DDT {wiki} is a pesticide that was used extensively in the US from 1939 until it was banned in 1972. It was very effective in controlling insects that spread typhus in Europe and malaria in tropical regions, but it also accumulated in the ecosystem, killed wildlife, and was found to have harmful effects on humans as well. But in the 1940s and '50s, pesticide companies promoted DDT as the cure-all for everything. This 1947 ad gave quite a few reasons DDT is "good for me." See the rest of it at Mindfully. Link -via J-Walk Blog
DDT {wiki} is a pesticide that was used extensively in the US from 1939 until it was banned in 1972. It was very effective in controlling insects that spread typhus in Europe and malaria in tropical regions, but it also accumulated in the ecosystem, killed wildlife, and was found to have harmful effects on humans as well. But in the 1940s and '50s, pesticide companies promoted DDT as the cure-all for everything. This 1947 ad gave quite a few reasons DDT is "good for me." See the rest of it at Mindfully. Link -via J-Walk Blog
If the prohibition on DDT were lifted and it was judiciously used in Africa (primarily through the spraying of homes walls) millions of people's lives would be saved.
Every person who fought to have DDT banned, and who supports the ban today has the blood of untold millions of 3rd world deaths from malaria on their hands.
However, DDT alone won't solve the problem; controlling malaria is going to take a lot more than a single chemical. There are plenty of alternatives to DDT that work well, but as always the problem is infrastructure, support and environmental effects.
Actually eliminating malaria is going to take massive social and environmental changes, not just pesticides.
Mercutio is right in what he says, too, but in the meantime DDT would have saved 10s of millions of human beings sacrificed to the "Green Movement."
Mercutio is right in a sense; DDT alone won't solve the problem... but it would have. Many malarial mosquitoes are now immune to DDT because we stopped spraying. While we were using DDT, malaria was wiped out in America, Europe, the Caribbean, Taiwan and Australia. Malaria was on the brink of extinction in Sri Lanka and India. Then DDT was banned, and since then malaria has come back with a vengeance in places it was nearly wiped out and DDT can't come to our rescue.
20 million children have died because DDT was banned. If I believed in hell I'd have to believe there is a special place there reserved for Carson.
I used to tell my friends about this ad/graphic, but they simply wouldn't believe me.
As for Monsanto, the government should have stepped in and shut them down years ago. Making seeds and fertilizers is unconscionable. How dare they remain in business.
the fact of the matter is that almost ANY pesticide can cause health issues, but it depends on how it's used. scientifically speaking, there should've been no reason that DDT was banned, and there are plenty of pesticides still readily available at Home Depot that are just as dangerous, if not moreso. take a look at Sevin (carbaryl): it's available in pretty much every garden shop in the US. but it's also directly related to one of the worst industrial accidents in world history (the Bhopal Disaster) and it's STILL causing problems 25 years later.
sure, if you're going to blanket-spray urban areas on a constant basis with any pesticide, there's a huge risk of health problems...which is why we don't do things like that. but if you're spraying the perimeter of your home while wearing rubber gloves and a face mask, the health risks are pretty minimal. certainly in places like Africa, the benefits FAR outweigh the very slight potential health risks as long as the product is used carefully and responsibly.
the World Health Organization considers DDT to be extremely important, but more and more countries are banning it (and again, with a huge lack of truthful data). and like others have said, there is has been a resurgence of malaria-carrying mosquitoes over the past several years, and now they're becoming resistant to DDT (it's kinda like using an antibiotic: unless you use ALL of it and take it exactly like your supposed to, there's a good chance that it won't work anymore in the future. i learned this first-hand, and amoxycillan doesn't work on me anymore).
i also fully believe that the ban on DDT is the primary reason that the bedbug population has exploded, and trust me, those things are almost impossible to get rid of! and now they're finding bedbugs that are extremely resistant to most other pesticides as well. luckily they're not considered disease vectors, but they say that could change too.