AR-News: (S. Africa) Professor urges SA to ban harmful DDT

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By Tony Carnie


A senior South African medical researcher has urged the government to give 
priority attention to phasing out DDT insecticides in anti-malaria campaigns 
after disturbing new evidence of damage to the human reproduction system - 
including low sperm counts in men.

Prof Tiaan de Jager of the University of Pretoria's health science and 
urology department, said there was now sufficient evidence about the damaging effect 
of DDT on young lives to merit a thorough re-evaluation of South Africa's 
malaria control campaign.

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world still using DDT as an 
emergency tool to fight malaria, particularly in northern KwaZulu Natal where 
it has been re-introduced to halt the southward spread of malaria from 
Mozambique. 

Noting that DDT and other hormone-disrupting pollutants had been linked to a 
variety of cancers in laboratory animals, De Jager said there was an urgent 
need to find alternatives to DDT before it caused "irreparable harm to 
reproductive health".

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world still using DDT
De Jager presented his new evidence in Durban this week during the World 
Congress on Environmental Health.






full story:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=125&art_id=ct20040305205528755D000180&
set_id=1 
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