This past summer Daniel John Sobieski wrote a letter about one of my columns. I felt honored. For those of us who regularly read the letters to the editor in Chicago newspapers, Sobieski is a household name. If memory serves, he has been a regular contributor for at least 30 years.
Jerry Sullivan writes about “the beneficial effects of the ban on DDT,” a ban largely brought about by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. Carson’s book was in fact a fraud that contributed to the suffering and death of millions.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Does this suggest that DDT was a threat or a benefit to civilization? Indeed, according to Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, during its less than 30 years of use (1944-’72), DDT prevented more human death and disease than any other man-made chemical in all of recorded history. Today there are 2.1 billion people at risk for malaria round the world, with an estimated 2.7 million people who die from malaria annually. There once was an effective way of fighting malaria. It was called DDT.
During 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency held official hearings on the scientific evidence concerning DDT. After seven months and 9,000 pages of testimony, EPA hearing examiner Edmond Sweeney decided on the basis of the evidence that DDT should not be banned.
I started scanning her book to see if I could find anything to support Sobieski’s charge. This book is hard to scan. It is too passionate, too well argued, too well-grounded in fact. It demands careful reading. I can thank Sobieski for sending me back to a book I last read more than 30 years ago. It is certainly one of the great works in the history of polemical literature. It did change our perceptions. Reading it took me back to a time when DDT mixed with fuel oil could be sprayed from airplanes onto suburban neighborhoods in a futile attempt to control Dutch elm disease or Japanese beetles, to a time when millions of acres of forest could be subjected to aerial spraying for spruce budworms or gypsy moths.
Sobieski’s claims about human health are as shaky as his thoughts on robins. Let’s get the chronology straight. DDT was banned in the United States in 1972. The ban did not extend beyond our borders, and DDT continued to be manufactured here for sale abroad. In 1975 global consumption of the chemical was estimated at 150,000 metric tons–about double the amount the U.S. produced in 1960.
By the way, Rachel Carson did not oppose the use of pesticides under all circumstances. She writes approvingly of herbicide applications done by workers with backpack sprayers. The herbicide is tightly controlled, applied in small amounts, and touches only the target plants. And she notes the importance of natural controls and alternatives to pesticides. In fact, the contemporary idea of integrated pest management, which uses chemicals sparingly as part of a broad range of pest-control techniques, can claim her as a supporter.
