The World Health Organization is on the warpath to eradicate malaria -- the biggest killer of children in Africa -- and it wants to bring back DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carry it.

In the 1960s, when DDT was still being used heavily on crops, it became the focal point for an emerging environmental movement after Rachel Carson detailed how it entered the food chain, causing cancer and genetic damage, in her pivotal book "Silent Spring." It was implicated in the endangerment of several species of birds, including the bald eagle.

However, Dr. Arata Kochi, head of WHO's global malaria program, asserts that DDT is the most effective insecticide against malaria. He insists that it does not pose a health risk when small amounts are sprayed on the inner walls of people's homes. At about $5 per house, it is clearly cost-effective.

Its use is absolutely necessary to gain control over malaria, says Dr. Kochi. The disease kills more than 1 million people every year -- 800,000 of them young African children. No disease, not even AIDS, kills more children in Africa.

WHO already has been advocating the limited indoor spraying of DDT in certain areas during malaria's peak season. Seventeen African countries conduct at least some indoor spraying of insecticides to fight malaria, although just 10 of them use DDT. Many African nations have been reluctant to use DDT because of its negative environmental consequences.

Now, though, WHO is recommending that it be used continuously where the disease is most rampant, saying it does no harm when sprayed in small amounts indoors.

Republican US Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who is a medical doctor, is quoted in a WHO statement as saying that the organization's "unambiguous leadership" will "put to rest the junk science and myths that have provided aid and comfort to the real enemy -- mosquitoes."

The Bush administration has pledged $1.2 billion toward combating the disease.

Dr. Kochi's campaign to use DDT has been the subject of heated debate among health experts who may agree that it has a place in the anti-malaria strategy but are not united on what the exact approach should be.

Many professionals involved in the WHO malaria program have left their posts since Dr. Kochi took charge of it last year, at least some of them reportedly due to disagreement with his DDT strategy. Dr. Kochi has been dismissive of their objections; he acknowledged to reporters that he had called the staff members who argued against his plan "stupid."

A nonprofit group, Beyond Pesticides, is among those voicing opposition to WHO's new policy, contending that dependence on pesticides like DDT "causes greater long-tem problems than those that are being addressed in the short-term."