniques in Solomon Islands, 1993–1999
Mead Over
Bernard Bakote’e
Raman Velayudhan
Peter Wilikai
Patricia M. Graves
Development Research Group, World Bank, Washington, District of Columbia. Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Honiara, Solomon Islands. World Health Organization, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado.
Summary
The incidence of malaria in Solomon Islands has been decreasing since 1992. The control program used a combination of methods including DDT residual house spraying and insecticide-treated mosquito nets. To determine how much each method contributed to malaria control, data were analyzed on monthly incidence and on control activities for 41 of 110 malaria zones over the same time period (January 1993 to August 1999). After correction for endogeneity, then spraying, insecticide treatment of nets, and education about malaria are all independently associated with reduction in incident cases of malaria or fever, while larviciding with temephos is not. The evidence suggests that although impregnated bed nets cannot entirely replace DDT spraying without substantial increase in incidence, their use permits reduced DDT spraying. The paper shows that non-experimental data can be used to infer causal links in epidemiology, provided that instrumental variables are available to correct for endogeneity.
From the contributer d of the link to Qs previous comments on DDT.
d, I fail to see how this quote does anything other than confirm the points in my post. Obviously this study could not have been undertaken if a ban on DDT (formal or de facto) had been in place.
Undoubtedly there is disagreement about the relative merits of alternative anti-malaria strategies and of course people feel strongly on the subject. But taking out of context quotes from this debate and using them to attack the 1972 ban on agricultural use of DDT in the US (the starting point for most of the right-wing diatribes on this topic) does no-one any good.
More to the point, the real problem isn’t which strategy should be preferred but the shortage of funds across the board.
I agree with you that there is no de facto ban in place.
the idea that “millions” are affected adversely by anti-DDT campaigns is over the top too. And yes, the availablity of funds is a major issue. But the actions that give rise to the de facto ban “sound bite” need to be honestly discussed. Harm is indeed coming from over zealous discouragement of ddt use in circumstances where it can do good.
There is a very low change that excessive large sacale spaying is going to occur, and it would be helpful more responsible NGOs to be more realistic here.
I’ll add one more point: the moral priorities in my world are this
1. Careful attention to health issues of poorer people in developing countries first.
2. Honesty about how many environmentalist NGOs have caused unnecessary deaths from their rigid propaganda on DDT. The honesty is needed so we can avoid the mistakes of the past.
3. Rehashing red-herrings such as political bun-fights in the US that relate to a bygone era last.
You made a point that funding for welfare is the primary-issue, which I can accept. But I would seriously doubt that there is any health specialist concerned about malaria who is seeking to reverse the bans on large scale agricultural use. On the other hand most environmentalist NGOs actively in this area foolishly sought an absolute and complete ban on DDT – as witnessed by the Joburg fiasco, and worse, are in denial about this moral error.
detribe, can you point to any environmental group that sought an absolute and immediate ban on DDT as opposed to advocating a phaseout and replacement with safer alternatives with financial support from developed countries? I’m not aware of any. If you want to respond on this, please don’t cite hostile sources: point directly to current or cached versions of statements by the organizations themselves.
The only sound argument against this policy line is the one mentioned in my post, that no one is in fact willing to fund the phaseout. But in this case, it seems more reasonable to focus on the basic problem of lack of funding