DDT ranks among the most infamous acronyms in history. During the mid-twentieth century, its effectiveness at killing insects made it one of the miracle products of wartime investments in science and technology. Yet within thirty years, many industrialized countries banned the synthetic insecticide due to fears of its long-term effects on humans and wildlife. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the devastating resurgence of malaria across the developing world reignited debates over the ethics of using DDT.

The chemical compound that is DDT, dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane, was first synthesized in 1873, but not until 1939 did Swiss chemist Paul Müller discover its insecticidal properties. The U.S. military used DDT during World War II to protect soldiers and civilians from the destructive insect-borne diseases typhus and malaria. DDT's persistence and its broad spectrum of action made it extremely successful at killing insects over a long period, in small doses, and...