Rachel Carson's Body Count

The envy of Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Only Mao Zedong surpasses her.

Was she really responsible for the deaths of as many as 50 million people? That's just an estimate. What we do know is that her landmark 1962 bestseller Silent Spring – the book that set a million and one green activists on the path of eco righteousness – was responsible for the worldwide ban on the insecticide DDT, the most effective preventative against the mosquitos which spread the world's deadliest disease, Malaria. In this way countless millions of people, mostly Third World children, were condemned to death in the name of ecological correctness.

Meanwhile, South Africa shows what can be accomplished when one ignores Rachel Carson.

 South Africa has turned the tide on malaria, cutting mortality rates by 85 percent over the last 12 years, and hopes to soon eliminate the disease, a report stated Wednesday amid controversy over the use of highly controversial DDT.

Last year, only 70 people died from the mosquito-borne disease, compared to 460 deaths recorded in the year 2000, said the report delivered at a Pan African Malaria conference in Durban.
The number of people who caught malaria has come down to about a 10th of the cases recorded that same year.

"South Africa is well on its way to being a malaria-free country," Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said.
Worldwide the disease kills an estimated 660,000 people each year, 90 percent of them in Africa with the majority being children.

Countries severely affected by malaria in the continent include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Authorities in South Africa believe the continent's wealthiest and most developed country is closer to eradicating malaria, but admit that there was no quick fix.

They aim to rid the country of the disease by the year 2018.