Newsweek’s short piece on malaria in Africa (September 24, 2007) is full of misinformation and mythology. For example, there has never been any continent-wide malaria control in Africa, as the lead sentence brazenly states; mosquitoes develop resistance to DDT by exposure to brand-name pesticides sold by Western chemical companies like BASF and others, not just by African farmers illegally using DDT on their fields; the main reason DDT wasn’t used in Africa for so long is because the EU and others told African farmers they wouldn’t buy their farm products if they did; and there’s evidence to suggest that malaria problem in Zambia has not gotten better, it has been worsening, and the mining companies’ whose work the article lauds have been the subject of riots.
None of these counter-points are speculative but near-consensus opinions in the malaria field. It is strange to see the mainstream press diverge so much from expert opinion: smells to me like politics eclipsing science.
Check it out: The Doomsday Spray: To fight malaria, African nations are turning to DDT.