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Comment by Nota Khan on September 15, 2011 at 12:25pm

 

P.S. Let's look at the other side of the coin about DDT (and this has nothing to do with what Monsanto is up to -- nothing good). Is the book really closed on DDT? I know it is making a comeback and I haven't really followed up on the issue to have an opinion ("Does it save more lives with it or without it?"):

The DDT Conundrum

Should DDT, a toxic chemical, be used to curb malaria in Africa? DDT could potentially save millions of lives, but at what expense?

Anti-DDT Policies Are Deadly for Africa

For countless families in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, this horrible drama is repeated over and over, year after year.  Over 300 million Africans get malaria annually, and up to one million of our children will die from it.

Meanwhile, in countries that no longer have malaria, environmentalists are celebrating the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson.  Her book, Silent Spring, helped launch the environmental activist movement and led to a nearly worldwide ban on the insecticide DDT.  Were she still alive, she could witness the countless family tragedies that this ban helped cause, and she would probably be appalled.

WHO Urges Use of DDT in Africa

The World Health Organization reversed a 30-year-old policy yesterday and declared its support for indoor use of the pesticide DDT to control mosquitoes in regions where malaria is a major health problem.

 

Now this last one worries me, for like Monsanto, nothing good has ever come out of WHO either and if they are advocating it, I'd beware .....

Comment by Nota Khan on September 15, 2011 at 12:15pm

"DDT almost wiped out the Birds of Prey around the World."

 

But was that part of the plan?

Birds used to feed on most of the pests on the farm. With birds gone, pests no longer had any predators feeding on them and there populations increased unchecked, making pesticides a necessity. What birds remain, pesticides will do away with them, leading to even more demand for pesticides...