Parachuting Cats and Crushed Eggs the Controversy Over the Use of DDT to Control Malaria (2008)
O'Shaughnessy, Patrick T. (Author)
American Journal of Public Health
Volume: 98
Issue: 11
Pages: 1940-1948
The use of DDT to control malaria has been a contentious practice for decades. This controversy centers on concerns over the ecological harm caused by DDT relative to the gains in public health from its use to prevent malaria. Given the World Health Organization's recent policy decisions concerning the use of DDT to control malaria, it is worth reviewing the historical context of DDT use. Ecological concerns focused on evidence that DDT ingestion by predatory birds resulted in eggs with shells so thin they were crushed by adult birds. In addition, DDT spraying to control malaria allegedly resulted in cats being poisoned in some areas, which led to increased rodent populations and, in turn, the parachuting of cats into the highlands of the island of Borneo to kill the rodents, a story that influenced the decision to ban DDT spraying. I focus on this story with the intention of grounding the current debate on lessons from the past.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Yeo, I. S.;
(2015)
U.S. Military Administration's Malaria Control Activities (1945--1948)
(/isis/citation/CBB001422433/)
Article
Webb, James L. A., Jr.;
(2011)
The First Large-Scale Use of Synthetic Insecticide for Malaria Control in Tropical Africa: Lessons from Liberia, 1945--1962
(/isis/citation/CBB001034285/)
Book
Slongwhite, Dale Finley;
Economos, Jeannie;
(2014)
Fed up: The High Costs of Cheap Food
(/isis/citation/CBB001422400/)
Book
Kinkela, David;
(2011)
DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World
(/isis/citation/CBB001212493/)
Article
Junho Jung;
(2022)
DDT Resistance Korean Body Lice and Development of Insecticide Resistance Knowledge during Korean War
(/isis/citation/CBB000729912/)
Article
Markus, Miles B.;
(2011)
Malaria: Origin of the Term “Hypnozoite”
(/isis/citation/CBB001220961/)
Article
Li, Runhong;
(2011)
The “523 Project” and the Rediscovery of Sweet Wormwood's Antimalarial Effect
(/isis/citation/CBB001221350/)
Book
James C. McCann;
(2015)
Historical Ecology of Malaria in Ethiopia: Deposing the Spirits
(/isis/citation/CBB319837036/)
Article
Carter, Eric D.;
(2009)
“God Bless General Perón”: DDT and the Endgame of Malaria Eradication in Argentina in the 1940s
(/isis/citation/CBB000930499/)
Article
Elena Conis;
(2017)
Polio, DDT, and Disease Risk in the United States after World War II
(/isis/citation/CBB268256668/)
Thesis
Kinkela, David;
(2005)
Pesticides, Politics, and the Dilemmas of Regulation: DDT and the International Context of United States Environmentalism, 1943--1982
(/isis/citation/CBB001560567/)
Article
H. J. Power;
(1998)
The Role of Chemotherapy in Early Malaria Control and Eradication Programmes in Thailand
(/isis/citation/CBB561707153/)
Article
Neelakantan, Vivek;
(2010)
Eradicating Smallpox in Indonesia: The Archipelagic Challenge
(/isis/citation/CBB001232084/)
Book
Sheila Zurbrigg;
(2019)
Malaria in Colonial South Asia: Uncoupling Disease and Destitution
(/isis/citation/CBB449823915/)
Article
Bhattacharya, Nandini;
(2011)
The Logic of Location: Malaria Research in Colonial India, Darjeeling and Duars, 1900--30
(/isis/citation/CBB001230155/)
Article
Nussenzweig, Ruth Sonntag;
(2011)
Breakthroughs towards a Malaria Vaccine
(/isis/citation/CBB001420528/)
Article
Aldo De Togni;
(2023)
The Last Century of Malaria in Ferrara: From the Unification to the Boom Years
(/isis/citation/CBB249578681/)
Book
Gilberto Corbellini;
(2022)
Storia della malaria in Italia. Scienza, ecologia, società
(/isis/citation/CBB577039633/)
Book
Packard, Randall M.;
(2007)
The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria
(/isis/citation/CBB000953375/)
Book
Humphreys, Margaret;
(2001)
Malaria: Poverty, Race and Public Health in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB000101070/)
Be the first to comment!