It's impossible that some in science protest anti-science thinking in defiance of evidence yet continue to regard "Silent Spring" as an accurate waypoint regarding science policy. A culture war on DDT led to banning it and replacement by synthetic substitutes far worse than DDT for people and wildlife and, due to high cost, the deaths of many more children in Africa.
Now, instead of the obvious solution for malaria used for decades without harm, a group of experts say we should give up on beating it.
We should instead control it, like diabetes, they say. But why? Malaria has shrunk 99% in the last 150 years yet not at all in the last 30 because DDT is no longer used in the last few decades. The researchers rightly note that the mosquitoes build up resistance, but only to the synthetic alternatives. The solution is right there and they also rightly note that the World Health Organization, like the rest of the UN, is useless.
But countries don't need the UN to do this for them - instead of wasting money on the UN or worse, doing nothing, buy mosquito nets and DDT and malaria will be as rare as leprosy in a few years while work continues toward a vaccine.
