PAN International and other public health and environmental experts organized a protest in Budapest of the September 2006 WHO announcement giving DDT a“clean bill of health” for malaria control. We demanded that WHO reverse their position, and called on the hundreds of governmental officials gathered in Budapest to join in this demand.
Eloise Tounis, PAN UK; Barbara Dinham, PAN-UK; Rico Euipidiou, Groundwork South Africa; Manny Calonzo, GAIA, Philippines; Sylvani Mng'anya, AGENDA, Tanzania; Meriel Watts, PAN New Zealand; A. Lemos, Justica Ambiental, Mozambique; Henry Diouf, PAN Africa; Romy Quijano, PAN Philippines; Jayakumar Chelaton, Thanal, India
Budapest Meetings
Health and environmental experts from around the world gathered in Budapest, Hungary for nine days in September 2006 for two very important meetings on toxics protections.
The first meeting was a General Assembly of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) a global network of over 400 organizations working on the elimination of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and implementation of the international Stockholm Convention (POPs treaty). At the IPEN strategy meeting, members formed a coalition response to the September 15, 2006 decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote spraying of DDT, one of the POPs chemicals, inside people's homes in Africa for malaria control.
The next meeting was with the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety involving hundreds of government officials and policy makers from around the world as well as public health advocates. There, more groups spoke out. PAN International and others are also contacting WHO's board of directors directly, demanding that they reverse their promotion of widespread DDT use.
Protesting WHO's DDT Promotion
Paul Saoke, MD, Executive Director of Physicians for SocialResponsibility in Kenya, speaks to the health effects of DDT and availability of alternatives.
Dr. Romeo Quijano, President of PAN Philippines and Sarogeni Rengam, Regional Coordinator of PAN Asia-Pacific issued this response to WHO.
PANNA's Medha Chandra speaks with a reporter in Budapest.At the IFCS meeting, this joint statement from PAN International, IPEN and the International Society of Doctors for the Environment was delivered to delegates.
From New Zealand, Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa & Safe Food Campaign issued this response.
At the meeting, PANNA distributed copies of its recent fact sheet “DDT & Malaria: Setting the Record Straight.”
Other documents prepared by PAN International and distributed at IFCS meeting:
- PAN INTERNATIONAL BRIEFING PAPER ON THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
PAN International demands the application of the precautionary principle in national and international pesticide regulatory mechanisms
- POSICIÓN OFICIAL DE PAN SOBRE EL PRINCIPIO DE PRECAUCIÓN [ESP]
(PAN's Position On the Precautionary Principle in Spanish)
(Full paper in Spanish will be available later) - POVERTY AND PESTICIDES: PROTECTING HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Paper Presented by Sarojeni V. Rengam,
Executive Director, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific
To the IFCS Forum V, Budapest, Hungary
25 September 2006 - STATEMENT BY THE PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK (PAN) INTERNATIONAL
Presented to the Fifth Session of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) during the Plenary Session on the Future of the IFCS - WHO IRRESPONSIBLE PROMOTING DDT
Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa & Safe Food Campaign
Media release 27 September 2006
