> DDT. Too bad you picked that one! . . . After the first ten years of
> DDT use (during which all those lives
> were saved) resistant varieties of mosquitos were created all over the
> world. To the point that now there is a world wide resurgence of malaria
> affecting a potential 250,000,000 people and DDT is now useless even as an
> emergency measure. For this we had to put up with the unfortunate "side
> affects" of species extinction and, as is now becoming clear, very serious
> human health problems that won't go away soon as DDT is still accumulating in
> the food chain. (Mexico still sprays it like mad . . .
Is it justifiable to attribute malaria's resurgence entirely to use of
DDT? I don't think so. Andrew Dobson and Robin Carper have an
interesting article in the February 1996 issue of BioScience, "Infectious
diseases and human population history" (Vol. 46(2): 115-126), in which
they point out the interactive effects of drugs used against the malarial
pathogen and pesticides used against the vector in fostering resistance,
overlaid on nutritional and housing status, inequitable access to medical
services, and agricultural technological change. Their work is part of a
burgeoning field of disease ecology, which seems to be a more reasonable
approach than single-cause, single-cure thinking. As I took it, Myron's
post was an encouragement to avoid such narrow perspectives and the
polarization it causes in agricultural pest management too.
Molly D. Anderson
Tufts University
Medford, MA