"On Jan. 24, 2017, PBS aired a two-hour special on Rachel Carson, the mother of the environmental movement.
...In the early 1960s, she was the first to warn that a pesticide called DDT could accumulate in the environment, the first to show that it could harm fish, birds, and other wildlife, the first to warn that its overuse would render it ineffective, and the first to predict that more natural means of pest control – like bacteria that killed mosquito larvae – should be used instead.
Unfortunately, the PBS documentary neglected to mention that in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson had made one critical mistake – and it cost millions of people their lives.
...By 1960, due largely to DDT, malaria had been eliminated from eleven countries, including the United States.
As malaria rates went down, life expectancies went up; as did crop production, land values, and relative wealth.
...Probably no country benefited from DDT more than Nepal, where spraying began in 1960.
At the time, more than two million Nepalese, mostly children, suffered from malaria.
By 1968, the number was reduced to 2,500; and life expectancy increased from 28 to 42 years.
After DDT was banned, malaria reemerged across the globe:
Unfortunately, the PBS documentary neglected to mention that in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson had made one critical mistake – and it cost millions of people their lives....By 1960, due largely to DDT, malaria had been eliminated from eleven countries, including the United States.
As malaria rates went down, life expectancies went up; as did crop production, land values, and relative wealth.
...Probably no country benefited from DDT more than Nepal, where spraying began in 1960.
At the time, more than two million Nepalese, mostly children, suffered from malaria.
By 1968, the number was reduced to 2,500; and life expectancy increased from 28 to 42 years.
After DDT was banned, malaria reemerged across the globe:
- In India, between 1952 and 1962, DDT caused a decrease in annual malaria cases from 100 million to 60,000. By the late 1970s, no longer able to use DDT, the number of cases increased to 6 million.
- In Sri Lanka, before the use of DDT, 2.8 million people suffered from malaria. When the spraying stopped, only 17 people suffered from the disease. Then, no longer able to use DDT, Sri Lanka suffered a massive malaria epidemic: 1.5 million people were infected by the parasite.
- In South Africa, after DDT became unavailable, the number of malaria cases increased from 8,500 to 42,000 and malaria deaths from 22 to 320.
Since the mid 1970s, when DDT was eliminated from global eradication efforts, tens of millions of people have died from malaria unnecessarily: most have been children less than five years old.
While it was reasonable to have banned DDT for agricultural use, it was unreasonable to have eliminated it from public health use..."
While it was reasonable to have banned DDT for agricultural use, it was unreasonable to have eliminated it from public health use..."
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