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Silent Spring and the Betrayal

of Environmentalism
By Thomas E.Jukes

Biochemist, was a professor in the Space Sciences Laboratory

at the University of California at Berkeley.

If an environmental organization wants to protect the human health, its priorities should be first
established. The biggest threats come from smoking cigarettes, alcohol, or drug abuse. Instead of
that, and as a consequence of Rachel Carson's book of 1962, Silent Spring, the main environmental
groups are worried by inexistent problems of pesticide residues in food, when the truth is that
pesticide use increases the supply at lower costs of fruits and vegetables that are a guarantee of a
better health. The book Silent Spring presents a picture so dramatically contrary to scientific facts, in
a such an eloquent and persuasive way, and so permanently influential, that its impact is difficult to
overestimate.

During the 20th Century life expectancy in the USA has increased in a sustained way from 49 years
in 1900 to 75 years in 1983. Part of this increase is due to the use of pesticides because they destro-
yed arthropods vectors of diseases as malaria. These diseases had kept the so called “nature's balan-
ce” by killing millions of people. In India, R. Pal reported in 1962 that since 1953 147 million pounds
of DDT had been used, plus small amounts of benzene hexachloride and dieldrin. [1] Pal estimated
that during those nine years life expectancy in India had increased from 32 to 47 years, and during
the same period malaria was reduced from 75 million cases to less than 5 millions. At the same time,
one region that had been abandoned by their population because of malaria, “had become a
beautiful and prosper area.” As S.W. Simmons, head of the Centre of Transmissible Diseases
technological branch of the US Public Health Service, back in 1959: [2]

“DDT's total value for mankind is invaluable. Most people in the world has received
benefits from it, either directly by protection from infectious diseases transmitted by
insects and plagues, or indirectly because a better nutrition, cleaner and healthier foods,
and an increased resistance to diseases. The discovery of DDT will stay for ever as an
historical event I the field of public health and agriculture.”

Carson's Silent Spring message, in its brilliant first chapter, “A Fable for Tomorrow,” begins like
this:

“Once upon a time there was a city in the heart of the USA where all life seemed to go
along in harmony with its surroundings. The city was in the middle of a check board of
prosper farms with grain fields and hills of orchards where in spring white clouds
wandered above the green fields. In the fall, oaks, maples, and birch trees used to put a
flame of colour that burned and scintillated along a background of pines. Then, fox
barked in the hills and deer crossed the fields, half hidden in the morning mist of
autumn.

Along the roads, laurels, evergreen and alders, big ferns and wild flowers made the joy
for the traveller's eye along most part of the year. Even in the winter roadsides were
beautiful places where countless birds cam to eat berries and the seeds of dry weeds
emerging from the snow. The fields were famous for the abundance and variety of their

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emerging from the snow. The fields were famous for the abundance and variety of their
birds, and when swarm of migrating flowed there during spring and fall, people travelled
from big distances to watch them. Others came to fish in their creeks where trout were
waiting. It was tah way during many years, when the first settlers built their homes, dug
their wells and erected their barns.

This beautiful picture of the past, “when all life seemed to go along in harmony with its
surroundings” is an illusion. Life is a constant struggle for existence and survival against Nature.
Grain fields were kept only by means of the fight against weeds, caterpillars, rats, fungus diseases
and droughts, as every farmer knows. Orchards needed to be sprayed against moth, medfly and
plagues. The most abundant birds were, and still are, starlings, house sparrows and blackbirds, that
lunged over crops. The “first settlers” were riddled with sickness. The typhoid fever bacterium was
often found in drinking water. Other lethal diseases were common; one has only to examine the
tombstones in an old cemetery to realize that. In no place in his book Carson mentions the scientific
breakthroughs against contagious diseases. Silent Spring keeps saying (pp. 13-14):

Then a strange pest abated over the area and everything started to change. Somo curse
had befallen on the community: mysterious sicknesses swept away chicken flocks; cattle
and sheep got sick and died. Everywhere was the shadow of death. Farmers talked about
many sicknesses in their families. In the city doctors were every day more puzzled by
new kind of diseases appearing in their patients. There were some unexplained sudden
deaths, not only among adults but also I children that were suddenly attacked while
playing and died in a few hours.

