DDT & Elitist Environmentalists

One million people a year die of malaria in Africa. This has been happening for many years. The Agency for International Development (AID) spends millions of dollars a year trying to mitigate this deadly problem. Charitable organizations plead for more money to spend on it. Meanwhile, DDT is banned from use and has been for over 40 years, since Rachel Carson published her book, Silent Spring. Only just this month was it announced that AID would begin permitting the use of DDT to kill mosquitoes, which transmit malaria to people. Who have the environmentalists been protecting all these years with their ban on the use of DDT? Maybe only themselves and their own reputations.

DDT has been demonstrated to be very effective at killing mosquitoes. In controlled quantities, it is harmless to animals and people. The alternatives, which AID and environmentalists have lobbied for years to implement, include mosquito netting over beds and screens on windows. With a death rate of 1 million a year, these are clearly ineffective in the real world (although in the theoretical and ideal world where everyone has them and uses them, they might do some good). But for over 40 years, these elitists have favored their "perfect" non-chemical approach to the effective and harmless "good" DDT solution.

Small comfort to the pregnant women and under-five children who are the primary victims of malaria.