The chairperson of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Committee of Health Ministers has disputed that Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is harmful to human health when used as an indoor residual spray for malaria elimination. Answering a question during a press conference following the SADC E8 Ministers Malaria Elimination meeting in Maun recently, Dr Richard Nchabi Kamwi who is also the Minister of Health and Social Service in Namibia, said that DDT was banned for agricultural usage and not for public health practice.
My Take – Even positive DDT articles just have to load it up with misinformation and speculation. DDT did not impact bird populations negatively, in fact it was just the opposite. As for all of these afflictions listed….I have serious misgivings that any pesticide has a biological mechanism to cause all of these problems. Of course with DDT they can list anything and people will accept it without question.
Call for government to stop using DDT
The government should sop using the notorious pesticide DDT because of its impact on water resources, Rand Water, the largest water board in the country, has told Parliament. ......Because the ornamental horticultural sector was such a large water user, it should be included in the white paper’s planning process for the impact of climate change on the water sector, the board said. It also recommended that, because of uncertainty in future climate trends, the government prohibit activities that compromise water quality and quantity.
My Take - We already know that his claims about DDT are wrong and his rationale regarding climate change shows he has no idea what he is talking about.
The weighty problem of POPs.
Children exposed to certain persistent chemicals in the womb have a higher risk of being overweight, according to research published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives……The findings provide new evidence of the negative health effects of exposure to contaminants known as POPs – shorthand for persistent organic pollutants. The results add to growing evidence that suggests POPs – by acting as endocrine disruptors – can influence weight gain.
My Take – It is funny, because weight gain is always about calories in and calories out. How did they find out about these people’s diet? They gave them a questionnaire. That isn’t science, especially when it is such a small number and an isolated society. And after all is said and done what of their results and conclusions?
"Results: After multivariable adjustment, we found an increased relative risk of overweight in the 3rd tertile of PCB exposure (RR=1.70, 95% CI=1.09-2.64) and the 2nd tertile of DDE exposure (RR=1.67, 95% CI=1.10-2.55), but no association with DDT exposure in the population overall. Associations between overweight and PCB and DDE concentrations were strongest in girls (P-interaction between 0.01 and 0.28); DDT was associated with overweight only in boys. For DDT we observed stronger associations in children with fat intakes at or above compared to below the median but this interaction was not significant (P-interaction 0.05).
• Conclusions: This study suggests that prenatal OC exposures may be associated with overweight in children and that sex and high-fat intake may influence susceptibility."Everything is caveats, speculation and the junk science of POPs and endocrine disruption. They won't even say outright that fat intake actually influences weight gain. This isn’t science.
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