> "Because the use of DDT was outlawed based on flawed data, the mosquito threat remains."

Hardly!

Over 650,000 tons of DDT were spread over America in a period of 22 years (up to 40,000 tons per year), and we still have mosquitoes, don't we?

DDT continued to be produced in other places outside the U.S. for years after the U.S. ban. It continues to be produced in India, who is the main user of its own product, and India still has somewhere around 90 MILLION cases of malaria per year.

If it's so effective, what's the problem there?

Despite my ADD, I am able to wrap my head around the terms "food chain" and "persistent organic pollutant".

It has been found in the umbilical cord serum of babies at birth. How do you think it got there? I doubt Mum was spooning it into her afternoon tea.

Farmers, esp, are often the worst offenders: they want quick, easy and cheap solutions and often dive into them without educating themselves to the long-term effects. They also tend to think that if a little is good, a lot more is even better.

America, land of the knee-jerk reaction and short-term thinking, totally incapable of adding up the long-term costs and effects. Whoopee.

Sue