The Associated Press put a story over the wires today indicating that the World Health Organization is about to throw its weight behind the use of DDT in malaria-stricken developing countries. The disease kills more than 1 million people a year — mostly small children. DDT is incredibly effective at killing the mosquitoes that carry malaria, and it’s been used in a few countries, but not widely, as the WHO has recommended against it since a certain person named Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring a few decades ago.

Few narratives are presented as clearly in our culture as Rachel Carson’s story. She was a “courageous woman who took on the chemical industry,” according to the National Resources Defense Council. In school, most of us under age 40 learned that she was a hero — an environmentalist who noticed a problem (thinning egg shells, etc.) and rallied a country. We were moved as a nation — and banned DDT as a result.

Of course, now it’s becoming clear that 30-40 million people, mostly in Africa, and mostly children, have died needlessly because this weapon has been taken out of the anti-malaria arsenal. Many more have become sick. Hopefully, someday, there will be enough effective drugs that treat malaria, and enough effective other ways of fighting it (better bed-nets, for instance) that DDT won’t be necessary. But until then, it’s encouraging to see that the WHO is putting the lives of children ahead of environmental alarmism.

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