Mauling Mosquitoes Naturally

摘要

Tell Donald Barnard about children you knew who would run out of their beach houses to watch the bug trucks spray DDT, and he'll one-up you. As a kid living on an army base in Cherry Point, N.C., he "used to go out and run through the [DDT] mist every night," he says. After discovering that DDT harms wildlife, the federal government outlawed use of the insecticide in the United States, though companies continue to export it legally (SN: 3/16/96, p. 174). Local governments still spray for mosquitoes, but instead of a heated mixture of oil and DDT, they usually employ malathion, an insecticide that degrades rapidly.