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Balancing risks on the backs of the poor

Nature Medicine volume 6, pages 729–731 (2000)Cite this article

Malaria kills over one million people, mainly children, in the tropics each year, and DDT remains one of the few affordable, effective tools against the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. Attaran et al. explain that the scientific literature on the need to withdraw DDT is unpersuasive, and the benefits of DDT in saving lives from malaria are well worth the risks.

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Figure 1: Cumulative malaria cases derived from Pan-American Health Organization data for Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela.

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Acknowledgements

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Department of Defense or the United States Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, 20814, Maryland, USA

    Donald R. Roberts

  2. Center for International Development Kennedy School of Government Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachussetts , USA

    Amir Attaran

  3. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, WC1E 7HT, UK

    Chris F. Curtis

  4. Chairman, Malaria Foundation International; also Chairman-Coordinator, African Malaria Vaccine Testing Network C26/27 Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology Building,

    Wenceslaus L. Kilama

  5. also Chairman-Coordinator, African Malaria Vaccine Testing Network C26/27 Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology Building, Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road, P.O. Box 33207 , Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

    Wenceslaus L. Kilama

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  1. Amir Attaran
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  4. Wenceslaus L. Kilama
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Attaran, A., Roberts, D., Curtis, C. et al. Balancing risks on the backs of the poor. Nat Med 6, 729–731 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/77438

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