The 1962 book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson was instrumental at affecting public opinion against [DDT][1] and other pesticides culminating on [banning DDT all over the world][2]. While Carlson has many detractors, ecology militants would label them as being mercenaries at service of industrial interests.

From "[Bring Back DDT, and Science With It!][3]" by Marjorie Mazel Hecht:

> The campaign to ban [DDT][6] got its start with the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962. Carson’s popular book was a fraud. She played on people’s emotions, and to do so, she selected and falsified data from scientific studies, as entomologist Dr. J. Gordon Edwards has documented in his analysis of the original scientific studies that Carson cited.

From "[DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud][5]" by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards:

> The chemical compound that has saved more human lives than
any other in history, [DDT][6], was banned by order of one man, the
head of the U.S. [Environmental Protection Agency][7] (EPA). Public
pressure was generated by one popular book and sustained by
faulty or fraudulent research. Widely believed claims of
carcinogenicity, toxicity to birds, anti-androgenic properties, and
prolonged environmental persistence are false or grossly
exaggerated. The worldwide effect of the U.S. ban has been
millions of preventable deaths..

All my life I was told [DDT][6] (and pesticides in general) accumulates on the body across the whole food chain with severe consequences to the environment.

But is [DDT][6] really significantly less harmful than the current [EPA][8] official position?

From [TOXICOLOGICAL PROFILE FOR DDT, DDE, and DDD][9]. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - Public Health Service - Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

> Numerous studies have been conducted on the effects of DDT and related compounds in a variety of animal species, but the human data are somewhat limited. Most of the information on health effects in humans comes from studies of workers in DDT-manufacturing plants or spray applicators who had occupational exposure to DDT over an extended period and also from some controlled exposure studies with volunteers. Epidemiological studies of the general population are also available. Because of limitations inherent to all epidemiological studies, disease causality cannot be determined from them; however, epidemiological studies have been conducted that allow the evaluation of the potential role of DDT and related compounds in specific health outcomes.

My conclusion? There's no doubt that DDT has many negative health effects but I'm not sure the ban is justified and I would like to see more studies on this substance - but as often is the case with recreational drugs, nobody wants to pay the political price for funding studies about "devilish" chemicals.

For example, could DDT prevent the hundreds of microcephaly cases in Brazilian babies attributed to the recent Zika virus outbreak?

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Restrictions_on_usage
[3]: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/DDT.html#The%20Silent%20Spring%20Fraud
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
[5]: http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency
[9]: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp35.pdf