Robt Mann wrote:

> There are many
> examples of inefficacy of pesticides, even when used according to
> instructions.  The late U Calif prof Robt van den Bosch in his classic book
> 'The Pesticides Conspiracy' gave many examples, as does the textbook
> 'Ecoscience' by Ehrlich, Ehrlich & Holdren.  Some of the flops are due...

Old time insecticides like Malathion are also still producing great pest
control success stories like this one:
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Boll Weevils Nearly Eliminated in Cotton Belt
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020112/sc/markets_cotton_insects_dc_1.html
Saturday January 12 10:06 AM ET

ATLANTA, Georgia (Reuters) - Boll weevils, once a leading pest
for farmers in the U.S. cotton belt, is on the way to being eliminated
in the country, a government report said on Saturday.

Osama El-Lissy and Bill Grefenstette of the USDA's Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service said in a joint report to the annual
Beltwide Cotton conference that a large chunk of the cotton belt
stretching from Georgia to California had virtually eradicated the pest.

El-Lissy said 33 percent of cotton-growing states have completed
elimination of the boll weevil and some 65 percent ''are nearing
eradication.''

A total of 10 million acres were being treated for boll weevil with
malathion, the main chemical used as a pesticide, through aerial and
ground spraying and mist blowers, he said.

Only a few areas in Texas and in the U.S. South will see an
expansion of boll weevil eradication programs in 2002.

Earlier in the week, a report at the same conference by Michael
Williams of the Entomology and Plant Pathology Department of the
Mississippi State University extensive service said boll weevils had
fallen to the seventh most damaging cotton pest in the United
States.

The only states to lose bales to boll weevil are Arkansas, Missouri,
New Mexico, Tennessee and Texas. Those losses reached 28,414 bales.
The total U.S. cotton harvest in 2001/02 was estimated by the USDA
to hit a record 20.08 million bales.

"For the first time since these reports began in 1979, boll weevil was
not one of the top  five major pests for cotton in the United States,'' said
Williams.