The Evolutionary Resistance Of Malaria

A positive consequence of DDT is its effectiveness, even in the face of pesticide resistance in the anopheles mosquito. The eradication of malaria in the United States and the health of US Soldiers while fighting in World War II can be greatly credited to the use of DDT

I found myself once again facing defeat, seeking refuge behind the protection of my glass patio door. Summer evenings generally started out pleasantly on my porch, glistened with a beautiful sunset, followed by declining temperatures which provided respite from the heat. Disaster would invariably strike, however, with the inevitable onslaught of mosquitoes. The mosquitoes were unimpressed by my insistence on remaining environmentally conscious and disavowing products containing DEET. Pinpricks of swelling bumps peppered the lengths of my arms and legs, leaving me itchy, irritated, and defeated. Nevertheless, I was undaunted, and armed with science, I steeled myself for devastating counterattacks.

"I want to tell you a story from Borneo: in the 1950s, the Dayak people had malaria, and the World Health Organization had a solution. They sprayed DDT, which killed the mosquitoes, and the malaria declined. But there were side-effects. The roofs of the houses started to fall down on people’s heads because, it seemed, the DDT had also killed tiny parasitic wasps that had previously controlled thatch-eating

- Traits such as resistance to pesticides may cause overpopulation in unfavorable plant species, such as weeds. This resistance could also be passed on to species of insects that the pesticides were made for, thus negating the effect of the pesticide in the first place.

Throughout his essay, Suzuki supports his arguments with specific examples. To justify his reasoning, the author uses the case of DDT, otherwise known as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. This chemical compound is used as an insecticide to eliminate the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which it did effectively, and saved millions of lives. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, complications arose, which led to an increase in chemicals and caused a domino effect of

Malaria: However, those who inherit just one copy of the mutation do not suffer too badly; in fact, they are resistant to malaria which defined as an infective disease caused by sporozoan parasites that are transmitted through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito; marked by paroxysms of chills and fever. The discovery told geneticists much about evolution and how harmful mutations can increase to relatively high levels within a population provided they confer some advantage. By understanding how

Furthermore, the preceding statement supports Carson’s intention to present an informative, persuasive, and logical point of view without shocking or confusing the reader. Carson presents the problem calmly in the opening paragraph and states her claim as a practical approach to stop or decrease the amount of the spraying of DDT pesticides in combined efforts to stop the super races of insects like mosquitoes for example from becoming immune. Including this support for her thesis Carson argues mosquitoes becoming immune to the man-made vaccines presently available would inarguably have serious, detrimental and adverse negative impacts upon the effectiveness of the

Man can capture an elephant, train a lion, and totally obliterate a species from this earth. If man can do all that surely he will have dominion over something as small and meek as a mosquito. The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793 proved this notion to be false as this disease, transmitted solely by the bite of a female mosquito, wiped out one tenth of Philadelphia’s population in four months. Some make the mistake of seeing this as an isolated event but this epidemic was as far-reaching as the disease itself since it forever changed America’s Government, public health system and African American community.

The use of pesticides is an important decision that thousands of communities face each year. Nobody likes dealing with mosquitos and the diseases they bring so using chemicals and pesticides is an option but with other consequences. Mosquitos carry West Nile Virus that affects the city of Genericville every year with 50 cases projected this year in the city and two fatalities as well. On the other hand, the chemicals proposed for controlling the mosquito population has its own risks. The pesticide Malathion is also dangerous to people if they come in contact with it before it degrades. The potential for citizens of the city being exposed is almost a certainty

In the early 1940’s, a new technology emerged that was able to successfully combat crop-damaging and disease-carrying insects. A new age of synthetic chemical pesticides use arose. After their impressive success in fighting deadly insect-borne diseases during World War II, pesticides were used widely to combat insect pests for agriculture and public health. Few people challenged the benefits of the new scientific and technological products and many embraced pesticide use with enthusiasm. Despite its success, doubts about pesticide use began to appear a decade later in the 1950’s, when the government began a vigorous pesticide campaign across the country against insect pests. Scientists began reporting heavy losses of avian and

With all this focus on the development of new drugs to combat malaria, an old effective method has been forgotten. The chemical DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) has proven effective in reducing malaria cases. Popularly used as a pesticide in the middle of the twentieth century, killed the mosquito population that was responsible for malaria related deaths. The number of people in India that contracted malaria in the 1940’s was approximately 75 million a year with 800,000 dying as a result. With the introduction of DDT, the number of cases dropped to 50,000 by 1961. Similar cases have been documented in Sri Lanka, where the number of cases dropped in 18 years from 3 million to 29 after the introduction of DDT (“DDT Delirium,” 2002). The difference in numbers is staggering.

People turn a blind eye to the millions of bottles of pesticides and spray it all over not knowing what those toxic chemicals in that bottle truly do to our environment. Many people use the argument that it creates more food, but mere changes in the way we grow food like having various crops in a field rather than the same could fix the problem more naturally rather than chemically. As Earth evolves countries around the globe keep inventing stronger and more harmful insecticides to help manage insects but as people constantly use these chemicals these insects inadvertently become even stronger and can become more immune and more powerful then ever. The Earth before humans came adjusted to harmful insects and sunbeams omits own. But now as scientists concoct new atoms and new elements that would take thousands to millions of years for the Earth to handle but as humans want to speed the process more then ever it becomes apparent that Earth will not adapt to these new chemicals but rather be degraded by it.

In the recent years pathogens, pests, and cancers have shown an increase in resistance or adaptation to control measures; this is mainly because control measures have been used without restraint. Conversely, wild species, crops, livestock, and human beings present a decrease in adaptation to changing environments. Evolution is defined as the change in the genetic composition of an entire population over time. The application of evolutionary biology encloses various manipulations that can slow the undesired evolution of pathogens, pests, and cancers; and increase the performance of other valuable species by decreasing the phenotype environment mismatch and increasing the group productivity. Some common applications of evolutionary biology are: environmental alignment, genome alteration, use of environmental heterogeneity, and focus in increase group performance.

Chapter 15: People have spent countless amount of effort and time to mold their surroundings to how they see fit. Despite this, insects seem to be able to resist this change, refusing to die despite the efforts of humankind. Insects are able to adapt to insecticides to the extent that they have become immune to its effects, requiring a new and stronger poison to temporarily deal with them. Scientists argue that they do not understand insects enough to remove them. They have realized the poison kills the weaker of the insects and the enemies of the insects they wish to kill, causing the opposite effect.

About 3.3 billion people, that is about half of the world’s population are at risk of contracting malaria (figure 1). Every year there are 250 million cases of malaria, and nearly 1 million deaths. That amounts to 2,732 deaths per day. Out of those million people that die every year, 800,000 of them are African children under the age of 5. To control malaria three actions need to be taken: insecticides need to be used to decrease the vector population, people have to be educated as to how to prevent the vector from reproducing, and anti-malarial drugs need to be distributed. To understand the vector and what the vector is, scientists had to first discover what the parasite was and how it worked. It was not until the year 1880 that French Physician Charles Laveran discovered that Malaria was caused by a protozoan in the genus Plasmodium (Malaria, 2013)