There was a strange quietness. Birds, for example, -where had they go? Many were
talking about it, puzzled and troubled. Feeding stations in backyards were deserted. The
few birds seen were all dying; they only trembled violently and couldn't fly. It was a
voiceless spring. In the mornings that once palpitated with the morning song of robins,
screaming ouzels, doves, grackles, wrens and many other birdsongs, now had no sound
at all; just the silence extending over the fields, forests and swamps.

In the farms, hen hatched eggs but no chick were born. Farmers complained that they
could not raise pigs –the broods were small and the young survived for just a few days.
Apple trees were blooming, but there was no bees flying among their flowers, so there
was no po-llination and there wouldn't be fruits. Roadsides, once so attractive, were
now full of brown and dry vegetation as if the fire had passed over there. Roads were
also deserted; lifeless. Creeks were now dead. Fishermen didn't visit them because all
fish were already dead. In the roof gutters under the porches and between tiles in the
roof, there were patches of a white powder that could be seen; a granular and whitish
powder that had fallen like snow on roofs and gardens, fields and creeks, some weeks
ago. No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the renaissance of new life in this
battered world. The people had done it themsel-ves. [3]

The Elaborated Falsehoods of Rachel Carson

Carson's elaborate falsehood asserts that spreading the granular powder DDT produced an "evil
spell" that brought the shadow of death everywhere: death to human beings, chickens, cattle and
sheep, wild birds, bees, fish, and even roadside vegetation.

The facts are that for human beings, DDT was a major contributor to the population explosion.

Laying hens are resistant to DDT, and the hatchability of their eggs stays normal when the hens re-
ceive 100 ppm (parts per million) DDT in their diet. Cattle and sheep are protected by DDT against
disease-bearing lice, ticks, fleas, and blowfly strike. "Browned and withered vegetation" by the
roadsides results from the use of herbicides to kill weeds. DDT is not an herbicide. The counts of
most wild birds have increased during usage of DDT, and one species, the red-winged blackbird, has
undergone a population explosion, perhaps because of the effects of DDT on avian malaria.

Honeybees are resistant to DDT, but are rapidly killed by substitute insecticides such as parathion
and carbaryl. Many fish are so tolerant of DDT that they develop enormously high tissue levels with
no apparent ill effect, as in Triana, Alabama, where DDT from a chemical production plant was in

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no apparent ill effect, as in Triana, Alabama, where DDT from a chemical production plant was in
the river.

Why this barrage of lies by Carson? Why does she not mention malaria control and the consequent
saving of 500 million human lives by DDT in the two decades before her book was published? Here
are a few guesses.

First, only a "Big Lie" could harm the reputation of DDT. A discussion that included mention of
DDT's benefits would not have "sold" Carson's book. Second is her use of the principle stated by Dr.
Richard T. Rappolt, Sr. in 1969: "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." [4] Third, she hated
science and technology. Fourth, and probably most important, Carson wanted to make a big name
for herself by alarming the public.

The publication of Silent Spring was a huge success. Practically no one questioned its veracity. Justi-
ce William Douglas called it "the most important chronicle of this century for the human race"; "on
every page the horror mounts," he said. Jacqueline Kennedy praised it from the White House.

More recently, Vice President Al Gore tells in his book Earth in the Balance, how his mother impres-
sed on her young son the importance of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Gore writes: "This nearly
invisible poison, which had first been welcomed as a blessing, became for me a symbol of how
carelessly our civilization could do harm to the world, almost without realizing its own power....
DDT can be ecologically dangerous even in tiny amounst". [5]

The present head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Carol Browner, said in a
press release on April 26, 1994: "Thirty years ago, Rachel Carson warned of the dangers of pesti-
cide residues on food. Since then, our use of pesticides has doubled".

