National Geographic on Malaria

The July issue of National Geographic includes an excellent cover story on malaria. It notes: “Malaria is a confounding disease—often, it seems, contradictory to logic. … Rachel Carson, the environmental icon, is a villain; her three-letter devil, DDT, is a savior … In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, documenting this abuse and painting so damning a picture that the chemical was eventually outlawed by most of the world for agricultural use. Exceptions were made for malaria control, but DDT became nearly impossible to procure. ‘The ban on DDT,’ says Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health, ‘may have killed 20 million children.'” More…