DDT
Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a synthetic organic chemical compound that was first made in 1874 by Othmar Zeidler, an German-Austrian chemist.
In 1939, Paul Hermann Müller[1], a Swiss chemist working for Geigy Pharmaceutical, discovered its pesticidal qualities. It was soon put to good use by Allied forces in World War II to help control malaria and typhus, especially in the Asian and Pacific theatres.
Following the war it was used widely with great success to eliminate the last pockets of malaria from North America and Europe. In 1955 the World Health Organization started a program to eradicate malaria worldwide, largely through the spraying of DDT declaring Brazil, Egypt, the former Soviet Union and several Asian and Caribbean countries to be malaria-free and thus removing 700 million people from risk of infection.
DDT was also widely adopted as an agricultural pesticide and it was, perhaps, overused by farmers. This led to campaign to ban DDT, another example of Liberal Hysteria later proved to be misinformation and bad science.
The World Health Organization in 2006 announced that it will use DDT for indoor residual spraying (IRS) in epidemic and endemic areas to reduce childhood mortality from malaria. [2]
See also
International Chemical Safety Card of DDT