Pesticides in Southeast Asia: Environmental, Biomedical, and Economic Uses and Effects. Population growth, the expansion of world trade, increased demands for quantity and quality of agricultural and other commodities, and the need to control vector-borne diseases over the past 60 years have given rise to a proliferation of synthetic chemical pesticides in both developed and developing nations. Since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962, the easily perceived immediate benefits of pesticides have been tempered by concerns about their more subtle long-term environmental and health consequences. The use of pesticides is often justified as beneficial in economic terms, but the amounts and allocations of the direct and indirect costs have come into question. This book contains descriptions of pests and the pesticides used to control them, and offers perspectives on questions of safety, cost, and benefit. Representatives of pesticide and commodity producers argue for the low-risk benefits of pesticides if they are properly used; research scientists present information on health and environmental consequences of the actual patterns of use by farmers; economists present data on costs and their allocation; and development agency representatives describe methods of reducing hazards through farmers' field schools and integrated pest management, and discuss the procedures and problems of international control of pesticides.