Common Sense on DDT

Today's New York Times has an op-ed from a doctor in Uganda who is on the front lines of combating malaria. Jessie Stone echoes views expressed in this space a week ago that DDT is no magic bullet in the fight against the disease. Bednets and affordable drugs are more important, Stone argues, and there are potential health effects from prolonged exposure to DDT, even in the minute doses used in household spraying.

Alas, common sense on the op-ed page after the fact doesn't undo the damage done by a major magazine article by Tina Rosenberg three years ago that was headlined, "What the World Needs Now Is DDT." That article gave a major boost to the conservative forces pushing the DDT strategy. Last week, their lobbying efforts paid off with the WHO decision to endorse wider use of the chemical, which is banned in much of the industrial world.