This is a zombie lie that never ever stops. You can't trust whatever psycho-website you got that misinformation from.

DDT was NEVER banned for public health purposes in Africa or anywhere in the Developing World.

It was restricted for use in agriculture to ensure --in part-- that it continued to be useful for public health. As far back as the late 1950s it was known that mosquitos easily developed resistance to DDT and other insecticides.

Link? My mom believes this zombie lie (and I assumed it was true too?)

I suppose I can farm some of my own links, but if you have more please LMK!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ddt-use-to-combat... (Article mentions that we are still using DDT in africa)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140224204808.h... (a single mutation is required to for mosquitos to become DDT resistant)

I think their argument is more along the lines of "Mother Teresa campaigned against the birth control that would have eased the poverty she based her career on."

I actually have very little faith in charities. I did missions for find, the earth institute, the gates foundation, MVP and WHO. Money is wasted/stolen, politics everywhere, ego, incompetence... It's business as usual, except the people I worked with a the bottom of the pyramid were awesome.

There is nothing special about charities. You describe most human organizations. Whose nature also depends on their environment - I posit that in a less cut-throat world humans and their organizations would be less cut-throat too. I also don't believe that the way it is is "inevitable" and/or "human nature" (http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/survival-of-the-friendlies...).

Think about this: At least in the western world we have achieved wealth and productivity where the word "unimaginable" from a point of view of even 500 years ago would be a gross understatement. And yet, to many people daily life still feels full of threats, while many work what they themselves recognize are meaningless jobs (see the popular Dilbert cartoons). It doesn't make sense, it is artificial. It doesn't need to be this way. We force people - and organizations - to live in a "stress and survival mode" that is completely unnecessary.