Help power Marketplace this winter when you support the show today. Donate Now!

WHO recommends DDT

Marketplace Staff Sep 15, 2006
HTML EMBED:
COPY

WHO recommends DDT

Marketplace Staff Sep 15, 2006
HTML EMBED:
COPY

TEXT OF STORY

BRIAN WATT: Remember DDT, the pesticide that was banned in the U.S. in 1972? Well today, the World Health Organization is set to recommend that DDT be used in Africa as part of the battle against Malaria. But as Nancy Marshall Genzer reports, some Africans are saying, thanks but no thanks.


NANCY MARSHALL GENZER: The WHO is expected to recommend that DDT be sprayed inside people’s homes to protect them from malaria-carrying mosquitoes while they sleep.

The organization is not recommending that DDT be sprayed outside where it could leech into the environment. Still, Nii Akueteh with Transafrica Forum says African farmers worry their crops might be rejected by buyers afraid of DDT contamination.

NII AKUETEH:“One area of great concern is what is defined as organic, how much residue can be on their produce.”

But Nastasha Bilimoria, of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria says the cost of not preventing malaria outweighs the farmers’ concerns.

NASTASHA BILIMORIA:“Malaria is so harmful in Africa it actually leads to $12 billion in lost GDP each year alone.”

Bilimoria says a million people die of malaria every year — almost all of them children.

In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.