Wealthy Nations Should Fund Anti-Malaria Programs That Use DDT, Opinion Piece Says

If wealthy nations such as the United States want to help people living in countries affected by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and other resource-poor African nations, there is "one step that would cost ... nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives" -- funding anti-malaria programs that implement the pesticide DDT, columnist Nicholas Kristof writes in a New York Times opinion piece. Mosquitoes that transmit malaria "kill 20 times more people each year" than the tsunami did -- between two and three million people die from the disease annually -- Kristof says, adding that "in the long war between humans and mosquitoes, it looks as if mosquitoes are winning" because wealthy nations are "siding with the mosquitoes" by "opposing" the use of DDT. The pesticide was banned in most Western countries and "stigmatized worldwide" after a "growing recognition" in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that DDT caused environmental harm and that pregnant women exposed to the chemical had an increased risk of premature birth, Kristof writes. However, although "humans are far better off exposed to DDT than exposed to malaria," most Western aid agencies will not fund anti-malaria programs that implement the pesticide, instead encouraging the use of insecticide-treated bed nets and drug therapies, Kristof says. Although bed nets and medicines are "critical tools" in the fight against the malaria epidemic, they are "not enough," Kristof says, adding that the "existing anti-malaria strategy is an underfinanced failure." The "main obstacle" to obtaining funding for DDT programs "seems to be bureaucratic caution and inertia," Kristof writes, concluding, "President Bush should cut through that and lead an effort to fight malaria using all necessary tools -- including DDT" (Kristof, New York Times, 1/8).