On European Parliament's plans for pyrethroids and organophosphates

Insecticide or Suffering? By Gilbert Ross, M.D.
American Council on Science and Health, Sunday, January 18, 2009

Next week, the European Parliament will debate stringent regulation of a number of effective pesticides. It is apparently too much to expect a sense of shame from European public health officials and their activist "environmental" collaborators when the subject of chemical pesticides is raised.

What about some sense of history? Or compassion? Not likely, as the European Parliament votes next Tuesday on a proposal to tighten the already onerous restrictions on many common insecticides. If this regulation is passed, the consequences will be devastating -- not in Europe, but in Africa and Asia.

Over the decades from World War II through the late 1960s, widespread use of the potent and safe insecticide DDT led to eradication of many insect-borne diseases in Europe and North America. But at the doorstep of global malaria control, DDT became the poster child for environmental degradation, thanks to Rachel Carson's polemic, Silent Spring.

Based on no scientific evidence of human health effects, the newly established U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT, and its European counterparts followed suit. Subsequently, more than 1 million people died each year from malaria -- but not in America or Europe. Rather, most of the victims were children and women in Africa and Asia.

Today, even while acknowledging that indoor spraying of small amounts of DDT would help prevent many deaths and millions of illnesses, nongovernmental organizations continue -- with great success -- to pressure African governments not to allow its use. In order to stave off such pressure and be allowed to sell their agricultural products in Europe, African public health officials cave, and their children die needlessly. Yet, rather than learning the tragic lesson of the DDT ban, the European Union leadership in concert with activists wants to extend this unscientific ban to other effective insecticides, including pyrethroids and organophosphates -- further undercutting anti-malarial efforts.

The currently debated regulation would engender a paradigm shift in the regulation of chemicals, from a risk-based approach -- based on real world exposures from agricultural applications -- to a hazard-based standard, derived from laboratory tests and having little or no basis in reality as far as human health is concerned. Of course, this is fine with anti-chemical zealots in the activist camps. Their concern is bringing down chemical companies in the name of "the environment" -- tough luck if African children have to be sacrificed to their agenda, as was the case with DDT (which is still banned in the EU and not under consideration in the current debate).

Further consequences involve discontinuation of currently used insecticides, leading to higher prices and decreased availability of these chemicals, which would worsen food shortages and increasing malnutrition. Moreover, farmers and marketers of agricultural products in the world's poorest regions would withdraw from using restricted pesticides out of fear of discrimination against their exports in the EU, with similar consequences for farmers' yields, income and local nutrition. Such bans would, in effect, become nontariff trade barriers against poor African farmers.

The banned insecticides will not be easily replaced -- researchers in this area of chemistry will take note of the new, stringent standards and decide the potential return on their investment is not worth the effort of passing through the regulatory hurdles. Development of newer, more effective pesticides will come to a halt.

Most poignantly, the fight against malaria and other insect-borne tropical diseases would take another hit, with resulting illness, disability and death disproportionally affecting children under five and pregnant women.

And what, after all, is the "danger" of these chemicals being debated? In fact, there is no evidence to support the activists' contention that insecticides pose a health threat to humans. Even DDT, one of the most studied chemicals of all time, has been conclusively shown to be safe for humans at all conceivable levels of exposure sufficient to control malaria and save millions of lives.

So these new restrictions would have no benefit, yet contribute to much suffering. Is it asking too much for someone in power in the European Union to care?

Gilbert Ross, M.D., is medical director of the American Council on Science and Health in New York City.

Redefining France’s Role in Afghanistan: Need for better Strategy

Redefining France’s Role in Afghanistan: Need for better Strategy, by Guillem Monsonis
IDSA, Jan 22, 2009

In a recent poll for the newspaper Le Parisien, 55 per cent of the French public expressed their disagreement with the presence of the French military in Afghanistan. A number of political and strategic mistakes contributed to this difficult situation being faced by Sarkozy’s government regarding the war in Afghanistan. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that 10 soldiers of the 8th RPIMA lost their lives in the Uzbin sector in late August after a brilliantly orchestrated ambush by elements of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami which shocked the country.

