The Life and Deaths of DDT

The Life and Deaths of DDT



Thirty years ago today, the Environmental Protection Agency drastically restricted the production and use of DDT, an inexpensive pesticide once widely used to repel mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects.

Count us out of any celebration. Instead, we should mourn for the 30 million to 60 million people the World Health Organization reckons have died from malaria, lives that might have been saved by DDT. The American Council on Science and Health points out that in the two decades before it was restricted this "miracle pesticide" saved as many as 100 million lives in Africa, Asia and South America.

Nevertheless, in 1972 EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus decided that DDT posed unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health. Although its effects on humans remain largely unproven, some scientists believe DDT to be toxic to migrating birds and fish and to thin eggshells, preventing successful reproduction.

Today's sorry anniversary coincides with the Senate's consideration of implementing legislation -- introduced by Vermont Independent Jim Jeffords -- for an international treaty that would further restrict the global use of DDT and put what amounts to a total ban on its manufacture for export. If passed, it would amount to a virtual death sentence for tens of millions more people in poor countries.

Ultimately, proponents of a ban on DDT should be forced to answer the question about which is more important: the life of a bird that might be harmed by DDT, or the life of a Third World child who might be saved.

Updated June 14, 2002

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Good scientific essay!
Chuyện bên lề: Thế các bác có biết tên đầy đủ của DDT không? Có một bài thơ nổi tiếng vịnh con muỗi (theo thể thơ 5 câu hài hước là limerick) giúp bạn điều này.
MOSQUITO
A mosquito was heard to complain
That a chemist had poisoned his brain
The cause of his sorrow
Was para-dichloro-
diphenyltrichloroethane
Lung Tung Beng
Đừng làm hôm nay những gì có thể dời lại ngày mai.