From: sramjee@hss.hns.com
Date: Wed Nov 29 2000 - 20:39:20 PST
I think the catch is in the phrase 'limited use' - now,
how does one qualify/quantify that? I have always seen that
people go overboard with respect to stuff like
this, and when they have not been educated about the
side-effects, it is even worse!
WHO estimates that at least three million people are
poisoned by pesticides every year and more than 200,000
die. It is estimated that up to 25 million agricultural
workers are poisoned every year. Statistics has to be
a two way street and malarial statistics has to be read
in tandom with this too.
While agreeing that DDT is the cheapest anti mosquito
agent, it does not mean that it needs to be encouraged...
Why cant the cause of simple and very effective mosquito
nets be promoted - as also the avoidance of stagnant water
pools? I feel that these are not encouraged because of the
huge quanta of money involved in the pesticide market - I dont
have the figures now, but it will be in tens of billons of $.
.. and in India, nowdays one gets to see a lot of promotion
of d-trans-allethrin based mosquito-repellants; once
again this enjoys a growing market! There are reports
linking allethrin to possible nervous disorders too. And, *this*
in the context of the easy availability of the native,dirt-cheap and
effective solution - of fumigation using neem (azadirachta
indica) leaves!
And, purely pesticide based solutions would ultimately
result in the development of resistant species and then
better anti-mosquito pesticides would evolve to combat
these (read $s) and then the cycle will continue ad
nauseam...
In India, I have seen cases wherein communitities which
have been mobilized to take *preventive* measures - have
managed to drastically reduce the mosquito problem...
__ramjee.
PS: Please checkout http://www.foodnews.org/ to know what
pesticides you have had as part of your breakfast...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 29 2000 - 20:43:42 PST