This week's UN Environment Program meeting on insecticide use will surely be enlivened by the Southern African Development Community's recent decision to start producing DDT to combat malarial mosquitoes.

DDT is saving lives in South Africa.

In late May, a deadly mutant strain of E. coli broke out in Germany and spread across at least 12 countries. The bacterium, which is more toxic and infectious than any other known strain of E coli, left 1,800 infected and 18 dead by early June.

Leadership is a wonderful thing, but it is truly found when it is tested, and on that count malaria leadership has failed.

It is the world's most successful public health insecticide, saving millions upon millions of lives from insect-borne diseases. Yet DDT remains the world's most misunderstood chemical.

A recent article by leading malaria scientists should set the record straight that malaria growth has not been caused by climate change.

The United Nations plans to advocate drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria.

How many more must die of malaria for no good reason?