In 1962, a book titled Silent Spring written by a woman named Rachel Carson was published. Its premise is that the use of DDT to control bugs is evil because of all of the things it kills that she believed it shouldn’t. Christian read a book from his Sonlight program about her titled Listening to Crickets. After reading the book Christian asked me about DDT. I explained to him that many people are dying, particularly in African countries because the use of DDT has been effectively banned there. Some people in a number of governments have chosen to ignore science and the benefit of using DDT to control mosquitos that carry malaria. Instead, they have put the needs of animals above the needs of humans. If DDT were used judiciously in this regard, many thousands of people who have died and/or suffered from the ravages of malaria would be alive and well today.
Today at lunchtime, I picked up a Wall Street Journal to read while I ate. Lo and behold there was a letter to the editor there that stated the following:
The authors [of a previous letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal] state that DDT has a clear role for malaria control under “select circumstances.” However, an immutable fact of global politics has been that donor agencies will not provide funds to country programs for using DDT. Despite multiple requests from African health ministries to use DDT, the U.S. government has consistently refused to support programs that do.
The letter was authored by Dr. Donald R. Roberts of Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland and Jennifer Zambone of Africa Fighting Malaria. I found a great article about Ms. Zambone about the necessity of fighting malaria with all possible vigor and the great value of the judicious use of DDT in this regard at National Review. It was irritating to find that someone like Rachel Carson is being extolled in a book provided by Sonlight, but it dawned on me that only in the kind of setting provided by homeschooling is it possible to turn something so negative into a wonderful learning experience.