And more people, possibly millions, will die as a result.

Every 30 seconds someone dies from Malaria. The same number as were killed in the 9/11 attacks every day and a half.

Most of these deaths – millions over the last 30 years – could have been avoided, and Malaria largely eradicated, through consistent and careful spraying with DDT, along with other protective measures.

At the UN’s  Stockholm Convention in 2001, 12 chemicals were banned, including DDT. The convention declaration permitted limited use of DDT for Malaria control.

DDT has actually been banned in a number of countries including the US, since the early seventies. A de facto ban has effectively been enforced in developing countries since then because foreign aid, including food and medical aid has been provisional on the non-use of DDT.

Some environmental activists and others have claimed that no ban, de facto or otherwise, ever existed. JF Beck has answered some of those claims.

There has never been any recorded case of DDT causing harm to any person, and no evidence that it causes any harm to anything other than insects.

Despite efforts to find alternatives, there is nothing as fast and as effective in controling malarial parasite carrying mosquitoes as DDT.

Spokesmen for Greenpeace and the World Wildife Fund have agreed that where there are no alternatives, DDT should be used.

But now another UN conference of over 150 nations has agreed that DDT must be phased out over the next few years, despite the fact that there are no effective alternatives to the use of DDT.

The UN and the World Health Organisation have lost the plot, with one commentator claiming the worst emerging disease threat facing the world is incompetent and obstructive WHO bureaucrats:

UN agencies’ virtual ban on DDT for mosquito control and their stultifying regulation of agricultural biotechnology are lamentable examples. The result is a more precarious, more dangerous and less resilient world. Why is there such relentless incompetence within the sprawling organization?

For more information, I recommend Paul Driessen’s book Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death which catalogues in detail the hunger, sickness and death which are the frequent result in developing countries of ill-informed western environmental activism.

Or see this earlier post for another book recommendation on a similar subject.