But. it is the residues, not the use of pesticides, that might affect the public, and less than 0.5
percent of sampled foods violates federally allowed limits for pesticide residues in foods in Foods
and Drug Administration studies from 1985 to 1991. [6]

I shall not discuss the rest of Silent Spring because this has been done, page by page, in considera-
ble detail by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards in his article "The Lies of Rachel Carson, " (21st Century
Science & Technology, Summer 1992, pp. 44-51).

After World War II, the achievements in pest and disease control resulting from the use of DDT were
so extensive that a huge scientific literature built up on DDT and its benefits.[7]

In 1961, one year before publication of Silent Spring, large areas of Pennsylvania were sprayed
with DDT, 1 pound per acre, for eradication of the gypsy moth. The Scranton Bird Club kept a close
check, and not a single case of bird poisoning attributable to DDT was reported. Officials of the
National Audubon Society were satisfied that no damage was done to bird life, including nesting
birds. [8]

But this was the last time that any environmentalist organization made a factual and scientific eva-
luation of a use of DDT. Once Silent Spring was published, the campaign against pesticides
became a "cash cow" and a recruiting aid for environmentalists. This fund-raising practice
continues, as shown by the Alar apple scare in 1989, in which "a modest investment by Natural
Resources Defen-se Council repaid itself manyfold in tremendous media exposure and substantial
immediate reve-nue for future pesticide work," as described by the environmentalist publicist D.
Fenton, who had planned the Alar media campaign.[9]

One can imagine what the "future pesticide work" will be.

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MALARIA: A DISEASE THAT STILL KILLS MILLIONS

Malaria is the single most important tropical disease and a major obstacle to the economic
and social development of vast areas of the world today. In the early 1940s, before DDT was
used to kill the anopheles mosquitos that spread malaria, 300 million people were striken
with malaria and 3 million died every year. Thanks to the pesticide DDT, million of lives were
saved in the years immediately following World War II, and it was expected that malaria
would be brought under control.

The 1972 ban on DDT changed the course of the disease, and malaria cases began again to
climb. Today, more than 270 million people worldwide are infected with malaria, with more
than 100 million clinical new cases every year and millions of painful deaths, as the parasites
injected with the mosquito saliva devour the victims red blood cells. Those who don't die have
periodic acute attacks, are chronically weakened and prey to other diseases because of the
malaria plasmodia parasitizing their livers. According to the Centers for Disease Control, these
figures are very conservative.

What Is DDT?
DDT is the abbreviatian for IUPAC 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chloro-phenyl)ethane (C14H9CI3). It is
a chlorinated hydrocarbon, produced from a combination of chloral and chlorobenzene. It is a
contact insecticide, penetrating the external body surface (the cuticle) of the irisect to act as a nerve
poison. It is so effective in malarial eradication programs because of its residual effects.

The most important metabolic product is DDE, short for Dichloro-Diphenyt-Ethane [llJPAC 1,1-
dichloro-2,2- bis (p-chloro-phenyl) ethylene]. DDE is produced as DDT is dehydrochlorinated in
insects, microorganisms, birds, fish, mammals, and dead organic matter DDE is the most persistent
and widespread DDT residue because it is relatively inert. Most "DDT experiments" actually measu-
re quantities of DDE, since DDT has such a short half-life, from hours to days in most species. DDT
controls more than 20 serious human diseases, including bubonic plague, yellow fever, trypanoso-
miasis, elephantiasis, and encephalitis. It greatly increases the production of food crops by killing
insect pests. In underdeveloped countries as much as 40 percent of each crop is lost to insects. In the
United States cotton, peanuts, and potatoes increased 60 to 119 percent when DDT was used, and
the production of alfalfa seed increased from 300 to 600 percent.

