Postwar Marketing of New Chemicals for Civilian Use

Two Classes of Organic Pesticides

• Organophosphates (e.g., parathion)—acutely toxic to mammals, low environmental persistence (water soluble)

• Organochlorines (e.g., DDT)—low toxicity to mammals, high environmental persistence

Persistence of DDT: Levels in Fish Caught in Washington State, 1990s (J. McIntyre, “Bioaccumulation of Mercury and Organochlorines in the Food Web of Lake Washington,” M.S., Univ of Washington, 2004)

Regulation of Pesticides?

--Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 1947

Objective was to protect “the users of economic poisons and the reputable manufacturer or distributor from those few opportunists who would discredit the industry.”

Women Strike for Peace Outside the Nevada Test Site, 1961 [?] (National Nuclear Security Administration)

From Monsanto Magazine, 1962

Rachel Carson testifying before the Ribicoff Committee

Legislative Reform in the wake of SS:

-1970: Authority to regulate pesticides transferred to EPA

-1972: EPA bans DDT

--1972: Federal Environmental Pesticides Control Act (requires re-registration of all pesticides; risks must be weighed against benefits)

--1988: Amendments to FIFRA (deadlines extended; some weakening of re-registration requirements)

--2014: date by which EPA currently expects to have all legal pesticides re-registered

Cultural and Intellectual Effects of Silent Spring

1. Increasing distrust of government and government and industry experts (dissident science)

2. Broad understanding of the connection between human health and environment, at the molecular level

3. Popularization of “ecology” as a word and as an idea (nature as balanced in the absence of humans)