Campaign Spotlight
- Global Status of DDT and its Alternatives for Use in Vector Control to Prevent Disease, Environment Health Perspectives, May 2009
- The Pine River Statement: Human Health Consequences of DDT Use, Environment Health Perspectives, May 2009
- WHO and UNEP declare international efforts towards sustainable malaria control solutions while phasing out DDT at the 4th Conference of Parties at the Stockholm Convention on POPs, May 2009
- Statement on DDT use for malaria control from PAN- IPEN for the Stockholm Convention Fourth Conference of Parties, April 2009
- PAN International Study on DDT and the Stockholm Convention: States on the edge of non-compliance, April 2009
- Report from African Civil Society meeting on DDT and malaria control, Apr 2009, Tanzania
- Dar-es-Saalam Declaration on Alternatives to DDT, April 2009
- Pledge to end Malaria deaths by 2015, Campaign note by President-Elect Barack Obama
- "USAID's response to NGO letter on World Malaria Day", May 2008
- 2008 World Malaria Day letter to USAID April 2008
Malaria kills 880,000 people a year -- that’s 100 people an hour, 80 of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Pesticide Action Network has been working with international allies, governments and on-the-ground groups in Africa for many years to mobilize resources and political will to combat this deadly disease.
Solutions do exist. They are community-based, integrated solutions already at work in places as diverse as Mexico, Kenya and Vietnam. Successful malaria control programs have been built all over the world using a variety of approaches that share four common traits: community involvement, appropriate technology, public health education and a recognition that the costs of DDT outweigh its benefits.
COSTS & FAILURES OF DDT
DDT fails as a public health tool for the same reasons it was banned as an agricultural pesticide in the 1970s. The costs are too high and impossible to control:
• Health effects: Studies show that DDT is a neurodevelopmental and reproductive toxin that is especially dangerous to infants and children. DDT has been linked to low sperm count in men, certain forms of cancer and diabetes.
• Resistance: The effectiveness of DDT continues to decline as more and mosquito populations develop resistance.
• Stockpiles: 100,000+ tons of obsolete pesticides like DDT are stockpiled in Africa with no means of disposal.
• Bioaccumulation: DDT and its breakdown product, DDE, persist for many years, travel the world, and accumulate in the global food chain.
• Dirty production: DDT production plants contaminate the environment and put local communities at risk wherever they are produced.
Communities facing malaria, which disproportionately affects poor and undernourished areas, should not have to also face the long-term health risks posed by exposure to DDT when safe and affordable solutions are available. What countries fighting malaria need is strong support for effective, safe and affordable solutions that invest in community resources over the long term.
TREATY MANDATES DDT PHASEOUT
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is an international treaty calling for the elimination of hazardous chemicals that persist in the environment and in our bodies, and travel the world in water and on air. DDT is among the original twelve chemicals targeted for global phaseout by the POPs treaty, with exemptions for countries where controlling disease vectors (like mosquitos) are necessary and “locally safe, effective and affordable alternatives are not available”.
163 governments from around the world are party to this legally binding treaty (the U.S. is not among them). PAN International and its allies join these governments in calling for a redoubling of investment in safe, effective and affordable malaria control.
PAN International DDT Statement: Supporting Safe and Effective Strategies without DDT In English En Fracais
US partner statement on : Safe Malaria Solutions