Hooray For DDT's Life-saving Comeback

by John Stossel - October 4th, 2006 - Townhall.com

After more than 30 years and tens of millions dead -- mostly children -- the World Health Organization (WHO) has ended its ban on DDT. DDT is the most effective anti-mosquito, anti-malaria pesticide known. But thanks to the worldwide environmental movement and politically correct bureaucrats in the United States and at the United Nations, the use of this benign chemical has been discouraged in Africa and elsewhere, permitting killer mosquitoes to spread death.

A few quotes from this article are truly important:

Tons of DDT were sprayed on food and people. Despite this overuse, there was no surge in cancer or any other human injury.

[snip]

. . . environmental hysteria led to DDT's suppression in Africa, where its use had been dramatically reducing deaths. American foreign aid could be used to finance ineffective alternative anti-malaria methods, but not DDT. Within a short time, the mosquitoes and malaria reappeared, and deaths skyrocketed. Tens of millions of people have died in that time.


[snip]


DDT advocates pointed out that the ban amounted to mass murder. But they could not move the rich white environmental dogmatists who reflexively condemn all kinds of chemicals, and presumably lost no sleep when millions of poor African children died.

[snip]

"The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment," said Dr. Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. "DDT presents no health risk when used properly."

[snip]

"It might be easy for some to dismiss the past 43 years of eco-hysteria over DDT with a simple 'never mind,' except for the blood of millions of people dripping from the hands of the WWF [World Wildlife Fund], Greenpeace, Rachel Carson, Environmental Defense Fund, and other junk science-fueled opponents of DDT."

The question remains. What accountability is there for all the lies spread by the extremist environmental lobby?