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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (936584)	5/24/2016 4:31:54 PM
From: Taro	3 Recommendations Recommended By D.Austin Stock Puppy TideGlider Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575706

My guess is that he thinks DDT is the only insecticide in the world which kills mosquitoes. No, but its the only truly efficient insecticide with a proven record of being harmless to humans, inherently cheap, because easy to mass produce and not covered by any patents, and - with a long track record of killing off most mosquitos. As CJ has correctly pointed out, however, an overly ambitious year long general usage of DDT in agriculture back then did indeed create some resistance with targeted mosquito stems. Aedes Aegypti, the carrier of the Zika virus, which right now for good reason remains in our focus, wasn't one of them, though. If anything close to the worst expectations about a Zika epidemy ever come true, no doubt in my mind, that DDT will be back in a big way for spray vector control. /Taro

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (936584)	5/24/2016 7:31:12 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575706

Even if true, which as you note it isn't, it doesn't matter. While in developed countries it is usually illegal for any use, there is no global ban on its use for vector control. Especially when used in the most effective ways which is to spray walls and treat sleep netting. Now it is banned for agricultural use, primarily because it tends to be overused and creates resistant populations. Which makes its use for vector control, well, useless. As we have seen repeatedly. When the Right waves around a case where malaria or yellow fever has flared up because spraying programs have been halted, it is usually because the mosquito populations have become resistant because of overuse of DDT. It is never the case because the evil environmentalists have interfered. Facts really do matter.