Pesticides weren't always thought to be harmful. To the contrary. In 1947, Time magazine carried an advertisement claiming DDT was good for people, homes, and farms. It took 20 years before scientists realized how dangerous it was. It begins with the war-born development of DDT.
This diabolical weapon of modern science saved millions of humans, but killed billions of insects. Man, with this newly discovered force, has at long last gained the upper hand in our age-old struggle. Just like these mosquito larvae, it came from laboratories where top scientists from famous universities and from industrial and government organizations collaborated to develop something new and different. They succeeded.
They perfected PestRoy, the most effective weapon man has ever wielded against insects. To begin with, this new pest killer is a DDT preparation. We realize what that means. Once a bug comes in contact with DDT, he's lost. All he has to do is just walk on any PestRoy treated surface.
DDT is absorbed through the feet and spreads throughout the insect's entire nervous system. The effect is disastrous. DDT seems to literally drive bugs crazy. But not for long.
DDT next paralyzes. Then kills. In both its forms, powder and liquid, Hestroy means doomsday to us insects.
For this new insect destroyer contains a lot of DDT, not just a little. Its DDT content is even higher than government specifications. But the really sure kill feature of this insect killer isn't simply that it contains DDT, it's the way that it makes sure that bugs get the DDT that's in it.
The same deadly effectiveness of the liquid form is found in the pestroi powder. It is so easy to apply because of a new efficient dispenser package. All people have to do is to press the patented top like this.
It's a handful of concentrated death. This powder is truly activated. It contains stabilized pyrethrum, an ingredient which literally stampedes insects from their hiding places. To bring them into contact with DDT, indoors or outdoors. Stirs them up, drives them out of cracks and crevices.
The possibility of a serious infantile paralysis epidemic, health authorities of the city of San Antonio, Texas, attack the germ carriers throughout the city. With the war discovered DDT and special sprayers, sections of the city are blanketed with the insecticide in the fight to stop the spread of the dread poliomyelitis. Every suspected spot is sprayed.
Even the streams are disinfected, and in the parks and public places, children are forbidden to gather. Mounds of DDT are used in this fight against the dread disease, whose principal target is the young. Again, war has contributed one of its discoveries to save life. From 1945 to 1955, annual pesticide use on farms went from 125 million pounds to over 600 million. Soon, government agencies began treating even the suburbs with DDT.
People thought it was a good thing because they got action in solving a problem as they conceived it. They were, for example, complaining about mosquitoes. And if the spray truck came down the street, they were told to just stay indoors for a few minutes and everything would be alright. So you had the government endorsing a product and you had the chemical industry pushing it very aggressively. There was a development program going on within the corporate system saying, well, if a little bit is good, a lot more is much better, isn't it?
Public Health Department staged demonstrations. to convince the public of DDT's effectiveness and safety. Enthusiasm for the chemical knew no bounds, and few were questioning the wisdom of such use. Public places and private backyards were being treated whether people liked it or not.
In 1957, planes sprayed a Massachusetts bird sanctuary owned by Olga Huckins, a friend of Carson's. In fury and desperation, Huckins told her what had happened. The birds showed all the symptoms typical of DDT poisoning. Huckins knew that the planes would be back in spite of her protests.
She asked Carson for help. Carson later remembered how the thought of a spring silent of bird song had moved her to action. It was your personal letter to me that started it all.
In it, you told what had happened and begged me to find someone in Washington who could help. It was in the course of finding that someone that I realized I must write the book. We have to remember that children born today are exposed to these chemicals from birth, perhaps even before birth.
Now what is going to happen to them in adult life as a result of that exposure? We simply don't know. This is one of the nation's bestsellers. First printed on September 27, 1962. In her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson jolted a prosperous post-war America, a country confident that science and technology were leading the way to a future in which disease and hunger could be overcome, in no small part thanks to a new generation of powerful pesticides.
But in Silent Spring, Carson warned that progress had a price. These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes. Non-selective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams. All this, though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Through sheer determination...
Carson participated in an hour-long CBS News documentary on pesticides. CBS reports, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson. Which aired not long after Silent Spring became a national bestseller.
Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? While Carson didn't contend that chemical insecticides must never be used, she faced harsh opposition. A spokesman for the chemical industry, Dr. Robert White-Stevens.
The major claims in Miss Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, are gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by scientific experimental evidence and general practical experience in the field. If man were to faithfully 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. And when CBS turned to government experts, the questions were many, but the answers few. Dr. Paige Nicholson, water pollution expert, Public Health Service.
Do you know how long the pesticides persist in the water once they get into it? Not entirely. Do you know the extent to which our groundwater may be contaminated right now by pesticides?
We don't know that either, nor do we know if concentration may be occurring in groundwater. There appears to be growing concern among scientists as to the possibility of dangerous long-range side effects from the widespread use of DDT and other pesticides. Have you considered asking the Department of Agriculture or the Public Health Service to take a closer look at this?
Yes, and I know that they already are. I think particularly, of course... It's Ms. Carson's book, but they are. Ms. Carson maintains that the balance of nature is a major force in the survival of man, whereas the modern chemist, the modern biologist, the modern scientist believes that man is steadily controlling nature. Now, to these people, apparently the balance of nature was something that was repealed as soon as man came on the scene.
Well, you might just as well assume that you could repeal the law of gravity. The balance of nature is built of a series of interrelationships between living things and between living things and their environment. You can't just...
Step in with some brute force and change one thing without changing as many others. Now, this doesn't mean, of course, that we must never interfere, that we must not attempt to tilt that balance of nature in our favor. But, unless we do bring these chemicals under better control, we are certainly headed for disaster.
Rachel Carson, author of the landmark book Silent Spring, started a revolution. During the 1950s, when crop dusting planes and insect sprays blanketed plants with DDT, Carson warned of the dangers of chemical pesticides. She warned of science's power to alter nature and called for government action to protect its citizens. Because of her courage, the disaster did not come to pass, and with Carson's words and spirit, the modern environmental movement was born.