France is involved in the Afghan theatre in both the US led Enduring Freedom operation and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2002. Their main mission has been to secure and monitor the Kabul region and to train the Afghan National Army (ANA). However, very little is known about the missions performed by the Special Forces between 2003 and 2007 in the eastern region close to the Pakistan border. The French Navy led the operation Heracles with the Charles de Gaulle nuclear aircraft carrier battle group in which Super Etendard Modernises (SEM) aircraft performed strikes, intelligence gathering and show of force in support of the US troops on the ground.

Islamist strategists perfectly understand what the Achilles’ heel of democratic societies is and use a deadly efficient strategy using all the available non-conventional assets, especially the media, in their asymmetric war against western hi-tech armies. The pictures published by the weekly magazine Paris Match showing the Taliban holding several belongings of the killed French troops gave a severe blow to the already weak French popular support to the war. Recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that Western public opinion is now extremely reluctant to pay the price of blood for their government’s wars. The sequel to the idealistic theory of ‘zero dead war’, which was popularized during the Gulf War (1991) and NATO’s campaign in Kosovo (1999), seems to have survived in post-modern European countries’ perception of war. The sacrosanct ‘right to life’ promoted in developed democratic countries is hardly compatible with long term asymmetric wars against well trained and motivated fighters. In this respect, democracies suffer a relative disadvantage when fighting against fundamentalist militants or authoritarian regimes. In a recent interview, the French Chief of the Defense Staff, General Jean Louis Gergolin, complained that “war has deserted our minds". This apathy towards war is doubled by a negative perception of defence expenditures which is seen as a big waste of public money. But as the famous French writer Pierre Corneille wrote, to win without risk is to triumph without glory: France has to accept that the price for defeating international terrorism and stabilizing Afghanistan will be high, and will need a strong involvement on the ground. How should the French government solve the dilemma of rallying public opinion which is ‘proud of its army but worried for its children’?

Better communication may be the key. Hervé Morin, the controversial French Minister of Defence, refused to use the word ‘war’ to qualify Afghanistan’s operations during a debate in the National Assembly. The French government seems to be exactly reproducing the same mistakes made at the height of the storm in Algeria 40 years ago when the word ‘war’ was replaced by ‘events’. Therefore, Government’s communication on the role of Armed Forces used to emphasise mostly on their humanitarian and developmental duties. The concept of the ‘reconstruction of Afghanistan’ is often used to explain to the general public what the French troops are doing there. This overemphasis on non-combatant activities hides the ground realities the troops are facing in their everyday missions. It was predictable that with the decision to deploy troops in the eastern part of Afghanistan (before this, France was mostly operating in the Kabul region), the exposure of the troops to militant attacks would increase. The government must clearly explain the reasons for the war effort and insist on its long term benefits, as most of the French just don’t see any relation between France’s homeland security and the operations being conducted in Afghanistan, despite Sarkozy’s recent efforts to link both aspects. Explaining that the calm witnessed for a few years in France may not last, as demonstrated by the recent attempt by the terrorists to place an explosive device in a store in Paris, it needs to be emphasized that the success of the war may be crucial in securing the country and therefore it should be a priority.

In order to achieve this objective, France needs to face another harsh reality: the sustained reduction in French military capabilities. Means simply do not match ambitions. The recent publication of the White Book (Livre Blanc) on defence and national security generated a stormy debate on French military capabilities and objectives. The reduction of 54,000 positions in the armed forces and the resizing of the expeditionary force strength (from 50,000 to 30,000 troops) have been heavily criticized. The lack of intelligence gathering capabilities, especially helicopters and UAVs, is especially problematic in Afghan operations. Without the support of those means, the rigid and predictable convoys of APCs are especially vulnerable to heavily armed attacks by guerrillas with a good knowledge of the terrain. The lack of such capabilities was recently raised by the armed forces who complained about the poor political support Sarkozy has displayed towards the French military establishment. The White Book on defence tries to overcome those gaps and suggest the acquisition of a strong UAV and satellite force by doubling the expenditure in the space military sector.

