|
|
|
FREDERICK ROWE DAVIS
FORUM
unraveling the complexities of joint toxicity of multiple chemicals at the tox lab and the fda
When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts. In the words of Jean Rostand, "The obligation to endure gives us the right to know."1
|
| —Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962 |
|
|
| IN SILENT SPRING, Rachel Carson presented environmental risk to members of the public and urged them to consider their risk tolerance. In the statement above and throughout Silent Spring, Carson called upon the public to evaluate evidence and assess threats to environmental and public health. Carson's argument drew upon her exhaustive review of the scientific and medical literature that addressed ecological and human health effects of synthetic insecticides. To clarify her indictment of the chemical industry and federal agricultural and public health programs, Carson dramatized scientific and medical findings and personified them. As much as Silent Spring was about toxicity and lethal doses, it was about the victims of poisonings: American robins, bald eagles, Atlantic salmon, farm workers, and children. |
1
|
|
In part, Carson blamed the lack of knowledge regarding ecological and health effects on overspecialization: "There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits."2 Ironically, it was a new specialization that provided the tools to assess the novel risks: environmental toxicology. Despite her criticism of overspecialization, Carson wrote and interpreted the language of toxicology and environmental risk: "acute and chronic toxicity," "LD50," "parts per million," "carcinogenicity," "reproductive effects." These phrases and the concepts they represent came to dominate the study and regulation of environmental risks such as synthetic insecticides. |
2
|
|
My research traces the genesis of environmental toxicology and environmental risk in the United States. Since Silent Spring, toxicology and environmental risk have become the dominant paradigms for how scientists assess threats to the health of humans, wildlife, and ecosystems. Along with my initial objective of tracing the development of environmental risk, ancillary questions arose: Who were the scientists who developed the theory and particularly the practice of toxicology? What were their institutional affiliations and what groups supported their research? How did the methods of toxicology develop? What was the role of laboratory animals in toxicity studies? When did scientists become concerned with the impact of insecticides on wildlife? How did toxicology evolve as a distinct discipline? To what extent did scientists interact and cooperate with scientists at other agencies, universities, and corporations? How did toxicology and policy interact in the evolution of environmental laws? Many of these questions are directly related to the expansion of federally sponsored research at universities in the aftermath of World War II. |
. . . |
There are about 3894 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
