3 Billion and Counting

Since 1972, there has been a US ban on DDT. Why? Therein lies the mystery revealed in this movie. DDT was safely used in the 1940s and 1950s, eradicating malaria in the US and most of the western world. However, behind-the-scenes machinations led to the first FDA ban of a perfectly safe and effective insecticide.

Dr. Rutledge Taylor searched Africa, India and other remote third world countries to determine the truth about malaria, its death-count and the reasons why millions are still dying -- when a SAFE protection is cheap, effective and available. This movie shocked me, and also lifted my spirits! Something CAN be done to save lives, immediately!

The cinematography is beautiful. The theme song by Deborah Gibson is haunting, memorable. Drama, mystery and excitement -- all appear in this non-fictional showcase of TRUTH.

This movie was poorly researched and even more poorly delivered. The writer had simply not done his homework on the toxicology of the chemical and the spectrum of its use.

We analyzed DDT and did find it top be harmful but not in the way or to he degree discussed here. We reviewed publications going back to the early 1970s and ran numerous chemical tests here in our Florida labs. We do not know how the author came to his conclusions nor can we support them.

Separately, we cannot see any overt conflicts of interest in reviewing the movie's economic contributors. so we are truly perplexed.

A thought-provoking documentary. When someone spends his own money to make a film like this, you have to take him seriously.

Rutledge Taylor looks at the question of malaria, particularly in Africa and Asia, and asks questions that should have been asked a long time ago. Why have all the modern drugs, bed-net campaigns and modern insecticides not had a significant effect on the incidence of malaria? If the USA could eradicate malaria, why can't the same techniques be used in Africa? Dr Taylor quickly comes to the conclusion that DDT should be un-banned and used in Africa. So why was it banned in the first place? He finds that the US commission that looked into the safety and effectiveness of DDT, in the early 70s, declared it not only safe but an essential chemical. But their findings were overruled, without explanation. When he tries to investigate further, all official channels are closed off to him. We are left with the conclusion that someone, somewhere, is happy for Africa to suffer a million avoidable deaths every year.

This sounds as though the film is sombre, but in fact it is not. It gives hope for the future, although it is clear that top-down action is not going to happen on its own. A grass-roots, bottom-up movement must build, telling the politicians that enough is enough: a solution is available, cheap and effective, and the environmentalist dogma that led to the current situation must be jettisoned, otherwise the greatest genocide in human history will continue. Or maybe that is what someone, somewhere, wants?

A no compromises, no holds barred look at the agenda behind the banning of DDT. The movie depicts one doctor's search for the truth about DDT, perhaps the most hated and loved chemical on the planet. For 40 days he travels around the globe, looking for answers. What he finds isn't pretty. The claims made about DDT including that it is a cancer causing agent, that it is responsible for egg shell thinning and the reduction in eagle populations are all rebutted with hard, scientific evidence. The agenda behind the ban is openly revealed - politics and power. It would have been improved had many of the organisations and individuals who supported the banning of DDT, been willing to be interviewed - unfortunately they did not take up the offer. I wonder why not?

In conclusion, this is a movie that you will want to see again. There are moments of humour, moments of tragedy, moments of unspeakable suffering, and moments of uplift. Most of all, there are moments of insight. See it for yourself and reach your own conclusions about DDT.

DDT is a dangerous chemical that ends up and biomagnifies in the environment. DDT and its cousin DDE are not acutely toxic to humans but they are passed from human to human via mother's milk and they are stored in fatty tissue in babies. It is foolish to assume that a ban on DDT is responsible for the death of 3 billion people due to malaria. DDT was not banned in many places Africa and Asia and it is continued to be used but with less effect because mosquitoes have acquired immunity to DDT. The eradication of malaria in the US and Europe was due to improved standards of living, better protection, removal of habitat sources for mosquitoes and better medical treatment. In the US, malaria was in many places eradicated before DDT arrived on the scene. The eradication of malaria is tied to economic conditions and improvement of living standards and not to the spraying of DDT.