A 10-Year Campaign

The campaign against DDT launched by Silent Spring included public hearings. One accusation was
that DDT would bring "death to the oceans." It was based on a 1968 note published by a founder of
the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Charles F. Wurster, in Science magazine. [10]
This note described the addition of graded amounts of an alcohol solution of DDT to cultu-res of
marine algae in seawater, followed by estimating photosynthesis from radiolabeled carbon dioxide
(14CO2) uptake. The addition of DDT ranged up to concentrations of 500 ppb (parts per billion) in

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(14CO2) uptake. The addition of DDT ranged up to concentrations of 500 ppb (parts per billion) in
the cultu-res, using the alcohol to force solution beyond the saturation point. The 14CO2 uptake was
depressed at the higher concentrations, presumably because of the phytotoxicity of DDT.

The maximum natural solubility of DDT is 1.2 ppb in seawater and above this level it would be preci-
pitated and adhere to the algae. No depression (on average) of photosynthesis was found at levels of
1 to 2 ppb.

It is surprising that Science, the weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement
of science, permitted publication of such an ill-contrived experiment. Nevertheless, the publication
was seized upon by biologist Paul Ehrlich, who used it to predict the "death of the oceans" in the
following terms:

"The end of the ocean came late in the summer of 1979, and it came even more rapidly than
the biologists had expected. There had been signs for more than a decade, commencing with
the discovery of 1968 that DDT slows down photosynthesis in marine plant life. It was
announced in a short paper in the technical journal, Science, but to ecologists it smacked of
doomsday. They knew that all life in the sea depends on photosynthesis, the chemical process
by which green plants bind the Sun's energy and make it available to living things. And they
knew that DDT and similar chlorinated hydrocarbons had polluted the entire surface of the
Earth, including the sea."[11]

Ehrlich's declamations were echoed by U Thant in his capacity as head of the United Nations. Fears
were expressed that DDT would bring an end to the world's supply ot oxygen by ending photosyn-
thesis, when actually there are 60,000 mols of oxygen per square meter of the Earth's surface, com-
pared with 8 mols per square meter produced annually by photosynthesis. Also, saturation of the
oceans with DDT would require 1.2 x 1010 kilos of DDT – an amount equal to more than 9,000 years
of pre-Carson DDT production levels! And, as noted above, saturation would have no effect on
photosynthesis by marine algae.

This is an example of the "science" used in the campaign to ban DDT.

The Birds

Major emphasis in the campaign to ban DDT was given to its alleged effects on birds. In 1965, the
same Charles F. Wurster observed a few dead robins in Hanover, New Hampshire, after the spraying
of elm trees with DDT to save them from Dutch Elm Disease. [12] He found a 70 percent decline in
the resident population of 12 robins. He did not consider that some of the 8 missing robins might
have left town, and in a statistical pipe-dream, he extrapolated the "70 percent decline" to a
mortality of 350 to 400 birds in Hanover. This study launched Wurster's career as an expert on
the effect of DDT in nontarget species. Wurster wrote in a 1969 article on DDT (Bioscience, Sept.
1969, Vol. 19):

"If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve, and probably retain in other envi-
ronmental issues, a level of authority they have never had before. In a sense, then, much
more is at stake than DDT."

Let us consider the population biology of robins. They produce usually two broods of 4 to 5 offspring
annually; so if 50 percent of the young survive to adulthood and there are 5 million robins in the
United States (a very low estimate; the well-known authority on birds, Roger Tory Peterson, said in
1963 that the American robin is probably "North America's number one bird" in terms of numbers),
there would be an annual increase of 11 million robins. [13] Obviously, the population must be kept
in equilibrium by natural limitations, such as loss of habitat, competition for nesting sites, adequacy
of food supply, territorial conquests, predation, and disease. If the population drops for some
unusual reason, it moves back toward the equilibrium dictated by population biology.

