Comments on: The Cruelest Cut http://www.scienceline.org/2008/12/11/blog-teyan-lobotomy-brain-history-oddities/ The Shortest Distance Between You and Science Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:16:34 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Alan Dove http://www.scienceline.org/2008/12/11/blog-teyan-lobotomy-brain-history-oddities/comment-page-1/#comment-2532 Alan Dove Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:51:09 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2008/12/11/blog-teyan-lobotomy-brain-history-oddities/#comment-2532 You distract from an otherwise good article with a glaring error: delousing children with DDT was not an inherently bad idea. In fact, DDT saved tens of thousands of lives during World War II as a delousing agent, most famously during a winter typhus outbreak in Italy. Had this pesticide been restricted to that use, it would probably still be acceptable. The problem with DDT isn't its toxicity to humans - it's actually far less toxic than most other pesticides - but that it's a persistent environmental pollutant with disastrous consequences on ecosystems. Spraying DDT powder on someone to delouse them was good medicine, especially fifty years ago when there were no other effective treatments. Spraying DDT liquid over millions of acres of farmland to control agricultural pests, however, was a horrible mistake. You distract from an otherwise good article with a glaring error: delousing children with DDT was not an inherently bad idea. In fact, DDT saved tens of thousands of lives during World War II as a delousing agent, most famously during a winter typhus outbreak in Italy. Had this pesticide been restricted to that use, it would probably still be acceptable.

The problem with DDT isn’t its toxicity to humans – it’s actually far less toxic than most other pesticides – but that it’s a persistent environmental pollutant with disastrous consequences on ecosystems. Spraying DDT powder on someone to delouse them was good medicine, especially fifty years ago when there were no other effective treatments. Spraying DDT liquid over millions of acres of farmland to control agricultural pests, however, was a horrible mistake.

]]>