DDT ban remains despite threat from mosquitoes

moths etc as well as mosquitoes and reported on DDT thinning the eggshells of America’s bald eagle. She predicted the emblematic bird’s imminent demise. Carson’s book never mentions that DDT had saved 10 million lives.

Waving Carson’s scaremongering book, the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and other environmentalists armtwisted the United Nations and the World Bank into banning the use of DDT for its supposed health hazards from the 1970s onwards.

Banning the gross overuse of DDT on farms was a good move because it saved the lives of bees, dragonflies, moths etc and allowed the eagles’ eggshells to thicken and their numbers to recover.

But banning DDT in the tropics was disastrous. In Sri Lanka, malaria increased from only 17 to 520,000 cases in a single year; in Zanzibar the rate rose from 5 per cent to 50 per cent of the population; in South Africa the rate rose from almost nothing to 40 per cent of the population.

Banning DDT in Brazil had disastrous effects as malariacarrying mosquitoes re-invaded the country from surrounding territories.

Since the 1970s, and without DDT, the world has tried other ways to kill mosquitoes, but despite a huge continuing effort, malaria still infects about 400 million people and kills more than a million of its victims every year.

Endless surveys show that DDT has no connection with breast cancer or any other human illness. Some years ago, Dr Arif Attaran, director of Harvard’s Centre for International Development, maintained that DDT is as safe as aspirin, is more effective and five times cheaper than any alternative anti-malarial insecticide.

Together with 400 scientists, physicians and malaria experts, Attaran led a crusade to bring back DDT for controlling the disease, stressing that the amount of DDT once sprayed on a single cotton field in the US would protect all the high-risk residents of a small country today. His group had no success as world authorities have persisted with the ban nearly everywhere.

These days, Brazil must cope with another mosquito-borne disease – the zika virus. Pest controllers there employ misting or fogging machines to kill mosquitoes round cities, using (as far as I can ascertain) a pyrethroid insecticide. Pyrethroids kill mosquitoes OK but are much more expensive than DDT and only one third as effective. Pyrethroids are as damaging to bees, dragonflies and moths as is DDT.

Many disciples revere Carson as the saintly woman who spurred the environmental movement of the 1960s. Less forgiving critics condemn her for all her unconsidered consequences – the subsequent deaths of 50 million victims of malaria and, now, the birth of 4000 microcephalic Brazilian babies.

This year is the centenary of The Boeing Company founded by William E Boeing (1881-1956). It may come as a surprise to learn that the first international customer of a Boeing aircraft was the New Zealand Flying School, based in Mission Bay, Auckland.

In 1903 William Boeing bought a shipbuilding yard near Seattle and in so doing learnt about the construction of wooden structures. During this time he developed an interest in the fledgling aircraft industry – the aircraft at that time had timber air-frames. Boeing bought a Martin S seaplane but after a minor crash, he was informed by the Martin company that it would be many months before replacement parts could be assembled and shipped to him. Frustrated by this delay, Boeing and his friend Conrad Westervelt decided to build their own plane.

On June 15, 1916, Boeing and Westervelt built theB&W Seaplane. On July 15, 1916 Boeing formed the Pacific Aero Products Co. Soon after, this company became The Boeing Airplane Company. The idea was to sell their seaplane, renamed the Boeing Model 1, to the US Navy but the navy declined. However, when the US entered the war in 1917 the navy bought 50 of the Boeing Model 2, a revision of the Model 1.

In 1918 the first Boeing aircraft ever built, two Boeing Model 1 aircraft, were sold to the New Zealand Flying School. That speaks volumes about the gutsy, pioneering spirit in New Zealand at the time.

The New Zealand Flying School had been formed in 1915 by brothers Leo and Vivian Walsh and was based in Mission Bay, and was set up to train pilots for the Royal Flying Corps.

The end of the war in 1918 produced a surplus of seaplanes which meant that the orders dried up and Boeing was forced to direct his small factory to making wooden furniture and small boats. During this period he continued experimenting with aircraft designs and in 1919 Boeing manufactured, the Boeing Model 6. This was a single engine biplane flying boat with a crew of one and room for two passengers. Only one was ever built and sold.

William Boeing was clearly determined to keep his company viable. In a tough market he continued developing aircraft – the