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DDT and other POPs
Sorry to contaminate you all further, but since the treaty negotiations are
ongoing, I think, in Geneva this week on POPs, Persistent Organic
Pollutants, the following may be of interest, based on some local issues
for us.
Joe Parrish
NJ/NY Environmental Watch
The World Wildlife Fund has posted the following note regarding the
alternatives to DDT for fighting malaria in Africa and elsewhere. The
fuller report can be accessed at
http://www.worldwildlife.org/toxics/whatsnew/
DDT was produced in our area in such quantities that it filled the Passaic
River above the high water mark in the middle of the river. The company
producing it paid an employee to go out in a boat at dark and use a pole to
break down the piles so they would not appear above the water's surface and
would be invisible to visual detection, in other words the quantities were
huge and formed a pile several dozens of feet high. DDT is largely
insoluble in water and is not metabolized by mammalians including humans,
but results in hormone disruption and a variety of other life threatening
problems. The material has moved from the Passaic River, polluting Newark
Bay, and continues to move into the Atlantic. Newark Bay has been posted
with no fishing signs and fishers have been fined for even breaking water
with crabs or fish. The same company later produced Agent Orange and
pumped the bad batches into the same river, adding dioxins to the list of
fish and crab contaminants. It is now an EPA Superfund site. It is a life
and death issue in our area as well as in many parts of the world. It is
one of the subjects of an international treaty negotiation this week in
Geneva on "Persistent Organic Pollutants," abbreviated, "POPs".
Recent News
National Academy of Sciences
Report on Hormone Disruptors
Released (Aug 4, 1999)
Health and Environment
Ministers ignoring critical toxic
chemical issues, says WWF
WWF Urges World Health
Assembly Delegates to Phase
Out Deadly Pesticide DDT (May
21, 1999)
Public Interest Groups Resign
in Protest from E.P.A. Food
Safety Committee (April 27,
1999)
New Research Reveals
Pesticides Affect Male
Hormone System; Findings
Suggest New Concerns in
Endocrine Disruption (March
23, 1999)
WWF's Comments on EPA's
Proposed Endocrine Disruptor
Screening and Testing Program
(February 25, 1999)
Consumer Reports Finds
Pesticide Residues too High on
Some Domestic and Imported
Produce (Feb. 18, 1999)
WWF Calls for Global Ban on
DDT Based on Latest Health
and Environmental Hazards
(Jan. 28, 1999)
WWF Study Finds Effective Anti-Malarial
Alternatives to
DDT
Geneva, Switzerland -- A report released
today in Geneva by WWF, the conservation
organization, demonstrates that a variety
of innovative mechanisms can control
malaria and other diseases just as
effectively as the notoriously dangerous
pesticide DDT. These alternatives would
be less harmful to the environment and
human health, and just as cheap.
Detailed case studies focused in six areas
- Africa (Botswana and Western Africa),
India, the Philippines, South America and
Mexico - focused on variety of alternative
techniques. These are
pesticide-impregnated bednets (which reduce the
need for indoor
spraying); odor-baited cloth targets to attract
and destroy
disease-carrying insects; lower-risk pesticides
used in rotation to
avoid the development of resistance; and
widespread elimination
of mosquito breeding grounds and introduction
of natural
predators and sterile insects.
The results confirmed that 34 million people in
West Africa were
protected from river blindness and 700,000
Indians from malaria.
There was a 50 percent reduction of malaria in
certain Tanzanian
villages, and a 50 percent reduction in malaria
cases in the
Philippines with 40 percent less expenditure.
"If DDT were the only tool to fight malaria, we
would not even
consider advocating its phase-out," said
Clifton Curtis, Director of
WWF's Global Toxics Initiative. "However, as
these case studies
show, people around the world are using
innovative methods to
fight tropical diseases that do not rely on a
pesticide so
dangerous it has been banned in most
countries."
WWF is pushing for a phase-out of DDT, helped
by strong
commitments from Western countries of financial
and technical
assistance to developing countries if they stop
relying on DDT.
"Helping the developing world achieve their
goals of turning away
from familiar but dangerous chemicals like DDT
is the moral and
ethical responsibility of the developed world,"
said Dr. Richard
Liroff, WWF's Malaria Policy Expert. "WWF will
be a strong voice
in the global POPs treaty negotiations
advocating such
assistance."
DDT has long been banned in most of the world.
It can travel long
distances in air and water, and builds up in
the fatty tissues of
living things. Studies associate it with
disrupted hormone
systems, and impaired nervous, immune and
reproductive
functions. In some wildlife species, exposure
to DDT and its
breakdown products has resulted in population
instability or
near-extinction.
However, due to its ease of use and relatively
low cost, DDT is still
widely used in developing countries to fight
malaria, a deadly
disease that kills four children every minute.
Public health
practitioners are understandably reluctant to
stop its use.
DDT is not the only deadly chemical that can be
replaced by
innovative alternatives. A new issue brief from
WWF examines
alternatives to all 12 chemicals targeted by
the international POPs
treaty. PCBs, dioxins, furans, DDT,
hexachlorobenzene and others.
It discusses techniques such as crop rotations,
pest barriers and
insect traps, introduction of natural predators
and pathogens,
release of sterilized pests, pheromones,
impregnated bednets and
medical treatment.
CONTACT:
Clifton Curtis, tel.: +41 22 909 3909 (Hotel
Mon-Repos);
Lee Poston, tel.: + 41 79 221 7834 (mobile) or
+41 22 909 3909
(Hotel Mon-Repos);
Olivier van Bogaert, tel.: +41 22 364 9554
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