DDT

Last week, or was it the week before, I watched a series of documentaries on PBS called "Rx for survival." It was all about world health and disease and stumbling blocks, setbacks, and success stories that surround the issues. One of the hour long segments was on malaria in Africa and India and how it seems like an insurmountable disease. They talked about the use of DDT to control the mosquito population (the carriers of the disease) and how effective that had been in the Americas (I mean more than just the US here) at reducing and controlling the disease. So much so that it's almost unheardof here. So why isn't that done there? The answer is that it is being done.......well, sort of. Countries who use it get most of their DDT from China. From what I understand this source of DDT can easily be contaminated making it more detrimental to overall health of humans and the environment.
Skip to my toxicology class today where the topic of lecture was DDT and other man made chemicals. DDT has a relatively low toxicity compared to any of the naturally made toxins so for humans the health concern is pretty low. The United States went DDT crazy when it came out and then it was banned for use in the US in the 70s. Ever since DDT's effects on the environment and bioaccumulation of the chemical with the very long half life has been studied we, as US citizens, realized that perhaps crop dusting of the stuff was a bad idea. We were worried about Rachel Carsons's Silent Spring happening all over the world. Now we are trying to get a worldwide reduction and eventual elimination of the use of the chemical. This is a good idea when approached from the environmental view. The problem comes when you realize that using DDT was how we got malaria under control in our country and now we are trying to tell other countries not to do it. People who are impovrished and can't afford the medicine to treat malaria could never get the disease if DDT was applied appropriately and not used for crop dusting. The seesaw of benifits to risks seems to be unbalanced. Perhaps this is just another instance of the situation where Americans are more than happy to spend millions of dollars to help a person get better, but not the hundreds to prevent them from getting sick in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, I think DDT is a risk to the environment and at ridiculously high levels to human health. There are risks. My only question is what about the benefits? Where does the seesaw balance out?