While facing an economic slowdown generated by the global economic crisis, France would also need more aerial assets to support land forces. But Paris only deployed 3 multi-role fighter/bombers Rafale F2, 3 Mirage 2000D bombers and aerial tankers. If the deployment of the 4+ generation Rafale was good news in May 2007 (it can carry 6 GBU-12 bombs versus 2 for the Mirage 2000D), the latest French fighters need to be assisted by the Mirage for targeting because they are not suited with a Damocles laser targeting pod. This capability will be acquired in 2012, with the new standard F3. There is also a lack of transport helicopters deployed in the theatre of operations, and Paris is planning to deploy 3 additional helicopters (1 EC-725 Caracal, 2 Gazelles SA-342 and probably some Tiger combat helicopters). This capability gap contributed, along with poor co-ordination between the different units on the ground, to the disastrous patrol mission in Uzbin, where no reinforcements were available for more than one hour.

For France, the stakes are high. It is not only about defeating the nebula of international terrorism; it is also a question of international status. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, France faces strong pressure from several European Members of Parliament who want to replace the French seat by a European one. Paris has to show its capability to deal with international issues like a great power and justify its political primacy in Europe. While France is close to reintegrating with NATO’s integrated command structure, its achievements in the Afghan theatre and the means Paris is able to mobilize will be a strong determinant of its future capacity for influence inside the alliance structures and will also determine the promotion of a still embryonic European defence. The results of this policy will not only be crucial for France’s Grandeur, but will also be indicative of the future role for middle sized powers in the post-cold war international system.

Guillem Monsonis, Researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics, is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

PPI: Asia Spends More on Research than Europe

Asia Spends More on Research than Europe
Progressive Policy Institute, January 21, 2009

The Numbers:

Spending on scientific research & development, 2007:
- North America: ~ $393 billion
- Europe: ~ $290 billion
- Asia: ~ $320 billion


What They Mean:

India's medieval mathematicians invented the zero and modern numerals around 500 AD. Engineers in neighboring China dreamed up paper, explosives, the compass, and movable type. But the 17th-century Scientific Revolution came not in Asia but the west, and so did the 20th century's medicines, airplanes, radio, computers, spacecraft, TV sets, and telecom gear.
Why? Albert Einstein, wondering about the issue in 1922, blamed Asia's high populations and low labor costs for slowing invention. ("In both India and China the low price of labor has stood in the way of the development of machinery.") A half-century later, British history-of-Chinese-science master Joseph Needham speculated that Europe had jumped ahead by inventing capitalism, which meant competition among businesses for customers and therefore innovation. The question remains interesting -- but only in an historical sense, because Asian science has roared back to life.

Asia's most sophisticated economies have been among the world's heaviest researchers for years. Japan's $130 billion in R&D spending amounted to 3.2 percent of Japanese GDP, far above the rich world's 2.1 percent average and topped only by Israel and Sweden. (The United States was at 2.7 percent, Australia 2.2 percent, Canada 2.0 percent, and Europe 1.7 percent.) Korea's $38 billion in research spending outstripped Britain's $35 billion, and made up 3.0 percent of GDP. Taiwan and Singapore are also well above the world's rich-country average.

Science is reviving in the two giants as well. Chinese research spending, relative to GDP, has doubled in a decade from 0.8 percent to 1.5 percent. In dollar terms, China's $85 billion spending ranks third or fourth in the world (depending on exchange rates), roughly at par with Germany. India's science spending is about $24 billion and about 0.8 percent of GDP. And within the last three or four years -- likely for the first time in four centuries -- Asia's research spending topped Europe's. The United States still tops the world, at $370 billion to Asia's $320 billion and Europe's $290 billion ... but for how long?


