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  3. Next week, the European Parliament will debate stringent regulation of a numb

Next week, the European Parliament will debate stringent regulation of a numb

游客2025-03-31  0
问题    Next week, the European Parliament will debate stringent regulation of a number of effective pesticides. If this regulation is passed, the consequences will be devastating.
   In the 1960s, widespread use of the potent and safe insecticide DDT led to eradication of many insect-borne diseases in Europe and North America. But based on no scientific evidence of human health effects, the 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, African public health officials cave, and their children die needlessly. Yet, rather than learning the tragic lesson of the DDT ban, the European Union wants to extend this unscientific ban to other effective insecticides, including pyrethroids and organophosphates — further undercutting antimalarial 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. 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).
   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 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. [br] When the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in the 1960s, in Europe______.
选项 A、the governments questioned the ban’s effects
B、the environmental authorities also banned it
C、researchers paid more attention to the chemical
D、the general public showed support for the ban
答案 B
解析 本题是推理题，考点在第二段第二句的后半部分：the U．S．Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT，and its European counterparts followed suit．这里的European counterparts指的是与美国环保机构相对应的欧洲环境保护部门。
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