Strake Jesuit College Prep.

1. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium

2. What does the Lord require of you except that you act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:8

3. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium "Politics, Justice, and Science" A Study Case of DDT

4. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane DDT

5. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium • What do you think of when you hear DDT? • Why use DDT as a point of reference? • -Why this case? • -What are my credentials?

6. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium • Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was first synthesized, for no purpose, in 1874 by German chemist Othmar Zeidler. • In 1939, Dr. Paul Müller independently produced DDT. Müller found that DDT quickly killed insects. • The first large-scale use of DDT occurred in 1943 when 500 gallons of DDT were produced by Merck & Company and delivered to Italy to help squelch a rapidly spreading epidemic of louse-borne typhus. Later in 1943, the U.S. Army issued small tin boxes of 10 percent DDT dust to its soldiers around the world who used it to kill body lice, head lice and crab lice. • Müller won the Nobel Prize in 1948 for his work on DDT. • Peak usage occurred in 1962, when 80 million kilograms of DDT were used and 82 million kilograms produced. • Othmar Zeidler (1874). "Verbindungen von Chloral mit Brom- und Chlorbenzol". Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft 7 (2): 1180 - 1181. doi:10.1002/cber.18740070278.

7. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Malaria "Bad air" Spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. World Health issue Jesuit Involvement

8. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Quinine Jesuit's Bark, also called Peruvian Bark indigenous in the Western Andes of South America First described and introduced by Jesuit priests who did missionary work in Peru.

9. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium http://www.cdc.gov/Malaria/facts.htm CDC Prevention and Treatment Four Nobel prizes have been awarded for work associated with malaria, to Sir Ronald Ross (1902), Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (1907), Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1927) and Paul Hermann Muller (1948). Two important currently used antimalarial drugs are derived from plants whose medicinal values had been noted for centuries: artemisinin (4th century) and quinine from the cinchona tree (South America, 17th century). The average cost for potentially life-saving treatments of malaria are estimated to be US$0.13 for chloroquine, US$0.14 for sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and US$2.68 for a 7-day course of quinine.

10. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT... In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable." [Bull World Health Organ 1998;76(1):11-6]

11. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium WHO World Health Organization commenced a program to eradicate malaria worldwide, relying largely on DDT. Though this program was initially highly successful worldwide (reducing mortality rates from 192 per 100,000 to a low of 7 per 100,000), resistance soon emerged in many insect populations as a consequence of widespread agricultural use of DDT. In many areas, early victories against malaria were partially or completely reversed, and in some cases rates of transmission even increased. The program was successful in eliminating malaria only in areas with "high socio-economic status, well-organized healthcare systems, and relatively less intensive or seasonal malaria transmission". • http://blumberg-serv.bio.uci.edu/past%20teaching/bio2B-sp2005/DDT-Amy.ppt • Chapin G, Wasserstrom R (1981). "Agricultural production and malaria resurgence in Central America and India". Nature 293 (5829): 181–5. doi:10.1038/293181a0. PMID 7278974. • Sadasivaiah, Shobha; Tozan, Yesim & Breman, Joel G. (2007), "Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) for Indoor Residual Spraying in Africa: How Can It Be Used for Malaria Control?", Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 77 (Suppl 6): 249–263

12. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium http://www.cdc.gov/Malaria/facts.htm CDC Malaria in the United States 1,337 cases of malaria, including 8 deaths, were reported for 2002 in the United States, even though malaria has been eradicated in this country since the early 1950's Of the 1,337 malaria cases reported for 2002 in the United States, all but five were imported, i.e., acquired in malaria-endemic countries. Between 1957 and 2003, in the United States, 63 outbreaks of locally transmitted mosquito-borne malaria have occurred; in such outbreaks, local mosquitoes become infected by biting persons carrying malaria parasites (acquired in endemic areas) and then transmit malaria to local residents.

13. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium http://www.cdc.gov/Malaria/facts.htm CDC Malaria Worldwide Forty-one percent of the world's population live in areas where malaria is transmitted. Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In areas of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths per minute. In 2002, malaria was the fourth cause of death in children in developing countries. Malaria caused 10.7% of all children's deaths in developing countries.

14. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium

15. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Malaria Zone

16. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium So, What happened to DDT? Why was it banned?

17. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium

18. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson predicted a cancer epidemic that could hit "practically 100 percent" of the human population. This prediction never materialized, no doubt because it was based on a 1961 epidemic of liver cancer in middle-aged rainbow trout - an outbreak later attributed to aflatoxin, a toxic by-product of certain fungi.

19. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium The 1970s ban in the U.S. took place amid a climate of public mistrust of the scientific and industrial community, following such fiascoes as Agent Orange and use of the hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES). In addition, the placement of the bald eagle on the endangered species list was also a strong factor leading to its being banned in the United States.

20. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Population control advocates blamed DDT for increasing third world population. In the 1960s, World Health Organization authorities believed there was no alternative to the overpopulation problem but to assure than up to 40 percent of the children in poor nations would die of malaria. As an official of the Agency for International Development stated of developing polulations, "Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing."

21. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium The environmental movement used DDT as a means to increase their power. Charles Wurster, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, commented, "If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before.. In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT." [Desowitz, RS. 1992. Malaria Capers, W.W. Norton & Company]

22. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium William Ruckelshaus, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who made the ultimate decision to ban DDT in 1972, was a member of the Environmental Defense Fund.

23. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife." Overruling the EPA hearing examiner, EPA administrator Ruckelshaus banned DDT in 1972. Ruckelshaus never attended a single hour of the seven months of EPA hearings on DDT. Ruckelshaus' aides reported he did not even read the transcript of the EPA hearings on DDT. [Sweeney, EM. 1972. EPA Hearing Examiner's recommendations and findings concerning DDT hearings, April 25, 1972 (40 CFR 164.32, 113 pages). Summarized in Barrons (May 1, 1972) and Oregonian (April 26, 1972)]

24. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium • Many nations follow example (EU) • Others are forced by the UN, WHO, and U.S. • Never outlawed for health use • But aid was tied to a total ban • Mexico was forced to stop DDT production for NAFTA

25. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Extremely high doses have proven to thin raptor eggs and decrease population. Agricultural use has proven to force otherwise disadvantageous mutations to the surface. (resistance) No connection has ever been found to cancer.

26. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium • What must we do then? • What other issues involve the • How can we as educators make a politicization of science? difference?

27. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Advocacy and activism Science Politics

28. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium Science Equip and Inform Professional options Advocacy and activism Provide the skills (theology, science, reflection, etc.) Professional options (NGO's, Law, etc.) Politics Duty to be informed voter Professional politics and government

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30. Strake Jesuit College Prep. Social Justice Colloquium