Fiona knows this all too well. She has endured repeated bouts with malaria, lost many family members to the disease, and almost died again this week from malaria complicated by pneumonia and intestinal illness that are also prevalent across Africa.

Chloroquine and other treatments can be nearly as awful as the disease, and may not help. Bednets are themselves impregnated with insecticides, and are only a partial solution. So they’re not exactly healthy, organic alternatives to DDT or Icon. And lest we forget, chemotherapy drugs have nasty, proven side effects. Should we ban them, too – along with other potent drugs, and the insecticides that keep mosquitoes and West Nile virus at bay here in the States?

And yet, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation, Cedar Tree Foundation, California Endowment and other shortsighted donors continue to lavish hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on these radical groups – enabling them to continue their lethal lies, tirades, pressure tactics and mayhem.

Goldman is headed by a wealthy San Francisco insurance magnate. Cedar Tree was begun by a Boston pediatrician. The California Endowment is headed by a physician (an African-American). All support good causes. But the millions they have given Pesticide Action, Beyond Pesticides and Physicians have exacted an unconscionable toll across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Good deeds simply don’t offset this carnage. And while for-profit corporations are prosecuted and penalized for every accident – these callous groups and their bankrollers are not held liable or accountable even for the toll.

Their actions violate basic medical, humanitarian and human rights principles. They violate the ethical and social responsibility standards that “progressive” activists say for-profit companies must follow. They ignore the Hippocratic Oath, and the need to help families insure their children against killer diseases, with comprehensive strategies that include DDT and other insecticides – and actually work.

Goldman, Cedar Tree, the California Endowment and their compatriots must atone for their sins. How?

Stop funding these heartless pressure groups. Donate to organizations like CORE and Africa Fighting Malaria that are working with the WHO, USAID and PMI to end this needless slaughter, get electricity and other modern technologies people in the Third World – and enable them to stay healthy, work more productively, and build strong family and national economies that can afford modern homes with window screens. Buy some bed nets, and help train Africans in how to use DDT and other insecticides safely, responsibly and with minimal environmental impact, to reduce disease and save lives – now!

Then they can seek forgiveness from families who have lost loved ones – and atonement would be made.