From: Charles Hixsn (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Aug 13 2003 - 10:27:26 MDT
matus wrote:
> ...the banning of DDT,
>
>done with entirely good intentions, has now lead to the death of more
>than 20 million people, mostly children in Africa, which otherwise would
>not have died. At the height of DDT spraying deaths from malaria
>numbered in the single to low double digits every year. Now they number
>in the millions.
>
>Michael Dickey
>
FWIW: In Africa they still spay with DDT. The mosquitos, however, have
evolved various resistances that makes it less effective against them.
(Avoiding it is one of the one's I've heard mentioned.) So that 20
million has some other explantion. I can accept that "At the height of
DDT spraying deaths from malaria numbered in the single to low double
digits every year.", but resistances take time to evolve, so the
argument doesn't carry (i.e., I can accept that if you mean single digit
millions).
OTOH, DDT has many more effects than just killing off mosquitos. I
don't think we even know all of them, but most of the "side effects"
that I've heard of have been deleterious, though not clearly in the same
range as 20 million lives. But then they didn't stop spraying, so that
figure has to have some other explantion. Possibly one that a bit more
complicated, or possibly something as simple as "they changed their
method of counting cases". (You don't mention what the +or- error bars
are.)
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