Letter To Editor Discusses Use Of DDT For Malaria Control

Wall Street Journal: Letter to the Editor: We Were Winning the War Against Malaria
Jay Lehr, science director at the Heartland Institute

“Regarding Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan’s ‘How Long Till the Final World Malaria Day?’ (op-ed, April 25): Dr. Narasimhan conveniently omits the fact that in the early 1970s malaria was all but eliminated by one of the most important pesticides ever invented — DDT. While study after study proved DDT to be effective in eliminating the malaria-carrying mosquito, the EPA’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, chose to ignore the opinions of his own study group and ruled against the continued use of DDT. The world followed and the exponential increase of malaria deaths followed around the world. … Novartis surely will profit from continued efforts to control malaria through methods that will never equal what was already being accomplished by DDT…” (5/2).

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