Tina Rosenberg on the diseases of the poor

Tina Rosenberg’s long opinion piece in today’s New York Times brings much needed attention to the plight of “poor people’s diseases,” from sleeping sickness to tuberculosis (“The Scandal of ‘Poor People’s Diseases,’” New York Times, March 29, 2006). But her argument about malaria—that more DDT would vanquish the disease—is all wrong.

The basic gist of the argument is thus: Americans wiped out malaria using DDT, but because über-green Rachel Carson crusaded against the insecticide in Silent Spring, we self-righteously deprived the rest of the world of the miracle toxin. Two conclusions can be drawn from this little tale. One: post-Carson environmentalists have the blood of Africans dripping from their hands. Two: To quote from the title of a previous Rosenberg story on the subject, “What the world needs now is DDT (New York Times, April 11, 2004)

There are several problems with this story. The first is that DDT didn’t wipe out malaria in the United States.

For the rest of this piece, please see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060417/shah