By Richard Tren
Some of history’s greatest advances in public health – especially in regions plagued by insect borne diseases – have come from the judicious use of pesticides to kill or repel the insect vector before it can infect human populations. Because the market for public health pesticides is relatively small, however, most of these vital chemistries were developed for larger agricultural uses. Unfortunately, that source of new products is increasingly under threat from shortsighted environmentalism and the European embrace of “precautionary” regulation.
As unpleasant as this cold winter is, at least those annoying mosquitoes have disappeared and won’t be back for several months. Not so in many tropical countries, where mosquitoes are far more deadly than in the US, transmitting crippling and often fatal diseases such as malaria and dengue.
Two recent pesticide bans in the EU – one fully in effect, the other in the process of being phased in – could create massive new disincentives for further development in this area. Both bans were politically motivated and instituted over the objection of independent scientists, and similar bans are now being pushed by activists in the U.S. Should the EPA cave to political pressure, the long-term effect on global public health could be devastating.
The first ban was a “two year moratorium” on neonicotinoids, or “neonics,” perhaps the best new class of agricultural insecticide. Neonics are effective, easy to use, safe for farm workers, and because they can be used in a targeted, limited way, reduce the amount of chemical sprayed in the wider environment. You’d think that environmentalists would welcome these advancements, but you’d be wrong.
Environmentalists have long claimed, despite a dearth of evidence, that neonics are responsible for bee colony die-offs in the U.S. and Europe. Indeed research has just been published linking the tobacco ringspot virus to bee die-offs, not insecticides. It is a testament to the power of the anti-insecticide campaigns that the neonic narrative has been so widely accepted.
The recent EU ban was made over the objections of some member states, most notably the UK, that maintained the science simply did not support a ban. Subsequent evidence has emerged that scientists working for the European Food Safety Authority did not support the public statements put out about neonics. Their political masters overruled them, and it is most likely that the public statements swayed opinions and led to the ban.
The second example relates to so-called endocrine disrupters (EDs). The EU is in the process of adopting new regulations that would effectively set a zero tolerance approach to EDs based on the idea, pushed by activists, that EDs mimic the actions of hormones, thereby causing diseases such as cancer, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Intense activist pressure in the US is pushing a similar line, and the EPA already has an ED program. Yet almost everything we consume, from soy lattes to fruit salads, is filled with naturally occurring EDs that do us no harm. The synthetic EDs we may encounter at infinitesimally small quantities are swamped by those we happily consume naturally.
Mainstream scientists are outraged by ban. Some seventy scientists and editors of leading scientific journals wrote to the European Commission stating that the new regulations are based on “ignorance” and that they “def[y] common sense.” But so far environmentalist-driven politics continues to trump science – or any concern for the well being of those less fortunate, outside Europe, who will pay the full cost for these short-sighted policies.
We’ve seen this movie before.
Public health is still suffering from the blow inflicted by Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring and its dishonest vilification of DDT. The resulting bans in the US and around the world – instituted over the objection of independent scientists – restricted access to DDT for public health. To a large degree, anti-insecticide activism led to the withdrawal of funding for anti-malaria spraying programs, resulting in millions of needless deaths. Today funding for malaria control is up and DDT has been brought back in limited ways for malaria control, particularly in India and southern Africa, but no new class of insecticide for public health has emerged since the early 1980s. Despite the fact that billions of dollars flow into the elusive search for a malaria vaccine and new medicines, hardly anything is spent for new public health insecticides (minor funding by the Gates Foundation is little more than a charitable gesture).
I would institute a new rule for those regulators and politicians hoping to ban any modern chemical based on fears of ED or other junk science notions: Spend a year living the life of a subsistence farmer in a highly malarial region. Perhaps then they will begin to understand the value of modern insecticides and will learn to respect sound science and its importance in regulatory decision-making.
Tren is a director of Africa Fighting Malaria, a health advocacy group.