New York Times examines DDT use in Uganda

May 20 2011

"In the Apac region of Uganda, the United States focused on two conflicting agendas: developing organic farming and eradicating malaria, ultimately affecting the livelihoods of tens of thousands of farmers. ... Now Uganda's constitutional court is expected to hear a case brought by a Ugandan environmental organization against the government that asserts that officials failed to meet W.H.O. standards for using DDT, including failure to properly prepare the local population," the New York Times writes in a story looking at the challenges associated with the use of DDT for malaria control in Uganda.

Organic farm companies operating in Uganda say they lost a majority of their suppliers immediately after DDT was sprayed in early 2008, with more than 65,000 farmers affected by the insecticide. The farm companies sued the Ugandan government "and a high court issued a temporary injunction on the use of DDT in 2008, but the case was later dismissed," the newspaper reports. "The American government says it has not returned to using DDT in Uganda since the court ruling, even though the Ugandan government has made numerous references to reinstituting the chemical," the New York Times writes (Kron, 5/18).