What had DDT done to robins according to actual bird counts – not according to Wurster or to

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What had DDT done to robins according to actual bird counts – not according to Wurster or to
Silent Spring, which claims on page 118 that the robin "is on the verge of extinction"? The available
figures are in the table, which compares pre-DDT counts with those at the height of DDT usage. The
table has been abbreviated, but no species have been omitted that showed a reduction per observer.
The average total bird count per observer, including all species, was 1,480 in 1941 and 5,860 in
1960. Some of the decreased species, such as swans, geese, and ducks, are hunted, and bluebirds are
known to be susceptible to cold winters.

The increase in swallows may be contrasted with Silent Spring, which says on page 111, "Swallows
have been hard hit.... Our sky overhead was full of them only four years ago. Now we seldom see
any." The "silence" in Silent Spring would have been broken by the vociferous chattering of black-
birds, which increased by 39-fold, and starlings, which increased 11-fold. Starlings thrive, 8
million of them, in Fresno County, California, which uses more pesticides than any other county in
the United States.

AUDUBON SOCIETY CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT DATA 1941

( 2,331 observers ), compared with 1960, ( 8,928 observers )

Species Count per observer Ratio

1941 1960
1960/1941
Eagle .08 .10 1.25
Gull 53.40 72.00 1.33
Raven .29 .30 1.03
Crow 79.59 28.04 .35
Pheasant .88 1.15 1.31
Mourning dove 2.83 2.21 75
Swatlow 3.18 8.17 2.57
Grebe 6.15 27.14 4.41
Pelican 1.07 3.12 2.92
Cormorant 1.91 1.18 .62
Heron .97 1.82 1.88
Egret .63 1.88 2.98
Swan 7.96 3.81 .48
Goose 78.43 78.04 .99
Duck 916.81 306.85 .33
Blackbird 58.99 2,302.01 39.02
Grackle 10.70 1,407.98 131.59
Cowbird 17.17 368.09 21.44
Chickadee 9.15 6.26 .68
Titmouse 2.16 2.05 .95
Nuthatch 1.81 1.50 .83
Robin 8.41 104.01 12.37
English sparrow 22.80 40.19 1.76
Bluebird 1.60 .77 .48

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Bluebird 1.60 .77 .48

Starling 90.88 971.45 10.69

Source: "42nd Christmas Bird Count," Audubon Magazine, 1942; and "61st
Christmas Bird Count," Audubon Field Notes 15, 1961.

I conclude that most birds can get along very well with DDT at its normal levels of use. There was
no "silent spring."

The EPA Hearings

The hearings lasted for seven months, during which 125 witnesses were heard and 9,362 pages of
testimony were recorded. The Hearing Examiner issued his recommended findings, conclusions,
and orders on April 25, 1972. His conclusions of law included." [14]

"DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man.... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic

hazard to man.... The uses of DDT under the registrations involved here do not have a
deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife....
The adverse effect on beneficial animals from the use of DDT under the registrations
involved here is not unreasonable on balance with its benefit.... There is a present need
for the continued use of DDT for the essential uses defined in this case."

EPA Hearing Examiner Sweeney stated:

In my opinion, no one questions the testimony that DDT is found in varied and remote
pla-ces. Likewise, that its persistence is at once both boon and bane.... To be considered
in the determination of the fate of the ... registration... there has to be a preponderant
showing that the present uses cause an unreasonable adverse effect.

That showing has not been made.... Although it was not in issue here, there was ample
evidence to indicate that DDT is not the sole offender in the family of pesticides; and
that necessary replacements would in many cases have more deleterious effects than
the harms allegedlv caused by DDT....

In my opinion, the evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a
present need for the essential uses of DDT; that efforts are being made to provide a
satisfactory replacement for DDT; and that a co-operative program of surveillance and
review can result in a continued lessening in the risks involved.

These pronouncements were greeted with hostility by The New York Times in an editorial on April
29, 1972, headlined Apologist for DDT." The Times wrote.": [15]

Mr. Sweeney had come to his task with no knowledge of pesticides, no understanding of
environmental problems.... The hearing examiner has now issued the kind of report that
deserves to carry very little weight with EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus [who] is
in no way bound by the Sweeney recommendation. He can and surely will read the
testimony for himself.

