Many of those busiest promoting GM also promote climate change scepticism, oppose rerstrictions on smoking, and support various other causes including DDT use.

The excerpts from the following article include a list of DDT promoters - most of them will be all too familiar to anyone watching the lobbyists active in the GM debate
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DDT and Malaria: Setting the Record Straight
by Kristin S. Schafer http://www.panna.org/magazine/summer2006/inDepthDDT.html

[FROM THE SIDE BAR]

Who's Promoting DDT?

A handful of advocates have mounted an aggressive campaign accusing environmental advocates of racism and promoting widespread use of DDT in Africa. Who are they?

Congress on Racial Equality (CORE): CORE, founded as an advocacy group for African-Americans, played an early leading role in the U.S. civil rights movement. In the late 1960s, CORE moved to the far right of the political spectrum.[1] CORE's 2005 Martin Luther King celebration honored "Green Revolution" [2] scientist Norman Borlaug and Karl Rove, George W. Bush's election strategist, recently under criminal investigation for his role in "outing" a CIA agent whose husband disagreed with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Hugh Grant, Chairman and CEO of Monsanto, the first producer of DDT in the U.S. and one of CORE's corporate partners, [3] chaired the reception. In 2005 CORE produced a Monsanto-funded video called 'Voice from Africa' promoting the use of genetically modified crops in Africa.

Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM): Established in 2000 and based in Washington DC and South Africa, AFM "seeks to educate people about the scourge of malaria and the political economy of malaria control." Its staff members have current or former links with a range of rightwing or free-market think tanks critical of the environmental movement, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Institute of Economic Affairs and Tech Central Station. [4] [5]

Paul Driessen: Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for CORE and for the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a "Wise Use" think tank that includes Ron Arnold - a man who has called publicly for the killing of environmentalists [6] and has been a spokesman for Dow and Union Carbide. [7]Dreissen has consulted as Senior Fellow for several anti-environmental, corporate funded "think tanks," including the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and Frontiers of Freedom. He edited the book Rules for Corporate Warriors and authored Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, a 2003 book asserting that environmentalists are responsible for poverty in developing countries. He has also received funding from EXXON Mobile to spin information as a climate change skeptic. [8]

Roy Innis: A member of CORE since 1963, Innis became national chairman in1970. In the 1980s he supported Reagan administration policies and was a vocal critic of Jesse Jackson. [9] He is known for controversial stances on racial equality, including hailing as a "bold step" the deportation of 50,000 Asians from Uganda by president Idi Amin in the 1970s. [10] Innis is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association.

Niger Innis: Roy's son, Niger Innis is the national spokesman for CORE. He also serves as an Advisory Committee member for Project 21, an initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research - a conservative free market foundation with a strongly anti-environmental agenda. [11]

Henry Miller: Miller is a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. He has called for reintroduction of DDT in the U.S. to combat West Nile Virus. [12] Miller is also on the Scientific Advisory Board of the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington think tank focused on global warming supported in part by the Exxon Education Foundation and American Standard Company. [13]

DDT is in the news again, promoted by a handful of aggressive advocates as a silver bullet solution to malaria in Africa. The DDT promoters' story goes something like this:

Malaria is killing people in Africa, but environmentalists care more about saving birds and are blocking the use of DDT to save people. DDT wiped out malaria in the U.S., but is now being denied to Africans. DDT is the best way to fight malaria. There are no heath effects from DDT exposure, and its use should be widespread.

The only accurate part of this story is that malaria does kill millions of people in Africa every year, a preventable public health tragedy of catastrophic proportions. The rest of the story is false, but it is being pitched aggressively and effectively by well-funded sources to mainstream media outlets and members of Congress. A New York Times columnist even titled a recent article "What the World Needs Now is DDT." [1]

"DDT is a short-sighted response with long term consequences," says Paul Saoke, M.D., Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility in Kenya. "While it may be effective in some cases where mosquitoes haven't yet developed resistance, it won't solve the malaria health crisis. Technical expertise and better malaria control methods already exist in Africa. It's only resources and political will that are lacking."

Public health experts, government officials and environmentalists around the world support the approach to DDT taken by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The treaty targets DDT (along with eleven other dangerous chemicals) for global phase out, but allows exemptions for malaria control in countries that request it. This approach recognizes that in some cases, DDT can be an effective temporary tool for malaria control. Most importantly, the treaty also mobilizes desperately needed funds for malaria control and prevention, with an emphasis on safer, more effective strategies that don't further jeopardize the health of current and future generations.

Here are some basic facts to dispel the new myths about DDT:
FOR DDT PROMOTERS' MYTHS, GO TO
http://www.panna.org/magazine/summer2006/inDepthDDT.html