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April 20, 2004

A Holocaust a Decade

Virginia Postrel points to one of the more disturbing numbers I've ever seen: two million people a year dead. That's ten million a decade, like clockwork. And the solution is already available and easy to implement.

Unfortunately, that solution is also one of the political hot buttons of the age: DDT. The two million a year are victims of malaria, a disease we eradicated in the United States decades ago through the use of one of the most effective insecticides ever developed: DDT. The indiscriminate use of DDT also tore up our ecosystems, nearly leading to the extinction of many species of birds and doubtless many other creatures. But as is often our wont, we solved the problem in the most extreme manner possible. Not only did we ban the use of DDT in the United States, we led the way to a worldwide ban.

This was easy enough for us: the problem was already solved here. But in Africa, the problem is as bad as ever, leading to the aforementioned deaths. And we here in the West tell the African nations that they can't use DDT. It's for their own good, of course. We're not heartless, we just know better. Perhaps that's a comforting belief for some, but I can't buy into it. We pour untold sums of money into Africa with little return on our investment. A careful application of DDT could be the best thing we've ever done for the continent (a close second would be leaving it alone), saving millions of lives. Risk to the environment could be minimized through careful oversight of the use of the pesticide. So why don't we act?

I suspect we all know the answer to that.

Hat tip: Instapundit.