The New York Times later described five scientists who pointed out that the Audubon bird counts
had increased, per observer, during DDT usage as "paid liars." Such is the vehement prejudice of
this newspaper against DDT. Chemical Week, May 10, 1972, took a more scientitic view of the issue.
[16]

Dr. Paul Müller, here at work in his laboratory, won the 1948 Nobel Prize for Medicine
and Physiology for his discovery of the insect-killing pnoperties of DDT, because it had such a
profound effect on the health of mankind. Müller was systematically seeking an agricultural
insecticide that would be cheap, easy to produce, and harmless to humans, plants, and
animals other than insects. DDT was first synthesized by Zeidler in 1874 and resynthesized
by Müller in 1939 by a different method as part of his systematic search from first principles.

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by Müller in 1939 by a different method as part of his systematic search from first principles.

----------------------------------------------------------

Our hat is off to Mr. Sweeney for his wise and courageous decision – based on evidence. He has
renewed our faith that reason will ultimately prevail over emotionalism in shaping national environ-
mental policy. But it's still much too early to claim a decisive victory for objectivity, even in the limi-
ted matter at hand.... And industry has a right to expect that the verdict be free of political taint,
even though this is an election year and millions of voters know and hate DDT. If Mr. Ruckelshaus
and high-level Administration figures want a model of judiciousness for their environmental delibe-
rations, we suggest they take inspiration from Mr. Sweeney.

Scientific Evidence Ignored

EPA administrator Ruckelshaus, however, did not read the voluminous record of the EPA hearings
on DDT. Instead, he unilaterally overturned the conclusions and findings of his own hearing exami-
ner, rejected the scientific evidence presented at the hearings, and banned DDT on June 2, 1972,
saying:" [17]

"DDT is concentrated in organisms and transferred through food webs... the

accumulation in the food chain and crop residues results in human exposure. Human
beings store DDT. The above tacts constitute an unknown, unquantifiable risk to man
and lower organisms."

Many years later, on March 21, 1994, Ruckelshaus stated in a letter to The Wal! Street Journal:[18]

"The direct ecological effect and the basis for the decision was its proven impact on the
thickness of eggshells of raptors, birds such as the brown pelican and the peregrine
falcon." [Emphasis added.]

The evidence for eggshell thinning in falcons and pelicans is questionable, but that is beside the
point for Ruckelshaus. Moreover, the 1994 statement by Ruckelshaus is at odds with the text of his
1972 ban. One wonders whether he even read his 1972 decision!

Ruckelshaus ignored the pleas for continued use of DDT made by the nation's and the world's scien-
tists. For example, during the EPA hearings on DDT, the World Health Organization stated.[19]

Improvement in health occasioned by antimalaria campaigns has broken the vicious

cycle of poverty and disease in many areas by preventing incapacity and death .. . and
reducing the high socio-economic cost of treatment and medical care.... For the present,
no economic alternative to DDT is available and the... consequences of the withdrawal of
DDT would be very grave... the safety record of DDT for man is truly remarkable.... In
spite of the prolon-ged exposure of the population of the world and the heavy
occupational exposure of a substantial number of people, the only confirmed cases of
injury have been the result of massive accidental or suicidal ingestion.... The withdrawal
of DDT would be a major tragedy in the chapter of human health.

Despite the scientific evidence, the political campaign to ban DDT changed public perception of this
substance from that of a safe and effective insecticide to a deadly poison.

New Scare Stories

The California Department of Health was concerned about the effects of DDT on reproduction, and
Dr. Alice Ottoboni, the department's toxicologist, consequently carried out extensive studies with
rats and dogs during the 1960s and 1970s. [20] Rats were fed levels of DDT of 0, 20, and 200 ppm
in the diet. There was no apparent effect on fecundity of dams or viability of the young. The females
receiving 20 ppm DDT had a significantly longer average reproductive life span (14.55 months) than
did their littermate controls (8.91 months).

