Somewhere on the Earth, on average every 12 seconds, a child dies of DDT-preventable malaria. The United States National Academy of Sciences estimated that DDT saved 500 million lives before it was banned. The discoverer of DDT was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Then came Silent Spring — a book filled with deliberate falsehoods and blatantly marketed unreasoning and unjustified fear. The burgeoning enviro movement chose these lies for one of their first big campaigns. This campaign coincided with the rise of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA was in search of a big win with which to promote itself. The EPA studied the subject and its own scientific review board reported that – DDT is harmless to the environment and is a very beneficial substance that should not be banned.

Politics prevailed, however, over reason. DDT was banned, and the U.S. government spread that ban throughout the world by tying it to all sorts of international programs.

The result: Malaria, which was well on the way to control and eradication, now afflicts 250 million adults and kills about 3 million children per year. The deaths of children alone make this the most heinous act of technological genocide the world has ever known. It is the second-most extensive overall act of genocide — surpassed only by the reigns of terror under Communism in Red China. //

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, the book that spearheaded the demonization of DDT, was dedicated to Albeit Schweitzer, whom Carson quoted as saying “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the Earth.” This was falsely presented to Carson’s readers as Albert Scweitzer’s concern about DDT. //

The quotation in Silent Spring, however, was about Schweitzer’s fear of nuclear weapons. Of malaria, Schweitzer actually said, “How much labor and waste of time these wicked insects do cause us.. . . but a ray of hope, in the use of DDT, is now held out to us.”