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Year Ends 50th Anniversary of Silent Spring An Unhappy Legacy Continues

scain Wrote: Dec 11, 2012 11:43 PM

Growing up, I had never,ever, met anyone who had head-lice. When my children started school, there was an epidemic of head-lice every year. I commented on this to our pharmacist and he said that the ban on DDT was the cause for this.

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Year Ends 50th Anniversary of Silent Spring An Unhappy Legacy Continues

This year marked the 50^th anniversary of biologist Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring. Although the anniversary is soon to become history as well, Carson’s impact promises to continue well into the future—and it’s not something to celebrate.

Carson was right to advocate for careful use of pesticides, but her harsh rhetoric needlessly raised excessive alarm. She postulated man-made chemicals affect processes of the human body in “sinister and often deadly ways,” birthing a powerful environmental movement that is fiercely anti-pesticide.

But history has proven Carson’s claims wrong. Contrary to her warnings, a chemically caused cancer epidemic never happened....

Related Tags: Energy and Environment Media and Culture Farming and Agriculture Environmental Protection Agency pesticides Rachel Carson