Big tobacco and the DDT lie

If you're like me, the conservative idea that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring resulted in the banning of DDT and the rise of malaria deaths in Africa kind of rolls off your brain like a light rain off your shoulders. It was something I didn't buy, but didn't have the intellect or the time or the patience to look into it in greater depth.

Hilzoy has done us a huge service in actually tracking down where this idea originated from and whether or not it's true. Wouldn't you know it, it started with Big Tobacco who were trying to discredit the World Health Org's attempt to reduce smoking around the world.

It is simply amazing.

But here's a few things to remember next time some moron claims that the blood of millions of African babies are on the hands of environmentalists:

1. DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972, not Africa. And by that time, malaria had been eradicated in the U.S.
2. Mosquitoes became DDT resistant in many parts of Africa.
3. DDT is now banned for agricultural use (one of the reasons mosquitoes became resistant in all likelihood), not as an insecticide.