Medicine: In Defense of DDT

In the nine years since Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring first documented DDT's disastrous effects on animal life, environmentalists have carried on a determined campaign against the potent pesticide. The U.S. Government has responded to their efforts by restricting the use of DDT. Several states have gone even further, banning the chemical completely. But DDT still has its defenders. The World Health Organization, admittedly more concerned with public health than conservation, has warned that a ban on DDT spraying could doom worldwide malaria-eradication efforts, which in the past 25 years have freed more than 1 billion people from the debilitating disease.

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