Thanks to swamp drainage efforts that predated the wetlands preservation mania, Washington, DC, is no longer itself a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Still, the regulatory bog could contribute to a worldwide plague of the most lethal kind of malaria.

At present, malaria is raging at unprecedented new levels. Worldwide, about 300 million people are infected annually. A report by the Institute of Medicine warns that the US population is also threatened by the ``decay of global malaria control and the invasion of the parasite into previously disease-free areas, coupled with increasing frequency of visits to such areas by American citizens.'' Most US cases are currently concentrated near San Diego, but malaria-carrying mosquitoes are ubiquitous in California (American Medical News, 11/4/91).

In March, the World Health Organization announced that a new strain of falciparum malaria, resistant to all drugs used in standard treatment, had emerged in Cambodia. The fear of spread is acute because the first of about 22,000 soldiers and civilians assigned to UN peacekeeping forces are now entering the region (Boyce Rensberger, Washington Post, 3/17/92).

The strain is resistant to chloroquine, Fansidar, and mefloquine (the newest drug). The only treatment available is a combination of quinine and tetracycline. The usual chloroquine prophylaxis prescribed for soldiers and travelers is a ``waste of time,'' according to a CDC official.

Soldiers infected in Cambodia could carry the strain back to their homelands across the globe, wherever the Anopheles mosquito is found. The prospect is causing grave concern among military leaders from developing nations, for example, Chile.

To minimize infection rates, the use of insect repellent/insecticides is imperative. The most effective available agent is permethrin. Clothing that is sprayed to saturation or immersed, then dried, becomes insect-repellent for the life of the garment. Permethrin is being issued to US troops but is not available to troops of less affluent nations. Additionally, the instructions given to US troops are seriously deficient, according to Cresson Kearny, author of Nuclear War Survival Skills, who expedited the adoption of DDT by US military forces and was the first to supply American troops with ``612'' insect repellent just prior to World War II.

The EPA-required labels on cans of permethrin warn, in capital letters: ``DO NOT TREAT UNDERWEAR OR CAP.'' Yet mosquitoes, sand flies, and other harmful arthropods are attracted to the soldier's face by exhaled gases, and the skin near eyes and lips cannot be protected by applications of DEET or other repellents. Thus, it is especially important to kill insects that land on headgear.

The reason for this prohibition is difficult to fathom. Permethrin has such a low vapor pressure that even insects cannot smell it. (That is why they land on treated garments and are killed.) Over years, civilians have worn permethrin-treated clothing in contact with extensive areas of bare skin, without reporting skin irritations.

The EPA-mandated method of applying permethrin is to spray it in an outdoor area, wearing a respirator. The severe discomfort occasioned by wearing a respirator (gas mask) in a humid tropical climate is likely to lead soldiers to do a hurried and inadequate job. And if any detectable quantity of permethrin is sprayed on the ground, an enormous fine may be imposed. (An Environmental Impact Statement is needed, as rain might wash the permethrin into a stream, and fish might be killed.)

Cresson Kearny is presently investigating more effective, less expensive methods of applying permethrin to garments and is urging the US military to provide better instructions to US troops. He is also supplying information to troops of other nations and urging that WHO inform all UN troops about the need for proper application of permethrin. On April 30, 1992, Captain Marcos Concha of the Chilean Navy thanked him for information supplied for Chilean peacekeepers now in Cambodia or about to leave their homeland for that disease-ridden nation. The materials included photographs of application methods tested by Mr. Kearny along with technical papers on permethrin.

DDP is submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to the Environmental Protection Agency, seeking the rationale for their policies. EPA zealotry to ``protect'' the environment against hypothetical hazards could have an immediate, highly visible cost: worldwide dissemination of a lethal, poorly treatable disease.

In a letter to Rep. Andy Ireland and Senators Bob Graham and Connie Mack, family physician W.E. Manry, Jr., MD, writes:

``Forty years ago, we frequently saw infestations of head lice, body lice, crab lice, and even occasional malaria, but within a few years all of these disorders essentially disappeared from the US, incontestably the result of DDT.

``There was about a 20-year interval of major freedom from such concerns, but during this time the ecologists agitated more and more about the dangers of DDT. The crowning piece of evidence was a study from Southern California reporting that the brown pelicans were being wiped out by DDT. Their proof was that examination of the nests in the cliffs of Baja California revealed many broken pelican eggs....Some years later, a scientific journal reported research showing that the broken eggs were the result of the investigators frightening the mother birds with their helicopters. It was the fluttering of the birds' wings, not the thinning of the shells, that caused the broken eggs. Of course, this story has never achieved attention in the media.''

In responding to a letter from Senator Graham, Linda J. Fisher, Assistant EPA Administrator, denied the significance of the EPA's action: ``While the US ban did affect domestic distribution, sale, and use of DDT, it did not preclude DDT's manufacture or availability'' [emphasis added]. [Check your local drugstore.] Still, the ``EPA believes that the environmental risks that DDT is known to pose greatly outweigh its benefits.'' She also stated that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act ``requires EPA to base pesticide registration on evidence that use of a pesticide does not pose an unreasonable risk of adverse effects to people or to the environment when used in accordance with EPA-approved labels instructions [sic.]''

How high a standard of evidence is required to prove a negative?

Alexander King, President of the Club of Rome, who played a very important role in introducing DDT in Britain, writes: ``It turned out to be the best insecticide every known....At the end of the war, I received a letter from Lord Mountbatten declaring that this chemical had saved him three-quarters of a million casualties.''

``Being responsible for this made me a very wicked person in the eyes of the Greens.'' Later, concerns about DDT toxicity were raised, but ``my own doubts came when DDT was introduced for civilian use. In Guyana, within two years it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it has greatly added to the population problem.''