In a recent article from Africa Fighting Malaria, author Jasson Urbach addresses the harmful effects of banning a class of insecticides: neonicotinoids. Urbach compares the unfounded fears of neonics with those of DDT, giving a brief history of the negative effects that bans on DDT have had on public health. For example, when South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996 due to pressures from environmental groups, malaria cases rose from around 6,000 in 1995 to 60,000 in 2000. DDT was reintroduced in the early 2000s, and with the combination of artemisinin-based therapies, malaria cases fell by almost 80 percent. South Africa is still using DDT today. (We should note that the widespread elimination of DDT, leading to the resurgence of malaria and other insect-borne diseases, was orchestrated right here in the USA by our EPA — one of its first moves, and one of its most devastating for global public health). Read more.