DDT Confusion

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Tim Lambert continues to puncture a favorite meme among the right—the idea that environmentalists have somehow condemned millions of Third World people to death by malaria as a result of their lobbying against DDT since the 1970s. As it happens, this “conventional wisdom” contains a lot of errors. DDT has not been banned outright—not from being used for disease prevention, at any rate—and in many cases, it’s not used because it just doesn’t provide the best protection against malaria. (In Sri Lanka, for instance, they’ve stopped using DDT against mosquitoes because the bugs have all become resistant, not because environmentalists want Sri Lankan children to contract malaria.)

Now there are cases in which certain groups try to discourage DDT use in certain countries—and those cases can be debated on the merits; sometimes the decisions are more rational than people like Nick Kristof make them out to be—but pretending there’s some global ban on DDT that was foisted on the world after thousands of activists read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is flatly untrue. Go here for more.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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