On 8/22/2023 7:01 AM, JAB wrote:
Spraying DDT to Prevent Polio, 1946
In 1955, after years of research and testing, the polio vaccine
created by Jonas Salk was declared safe and effective. The devastating
virus is nearly eradicated in the United States today. In 1946,
however, two years before Jonas Salk first began his research, the
city of San Antonio, Texas tried to prevent the spread of a polio
outbreak by dousing the city with DDT, apparently in a misguided
effort to kill insects they believed carried the disease. Most people
today know that spraying DDT will not prevent polio, and can actually
harm one's health. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) exposed the
hazards of commonly-used pesticides, and the chemical was mostly
banned in the early 1970s.
https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2014/05/19/this-week-in-universal-news-spraying-ddt-to-prevent-polio-1946/
DDT should not have been fully banned. For wide-spread agricultural
use, yes. That said, it did wonders against Malaria in third-world
countries.
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