NO GOP, NO DDT:

WHO Reintroduces DDT in Battle Against Malaria (Catherine Maddux, 15 September 2006, VOA news)

The World Health Organization announced Friday it will once again use the controversial pesticide DDT to fight malaria, the mosquito-born disease that kills an estimated one million African children every year. [...]

The U.S. government is supporting the WHO effort to use indoor spraying of DDT as part of President Bush's $1.2 billion initiative to combat malaria in Africa.

Admiral Timothy Ziemer of the U.S. Agency for International Developement, the coordinator of the president's malaria initiative, also known as PMI, says just over a year ago, President Bush set the goal of reducing malaria deaths by half in 15 nations in about five years time. "Within six weeks of that announcement, the PMI fielded assessment teams that went to Uganda, Angola and Tanzania. And by last Decemeber, PMI launched significant malaria prevention and treament programs in all three countries, benefiting over one million people," he said. [...]

Reaction from major environmental groups has been muted. The U.S.-based Sierra Club told Reuters news agency that it supported the use of DDT reluctantly, given the scale of deaths attributed to malaria, a preventable disease.

Some smaller U.S.-based groups, like Beyond Pesticides, are firmly against the policy, calling it extremely dangerous.

Think National Review's Democrats would have pushed through DDT use?

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 16, 2006 10:38 AM