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anonymous said ....

I guess anonymous works. Here is the comment I had previously sent incorrectly and didn't post.

I'm performing as Rachel Carson in a Chautauqua Festival June 13 - 20 in Greenville, SC. "America: The Land, what will our children inherit?" www.greenvillechautauqua.org Although Rachel cannot comment on the current DDT/Malaria controversy, I would like the audience to have a non-partisan time line of the events. In light of trying hard not to disseminate dis-information, could anyone comment on the following information:

Malaria – DDT

Timeline

Malaria has infected humans for over 50,000 years, and may have been a human pathogen for the entire history of our species.

1640’s Jesuit missionaries bring back to Europe the bark of cinchona tree (Jesuit Bark)-- a natural product which grows on the slops of the Andes and was used by the inhabitants of Peru to control malaria.

1658 Oliver Cromwell refuses Jesuit bark claiming it a “Catholic plot” and dies. King Charles II takes it and recovers, and it was rapidly accepted in Europe as a cure for malaria. In 1820’s active ingredient quinine extracted from the cinchona bark, and it has been used as treatment for malaria ever since.

1874 DDT synthesized by Othran Zeidler in Germany but its effectiveness as an insecticide unknown.

1880-81- French army doctor Charles Laveran proposed parasites (protozoa) in red blood cells caused malaria. Cuban doctor Carlos Findlay suggests mosquito the cause of yellow fever.

1898 Britian’s Sir Ronald Ross in India proved malaria transmitted by mosquitoes

1939 Paul Muller, Swiss chemist discovers the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods. US patent for DDT 1942 and Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1948.

1939 – 1945 DDT used on troops during WWII to control typhus, malaria and yellow fever. WWII was the first war in which fewer soldiers were killed by disease than by bullets.

1945 DDT made available as an agricultural insecticide.

1945 - 1972, approximately 675,000 tons applied domestically in US. The peak year for use in the United States was 1959 when nearly 80 million pounds were applied. From that high point, usage declined steadily to about 13 million pounds in 1971, most of it applied to cotton. The decline was attributed to a number of factors including increased insect resistance, development of more effective alternative pesticides, growing public and user concern over adverse environmental side effects. Though widespread use of DDT didn't begin until WWII, there were resistant houseflies in Europe by 1947, and by 1949, DDT-resistant mosquitoes were documented on two continents. DDT contributed to the final eradication of malaria in Europe and North America, although malaria had already been eliminated from much of the developed world in the early 20th century through the use of a range of public health measures and generally increasing health and living standards.

1950’s

• Clear Lake Calif. Gnats sprayed with DDT and grebes (lake birds) died. 1949, 1954 and 1957. Each time gnats came back.

• Fire Ants eradication campaign

• Dutch Elm Disease Campaign• Gypsy moth Campaign.

• Robert Cushman Murphy (American Museum of Natural History) and other Long Islanders sued USFDA for allowing aerial spraying of his property. Lost on a technicality.

• Cranberry scandal herbicide aminotriazole on ’57, 58, 59 crops – sale of cranberries banned just before Thanksgiving

• Strontium 90 found in cow’s milk1962 July Thalidomide Scandal. Dr. Frances Kelsey prevented its use in US, and was considered a public hero

1962 Silent Spring published -- Carson encouraged the responsible use of pesticide with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on all living things, not the all-out banning of pesticides. In the context of malaria control, she argued that DDT users should "spray as little as you possibly can" rather than "spray to the limit of your capacity."

“We must have insect control. I do not favor turning nature over to insects. I favor the sparing, selective and intelligent use of chemicals. It is the indiscriminate, blanket spraying that I oppose.” Rachel Carson

1963 May President’s Science Advisory Committee endorses Rachel Carson’s stand.

1963 Nov Fish Kill Mississippi River, Louisiana -- Endrin from Velsicol waste treatment plant in Memphis. Velsicol was one of the industry leaders in the attack on Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

1972 EPA ban on most uses of DDT in the U.S. An exemption was allowed for public health uses under some conditions. Despite the domestic ban on its use, DDT was produced in the US for foreign markets until as late as 1985. Most other developed countries followed the US lead in eliminating the use of DDT for agriculture. By 1972, 19 kinds of mosquitoes capable of transmitting malaria, including some in Africa, were resistant to DDT.

2001 Stockholm Convention is an international legally binding agreement on persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Co-signatories agreed to:

1. Outlaw -- aldrin, chlordane dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex and toxaphene; two industrial chemicals: hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) group

2. Limit the use of DDT to malaria control

3. Curtail inadvertent production of dioxins and furans

2004 May Sockholm Convention becomes into force. US has signed but not ratified.

2005 June President Bush’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). pledged to increase U.S. malaria funding by more than $1.2 billion over five years.

2006 Sept 15 The World Health Organization announces a major policy change actively backing DDT as a way to control malaria.

2007 May The U.S. House of Representatives in celebration of her centennial voted to name a post office after Rachel Carson in her hometown of Springdale, Pa. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), blocked the House bill from consideration in the Senate characterizing Carson as an alarmist crank and her book as "the catalyst in the deadly worldwide stigmatization against insecticides, especially DDT."

2008 More than 40 percent of the world lives in malaria-affected countries, and the disease kills more than million people every year with an estimate of up to 500 million cases of malaria annually around the world. About 90% of these deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Use of DDT for malaria control has never been banned; however, many countries are hesitant to use it because of its longevity in the earth, build of up resistence in insect population, its build up in fatty tissue of wildlife and humans, and its unknown effect on human health.

The methods most used for malaria control: insecticide treated bed nets, indoor residual spraying, sterile insect technique, early detection and treatment, elimination of breeding areas i.e. stagnant water and pools, and cultivation

November 28, 2007 8:19 AM

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