In praise of Rachel Carson

In the second sentence, shouldn’t she have been posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Nice article though.

Thanks for that roller coaster ride.

It was despair, more despair, oh god the world is coming to an end, hope.

Godwin as the lead in your second paragraph? Without a proper setup? Kick your editor in the ass. If you must, deploy it as a rhetorical flourish, as in “Yet, her accusers hold her responsible for a ban on the use of the insecticide DDT, which allegedly halted a campaign that was about to eradicate malaria, and blame her for millions of deaths from malaria in the Third World. Carson is [thus]/[somehow] regularly accused of killing more people than Hitler.” This puts the facts of the matter first, and the Hitler comparison squarely on the DDT enthusiasts, rather than starting with the Godwin, and following with the argument. A minor matter, perhaps, but in the second paragraph it seriously affects the appeal of your argument. Like I said, kick your editor in the ass. Already done it? Another one couldn’t hurt.

Guilty as charged. But my objection is not that the authors invoke Mr. Hitler, but rather how they do so. It’s a stylistic rather than a substantive argument that I’m trying to make.

Stylistically it works quite well, I think. Pointing out that she won various awards for her work, but that she has also been accused of having killed more people than Hitler is a good way to make people curious about her. It wasn’t until I read the name Milloy that I started to lose interest.

She is, in fact, such a model of grace that she would have immediately scotched my last sentence, there: “A graceful writer who suffered more attacks in her lifetime than Orwell ever had to endure, she is a model of grace.” That’s quite enough grace for one comment.

Isn’t this the unedited version anyway?

I should, in fairness, add: if my concerns are bullshit, give me a kick in the ass, and hard.

Messrs Quiggin and Lambert,

Can you please quote from and link to some of the many strident articles at Fox News and the WSJ claiming Rachel Carson is responsible “for a ban on the use of the insecticide DDT (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) which allegedly halted a campaign that was about to eradicate malaria, and blame her for millions of deaths from malaria in the Third World”? Since there are apparently lots of such articles the task should only a take a few minutes for experienced Googlers such as yourselves.

It would also be helpful if you could support your claim that the political right mounted a campaign, picked up by the MSM, that caused the World Health Organization “to replace the head of its antimalaria division and announce changes in policies”. Perhaps the WHO brought in new personnel hoping the anti-malaria program would start producing results.

You say DDT is currently used to “spray interior house walls or to impregnate bednets”. Is the impregnation of bednets a common practice?

How do you account for the following in non-right-wing sources – are the authors perhaps secretly funded by evil tobacco interests?

Fred Pearce, New Scientist:

“It seems millions of lives have been lost because health experts threw away their best weapon. Are environmentalists to blame? There is no doubt that DDT was misused as an agricultural pesticide and seriously damaged wildlife. In that sense Carson was right. But regulators did not recognise that spraying indoors was different. And an environmental outcry against DDT helped to ensure that the early fears about its effect on human health became entrenched dogma long after they had been proved unfounded.”

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626242.000&feedId=health_rss20

Apoorva Mandavilli, Nature Medicine:

“In theory, any country is free to use DDT. The Stockholm Convention of 2001 sought a global ban on DDT, but many countries and scientists argued against the ban, citing its value in malaria control. The final treaty made an exemption for DDT’s use in public health, but called for countries to gradually phase out the pesticide.

“Still, in places where malaria was still endemic, the treaty spelled disaster.

“Most African nations are heavily dependent on foreign aid and can ill afford to cross a line drawn by donor agencies.

“USAID never banned DDT outright, for instance, but nor did it fund DDT’s purchase – which amounts to the same thing.”

http://0-proquest.umi.com.prospero.murdoch.edu.au:80/pqdlink?did=1089565451&Fmt=6&clientId=20829&RQT=309&VName=PQD

John Balbus of Environmental Defense to a USAID official:

“As the organization that led the successful campaign to ban use of DDT in the United States in the early 1970’s, we have read with concern recent reports that US AID is unwilling to consider even limited use of DDT in anti-malaria programs in developing countries. According to the New York Times Magazine, you recently stated that part of the reason US AID doesn’t finance DDT is that doing so would require a battle for public opinion. ‘You’d have to explain to everybody why this is really O.K. and safe every time you do it.’”

http://www.edf.org/documents/5046_DDT-letterUSAID.pdf

Michael Finkel, National Geographic:

“Soon after the program collapsed, mosquito control lost access to its crucial tool, DDT. The problem was overuse—not by malaria fighters but by farmers, especially cotton growers, trying to protect their crops. The spray was so cheap that many times the necessary doses were sometimes applied. The insecticide accumulated in the soil and tainted watercourses. Though nontoxic to humans, DDT harmed peregrine falcons, sea lions, and salmon. In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, documenting this abuse and painting so damning a picture that the chemical was eventually outlawed by most of the world for agricultural use. Exceptions were made for malaria control, but DDT became nearly impossible to procure. ‘The ban on DDT,’ says Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health, ‘may have killed 20 million children.’”

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature1/text4.html

Finally, Carson damned DDT as carcinogenic (in Silent Spring claiming a DDT user developed and died of cancer over a period of months having used DDT three times) and implied it was a product of chemical weapons development. Can you point to a single example of Carson advocating DDT use in any circumstance?

John Quiggin,

From the “strident” WSJ article you link to (#18) but don’t quote:

“Carson cannot be blamed directly for these deaths. She didn’t urge total bans in “Silent Spring.” Instead, on the single page obliquely acknowledging DDT as an anti-malarial agent, she writes, “Practical advice should be ‘Spray as little as you possibly can’ rather than ‘Spray to the limit of your capacity.’

“In the National Archives exhibit, Carson is described as ‘a passionate voice for protecting the environment and human health.’ Her concerns about the effects of insect death on bird populations were well-founded. But threats to human health were central to her argument, and Carson was wrong about those. Despite massive exposure in many populations over several decades, there is no decisive evidence that DDT causes cancer in people, and it is unforgivable that she overlooked the enormous boon of DDT for malaria control in her own time.”

Surely among the many claimed WSJ articles you can find something that actually supports the claims made in your Prospect article.

Interestingly, I lodged essentially the same comment (#17) at your site and Lambert’s but the Crooked Timber comment is the only one to make it out of moderation. Funny that.

Your Prospect article is, like pretty much everything you write about DDT, close to right but filled with misrepresentations. It’s no wonder you choose not to defend it.

Beck’s comment had been out of moderation for eight hours when he claimed that it was still in moderation. And it appeared in the sidebar when I approved it.

If anyone cares, I replied to his comment here.

I approved your comment around midnight, before I went to bed. That’s 10pm WST, eight hours before you claim not to have seen it. I think most people here are bored with your games.

Rather than clutter up CT with stuff some will find objectionable, here’s the link:

http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2008/05/hackademics.html

Instead of having a whinge about my whinging why don’t you try addressing some of the issues?

How about supporting your claim that the political right mounted a campaign, picked up by the MSM, that caused the World Health Organization “to replace the head of its antimalaria division and announce changes in policies”?

And if I’m writing silly stuff as you claim why not address my points rather than refuse to post my comments? You’re scared to discuss DDT because you know damn near everything you write on the subject misrepresents the facts.