The Excellent Powder: DDTs Political and Scientific History

It's the world's most successful public health insecticide, saving millions upon millions of lives from preventable, insect-borne diseases. Yet despite decades of use and thousands of studies on its effects, DDT remains the world's most misunderstood chemical. Orchestrated, well-financed, earnest, but myth-based campaigns forced most countries to ban DDT without scientific justifica-tion. These campaigns created a climate of irrational fear and ignorant prejudice around DDT and have condemned mi…