Clarification on the DDT Ban
A couple weeks ago, I said, “Of course, DDT was never banned, and has actually become far less effective due to mosquitos developing resistance to it.” This was in the context of the canard that environmentalists are responsible for malaria deaths due to the “ban” on DDT use.
One of my friends asked me about it a few days later, because it was her understanding that DDT was in fact banned.
Is it banned? It depends on how restrictive your definition of “banned” is. It is banned from agricultural use inside the United States. Its use is allowed, both in the United States and internationally, for public health reasons. From the EPA press release announcing the agricultural ban:
“Public health, quarantine, and a few minor crop uses were excepted, as well as export of the material… 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–and governmental restriction on DDT use since 1969.”
So from 1959 to 1969, when government restrictions went into place, usage was declining steadily due in part to increased insect resistance and the development of more effective alternatives. What the anti-environmental crowd would have you believe, however, is that the ban on DDT in agricultural production in the (mostly malaria-free) United States, which primarily affected cotton crops, is somehow responsible for 50 to 90 million deaths. This post by Tim Lambert neatly eviscerates this claim, in the context of anti-environmentalists trying to use the aftermath of the tsunami to blame environmentalists for malaria deaths in Sri Lanka because of this fictitious ban on DDT:
“So we should be spraying DDT in Sri Lanka to prevent malaria? Well, no. The World Health Organization’s plan for malaria prevention in the wake of the tsunami reports:
‘Sri Lanka
Endemic sporadic malaria close to the affected areas transmitted by An.culicifacies, which has been considered DDT-resistant for many years, but is still sensitive to organophosphates, such as malathion, and pyrethroids.’
Yes, the mosquitoes in Sri Lanka have evolved resistance to DDT. It doesn’t work any more. In fact, that is the reason why they stopped using DDT in Sri Lanka. It wasn’t because of any ban-it was because it stopped being effective.”
So much for the ban on DDT that supposedly killed more people than Hitler.
Lambert’s weblog, Deltoid, is a beautiful read on DDT, John Lott, and other topics. He’s rational, knowledgeable, and understands statistics– in short, a rare breed.
So is there a ban on DDT? Yes, in the same sense that lawnmowers are banned. There’s a ban on lawnmower use in my city after 10 PM (to be honest, I forget the actual time), but that doesn’t mean I can’t use a lawnmower anywhere, ever. So– no, there’s no ban. There’s no international ban on DDT use, and there’s not even a ban on DDT use for public health reasons in the US. It’s not used because it’s not the best tool we have, not because of a bunch of evil environmentalists.