quote:
There is no dening that DDT kills mosquitos.
It also bio-accumulates in run off, which then insects pick up, fish eat, and birds of prey like bald eagles eat too many fish and their egg shells are weakened. Yes I see that Fox disputes this, but it does and did happen.
The whole mosquitos with malaria issue is stupid. Contries which have a high death rate from malaria still use DDT.
Actually nearly all countries stopped using DDT after the horrid example of poor statistical and data representation of a book called "Silent Spring" was published. Only recently have countries in Africa started using DDT again where malaria kills several hundred thousand people each year.
The paper that Silent Spring was based on actually showed no significant difference in any of the tests. They tested pheasant and quail in captivity that were given increased doses of DDT. There was no significant affect on the quail eggs and the pheasant eggs actually did better than the control. The problem that they were seeing was that in general all of the eggs were more fragile due to a lack of calcium in their diets. This is more than likely due to the fact that they were in captivity and were on a controlled diet. Before laying eggs, a lot of birds increase insect consumption because the chitin in their exoskeletons has calcium in it. No bugs=weaker eggs. Myth debunked.