Letter: DDT ban makes malaria worse

Friday, July 13, 2001 | 10:13 a.m.

By 1960 malaria was almost completely wiped out using DDT. However, the disease has made a devastating comeback that takes approximately 2.7 million lives each year. All that would be needed would be to reuse DDT, which tropical public health professor Dr. Donald Roberts calls "the best insecticide we have for controlling malaria."

Spurred on by environmental radicals from the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the Gorbachev Foundation, etc., the almost total banning of DDT received impetus through the U.N.'s new Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) treaty. This treaty, which includes DDT among a group of so-called "Dirty Dozen" chemicals, has received George W. Bush's enthusiastic endorsement.

Continued U.S. membership in the U.N. indicates our nation's support for such callousness and the unnecessary restrictions on DDT. The reasons for the U.S. to withdraw from the world organization continue to accumulate.

FRANK PELTESON

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