Further Reading:

Is Asia inventing, or just spending? In 1980, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, European researchers filed twice as many U.S. patent applications as Asians. By 2007, Japan's 79,000 applications alone outnumbered the 69,000 from all European countries combined, and Asia's total nearly doubled Europe. Korea's 23,000 applications were barely behind Germany's second-place 23,600; Taiwan, with 18,500, was above both Britain and France. India and China still file fewer patents than the top-tier Asian technological economies and the big European states, but are rising fast. Chinese and Indian researchers accounted for 30 patent applications in 1980, 900 in 2000, and 5,300 in 2007. The PTO patent records: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/appl_yr.pdf


Science in Asia links:

Tokyo-based Asia Science and Technology Seminar trains young Asian scientists:http://www.jistec.or.jp/ASTS/asts_e.html

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speaks to the Science Congress in Shillong on India's high-tech future:http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=46369

The Robotic Association of Japan insists that soft, weak, vulnerable humans have nothing to fear from its metallic, computerized and remorseless creations:http://www.rsj.or.jp/index_e.html

Korea's Ministry of Knowledge Economy (until last year the Min. of Commerce & Industry), perhaps missing the real threat, proposes an ethics charter meant to prevent human abuse of androids:http://www.korea.net/news/news/newsView.asp?part=100&serial_no=20080228018

China's Science and Technology Ministry:http://www.most.gov.cn/eng/

Taiwan's National Science Council announces bio-tech parks, cryptography, license-plate recognition, and more:http://web1.nsc.gov.tw/mp.aspx?mp=7 ASEAN's Science and Technology Network:http://www.astnet.org/

And San Diego's school system instructs America's youth on classical Chinese technology:
www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/chinin/chinintg.htm


R&D around the world:

High end -- Israel is the world's most science-intensive economy, devoting 4.7 percent of GDP to R&D. Sweden is next at 3.7 percent, followed by Japan and Finland at 3.4 percent. South Korea ranks fifth 3.2 percent, with Switzerland sixth. Japan's commitment has risen from 2.0 percent in 1980, and 2.7 percent in the mid-1990s. America's 2.7 percent remains high on international rankings, but -- in contrast to Asian economies -- has not grown since the mid-1980s. American businesses spend heavily on R&D, and U.S. government investment in life sciences and medicine is high. The lag comes from low public funding for research on physics, aerospace, chemistry, and other hard sciences. The National Science Foundation has data on American research spending and other science matters over time:http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08317/
And the OECD counts research totals by country for its members plus Argentina, China, Israel, the EU, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Romania, Russia, and Taiwan:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/44/41850733.pdf

Can do better -- The luminaries of European science would not be pleased. Galileo would blush to see Italy's low 1.1 percent of GDP; Archimedes would likewise fume to see Greece spending only 0.6 percent. Newton would be startled to learn that Korea spends more on research than Britain. (The U.K. government research budget is high, but British companies apparently do less research than some of their rivals.) Copernicus might feel worst of all, with Poland the only advanced country to have cut its R&D budgets in this decade. The highest research commitments are in Scandinavia and Germany. The European Science Agency:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=1

Developing world -- Latin America, the Middle East apart from Israel, Africa, and Southeast Asia are well behind East Asia as research powers. The World Bank's 2008 Development Indicators book finds the Latin average at 0.6 percent, led by Brazil's 0.9 percent. Tunisia is the Muslim world's most research-intensive state at 1.0 percent of GDP, followed by Malaysia, Morocco, and Turkey at 0.7 percent; Uganda's 0.8 percent and South Africa 0.9 percent are Africa's highest rates. Singapore tops Southeast Asia at a rich-world 2.3 percent, but larger ASEAN members could be doing more: the Philippines and Indonesia are at 0.1 percent, Thailand 0.3 percent and Vietnam 0.2 percent. Brazil's 0.9 percent is Latin America's highest rate, with Chile, Argentina, and Mexico next at 0.5 percent.