On 05/05/2007, at 4:05 AM, Dan Minette wrote:
> > Indeed, Gautam made a good argument here that environmental policy and > environmentalist claims is a major contributor to the death of 1 > million/year due to malaria. The US used DDT as part of its > elimination of > malaria. No human deaths were attributed to DDT. That isn't why it stopped being used, Dan. Two reasons - first it persistent in the food chain and the long term ecological implications were regarded as untenable, but second, and this is something that non-biologists seem to have a lot of difficulty really comprehending, mosquitoes got resistant to it. Its efficacy was already dropping. Just as the malaria parasite has become resistant to most of the reliable drugs, the _Anopheles_ mosquitoes became resistant to several of the cheap reliable insecticides. DDT is used still, in impregnated nets. That's the only place it really has in the current antimalarial arsenal. Charlie _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
