DDT and History

Monday February 14 2004 DDT and History From an environmental perspective the demise of DDT has been heralded as quite an achievement. With the American Eagle as it's poster child, activist forever changed the consciousness of a nation in regard to pesticide use and in doing so erased the benefits of DDT from history. Today's youth are not taught that DDT was responsible for saving the lives of million of allied troops in world war II, nor were they ever given the facts that after the war the US spearheaded a global malaria eradiation campaign so successful that the National Academy of Sciences reported that in a little more than two decades DDT had prevented 500 million deaths. There are many in the medical communities today that feel the time is ripe to revisit using DDT to fight Malaria in Africa. Mere minuscule amounts of the pesticide sprayed inside homes could save the lives of millions yet sadly the global health institutes will not finance it use. Is it any wonder why? I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought.