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Silent Spring

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Silent Spring was written by Rachel Carson and published in September, 1962. The book is widely credited with launching the environmentalism movement in the West.

When Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read, spending several weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring is credited with the ban of the environmentally persistent pesticide DDT[EPA reference] retrieved April 26, 2006 in 1972 in the United States.

The book claimed detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. She proposed a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to DDT, claiming that DDT had been found to cause thinner egg shells and result in reproductive problems and death.

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History professor Gary Kroll commented, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'— as a perspective that cut against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature."Gary Kroll, ["Rachel Carson's Silent Spring]:A Brief History of Ecology as a Subversive Subject", retrieved April 26, 2006

According to Time magazine in 1999, within a year or so of its publication, "all but the most self-serving of Carson's attackers were backing rapidly toward safer ground. In their ugly campaign to reduce a brave scientist's protest to a matter of public relations, the chemical interests had only increased public awareness.”

Carson had made it clear she was not advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides, but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use, with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem. However, some critics asserted that she was calling for the elimination of all pesticides, despite the fact that Silent Spring was positively reviewed by many outside of the academic field such as agricultural science and chemical science, and it became a runaway best seller both in the USA and overseas.

Anectodal evidence may support Carson's claim. For example, chemicals that are persistent in the environment accumulate in body fat and are carried by women in their breast tissue, and studies by U.S. and Canadian scientists have found that women with higher levels of organochlorines in their blood have four to ten times the risk of breast cancer than those with lower levels. ["Breast Cancer: Is It the Environment?], Ms. Magazine, April/May 2000 Organochlorines are hydrocarbon-based chemicals containing chlorines like DDT. Moreover, "diminishing rates of breast cancer in Israel have paralleled a precipitous decline in environmental contamination with DDT and benzene hexachloride."Wolff, Mary S. et al, "Blood Levels of Organochlorine Residues and Risk of Breast Cancer," Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 85(8): 648-52, April 21, 1993. cited in [NOHA NEWS], Vol. XVIII, No. 3, (Summer 1993) retrieved April 26, 2006 Thus far, human data about the link between these chemicals and breast cancer are inconclusive. One study showed that women with breast cancer have the same or lower levels of pesticide residue in their system than women without the disease."Cancer Epidemiological Biomarkers", Prevention, 1999 June; 8(6):525-32

Criticism

Even before Silent Spring was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, there was strong opposition to it. According to Time in 1999:

"Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid—indeed, the whole chemical industry—duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media."

The book attracted hostile attention from scientists, commentators and the chemical industry. In general, her book did not receive positive reviews from the science field. One of Carson's claims was that DDT is a carcinogen. Subsequent studies have failed to demonstrate a link between DDT and cancer. On the contrary:

Biochemist and former chemical industry spokesman Robert White-Stevens stated, If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth.[PBS Frontline] program, Fooling with Nature, retrieved April 26, 2006

In a recent essay, "The Harm That Pressure Groups Can Do", British politician Dick Taverne was damning in his criticism of Carson:

Carson didn't seem to take into account the vital role (DDT) played in controlling the transmission of malaria by killing the mosquitoes that carry the parasite (...) It is the single most effective agent ever developed for saving human life (...) Rachel Carson is a warning to us all of the dangers of neglecting the evidence-based approach and the need to weight potential risk against benefit: it can be argued that the anti-DDT campaign she inspired was responsible for almost as many deaths as some of the worst dictators of the last century. *Taverne, Dick "The Harm That Pressure Groups Can Do", collected in Panic Nation, 2005, edited by Stanley Feldman and Vincent Marks, ISBN 1844541223.

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