Ottoboni's studies with beagle dogs were through four generations, and 650 pups were born to

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Ottoboni's studies with beagle dogs were through four generations, and 650 pups were born to
parents that received 1, 5, and 10 milligrams (mg) of DDT per kg of body weight per day. There was
no effect of DDT on survival, growth, and sex distribution of pups, nor was there any influence on
morbidity or mortality or gross or histologic findings in any of the dogs. DDT-treated females had
their first estrus cycles two to three months earlier than the control dogs. The highest level of DDT,
in contrast to the control or 1 mg groups, was associated with freedom from roundworm infection in
the pups.

More recently, Unnur P. Thorgeirsson and coworkers reported in the Journal of Regulatory Toxico-
logy and Applied Pharmacology on a 32-year study of chemical carcinogenesis using Old World
monkeys, who live about 30 years, to test a variety of chemicals, including DDT. [21] In this DDT
study, 25 monkeys were fed 20 mg/kg of DDT by mouth five times per week for 11 years. So far, 10
monkeys have died of various causes, and the other 15, ages 19 to 25, are in good health. The single
cancer that occurred in a 20-year-old monkey cannot be attributed to DDT because of the monkey's
age and the fact that these monkeys have a spontaneous cancer rate of 3.2 percent. On the other
hand, the common fungal food contaminant, aflatoxin B, and a compound produced in cooked meat,
IQ, induced cancers in more than 60 percent of the animals.

The DDT myth persists in the news as well as in the scientific literature. On April 21, 1993, Mary G.
Wolff and colleagues published a study on DDT residues in blood and breast cancer in the Journal
of the National Cancer Institute. [21] They reported that 58 patients with breast cancer had
blood serum levels of 11.0 + 9.1 nanograms (ppb) of DDE per milliliter of blood serum, compared
with 7.7 + 6.8 nanograms (ppb) of DDE in the control group of cancer-free patients. No further
tests were made for other possible variables such as medication with estrogens. PCB concentrations
were also higher in the breast cancer group than in the controls, with lower margins of error than in
the DDE groups (8.0 + 4.1 ppb vs 6.7 + 2.9), suggesting that compounds stored in blood fat were
mobi-lized in the cancer patients.

The findings were seized on by the media, including Associated Press and Time magazine, with
head-lines "DDT Linked to Risk of Breast Cancer" and "Relentless DDT." The New Yorker,
which had launched Silent Spring in 1962, exulted on June 6, 1993, that "Rachel Carson
Lives."

One year later, a new study to correct the fiist was published by N. Krieger and coworkers in the
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, covering a much larger group of subjects (150 vs. the 58
breast-cancer patients in Wolff's report) and drawing on thousands of blood samples collected and
frozen during the late 1960s, when average DDE levels were four to five times higher. The 1994
report showed no association between serum levels of DDE and the risk of breast cancer.

This disproof of the earlier claims did not make the headlines. There were no stories about "DDT
Not Linked to Breast Cancer," or "DDT Relents." The New Yorker has not said that "Rachel
Carson no longer lives, after all."

Many activists may be expected to ignore the disproof of the 1993 claims and to link DDT falsely to
cancer. The first, desired report is now "locked in" and has become a part of the evaluation of DDT
by critics. The British historian H.R. Trevor-Roper wrote in 1962:

"Whatever else history may say of Dr. Goebbels, it must credit him with one po-
sitive contribution to the science of politics – a terrible but a positive contri-
bution: he created a system of propaganda, ironically styled public enlight-
enment, which persuaded a people to believe that black was white."

Rachel Carson has made the same contribution. Joseph Goebbels is

disbelieved and discredited today, but Carson's Silent Spring is still
believed and widely revered, even though its message on DDT is an
example of "the Big Lie."

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Last Comment by FAEC: Watch her face closely. What a sweet
Old Granny she seems to be!

