Actually, it is and it has been done before with results that have benefited the residents of the affected area. In the 1930s and 1940s, DDT was sprayed all over the American South to eradicate mosquitoes. While it was only later discovered that DDT kills both songbirds and predatory birds (as was popularized in Rachel Carson's work, Silent Spring), DDT killed mosquitoes and made the annual fears of malaria and yellow fever only a memory....
Actually, it is and it has been done before with results that have benefited the residents of the affected area. In the 1930s and 1940s, DDT was sprayed all over the American South to eradicate mosquitoes. While it was only later discovered that DDT kills both songbirds and predatory birds (as was popularized in Rachel Carson's work, Silent Spring), DDT killed mosquitoes and made the annual fears of malaria and yellow fever only a memory. During WWII, the Allies sprayed DDT to kill lice in order to stop a lupus epidemic in Sicily after the Allied invasion.
Pesticides can be risky. In many cases, they can be either poisonous to young people or people with compromised immune systems, but if judiciously used, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Remember also that the ecosystem is connected, so pesticides used in a rural area may end up in an urban area due to the toxins turning up in food or via wind/ water currents blowing material to the city. Today, there are more precise ways to kill disease-causing insects—currently scientists are looking at creating sterilized hybrid mosquitoes in order to control the spread of the Zika virus in Brazil. Pesticides have had their positive uses and have saved thousands of lives; it would be a mistake to limit their uses entirely.
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