But Rachel Carson ranks higher than Adolf Hitler when it comes
to the number of people killed in the world by the policies they,
and their followers managed to adopt.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:

1. R. Pal, 1962. World Review ot Pest Control,Vol. 1, p. 6.

2. S.W. Simmons, 1959 (see note 7 for source).
3. Rachel Carson, 1962. Silent Spring (New York Houghton Mifflin), p. 13.
4. Dr. Richard T. Rappolt, Sr., in testimony at State of Washington DDT Hearings, October 1969.
5. Al Gore, 1992. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (New York: Houghton Mifflin), pp. 3, 107.
6. Thomas H. Jukes, 1992. "Do Pesticide Scares Increase the Risk of Cancer?" 21st Century Science & Technology
(Fall), Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 14-15 and references therein.
7. This literature is surveysd in a book edited by the synthesizer of DDT, Nobel Laureate Paul Müller, DDT the
Insecticide, Vol. 2: Human and Veterinary Medicine (Basel: Birkhauser Verlag, 1959).
8. J.O. Nichols, 1961. The Gypsy Moth in Pennsylvania, Bulletin 4404, Pennsylvania Department
of Agriculture.
9. D. Fenton, 1989. The Wall Street Joumal (Oct. 3), p. A22.
10. Chartes F. Wurster, 1968. "DDT Reducss Photosynthesis by Marins Phytoplankton," Science
(March 29), Vol. 188, pp. 1474-1475.
11. Paul Ehrlich, 1969. "Eco-Catastrophe!" Ramparts (September 1969), p. 25. Ehrlich is best
known for The Population Somb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), which incorrectly
predicted that the world would completely run out of food in the 1970s.
12. Doris H. Wurster, Charles F. Wurster, Jr., and Walter N. Strickland, 1965. "Bird Mortality
Following DDT Spraying for Dutch Elm Disease," Ecology (Summer), Vol. 46, pp. 488-499.
13. Roger Tory Peterson, 1963. The Birds (New York: Life Nature Library).
14. Edmund M. Sweeney, 1972. Hearing Examiner's Recommended Findings, Conclusions and
Orders (40 CFR 164.32), issued April 25.
15. The New York Times, 1972. "Apologist for DDT," editorial, April 29.
16. Chemical Week, 1972. (August 18), p. 5.
17. William D. Ruckelshaus, 1972. Report on EPA Consolidated DDT Hearings, Environmental
Protection Agency (I.F.&R. Docket Nos. 63 et al., June 2, 1972).
18. William D. Ruckelshaus, 1994. Letters to the editor, The Wall Street Journal (March 21).
19. World Health Organization, 1971. The Place of DDT in Operations Against Malaria and Other
Vector-borne Diseases.
20. Alice Ottoboni, 1969. "The Effect of DDT on Reproduction in the Rat," Toxicol. Appl.
Pharmacol., Vol. 14, pp.79-81; also Ottoboni, et al. 1977. "Effects of DDT in Multiple
Generations of Beagle Dogs," Arch. Environm. Contam. Toxicol., Vol. 6, pp. 83-101.
21. Unnur P. Thorgeirsson, et al., 1994. "Tumor Incidence in a Chemical Carcinogenesis Study of
Nonhuman Primates," Reg. Toxicol, and Pharmacol., (April), Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 130-151.
22. Mary S. Wolff et al., 1993. "Blood Levels of Organochlorine Residues and Risk of Breast
Cancer," Joumal of the National Cancer Institute (April 21), Vol. 85, No. 8, pp. 648-652.
23. Nancy Krieger et al., 1994. "Breast Cancer and Serum Organochlorines: A Prospective Study
Among White, Black, and Asian Women," Joumal of the National Cancer Institute (April 20),
Vol. 86, No. 8, pp. 589-599.
24. H.R. Trevor-Roper, 1962. The Last Days of Hitler, 3rd edition (New York: Collier Books).

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