I’ve been meaning to
get around to writing this post for a while, ever since September of this year,
when I blogged about the 50th anniversary of the publication of
Silent Spring. In the googling I did to research for that blog post, I ran
across the site Rachel Was Wrong. Go ahead, click around the site if you like.
This
site claims that, in pointing out the environmental and health consequences
from the overuse of many pesticides, particularly DDT, Carson and Silent Spring
“generated a culture of fear, resulting in policies
have (sic) deprived many people access to life-saving chemicals. In particular,
many nations curbed the use of the pesticide DDT for malaria control because
Carson created unfounded fears about the chemical.”
The site suggests that millions of deaths from malaria might be
avoided had the US not banned DDT and the rest of the world restricted its use.
Malaria is a serious health
concern. Each year, worldwide, more than 200 million people contact malaria,
and more than half a million people die each year from the mosquito borne
disease, with more than 90 percent of these cases and deaths occurring in
Africa. That Africa suffers the most from malaria is reflected in the logo of
Rachel Was Wrong, a mosquito biting into the African continent.
DDT or other pesticides are not necessary for malaria
eradication. As has been shown with the U.S. construction of the Panama Canal
and the eradication of malaria from the South through the U.S. Public Health
Service and the Tennessee Valley Authority, malaria is best fought through
organized government efforts, efforts that sometimes span decades. DDT is still
used in many parts of the world for malarial control. Its use is complicated,
with demonstrated health consequences for humans and environmental damage,
while it can be successful in stemming the occurrence of malaria or can serve
as a part of a program for the disease’s eradication.[i]
Rachel
Was Wrong is a website placed upon the Internet by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). CEI has been around since 1984. That they would attack Rachel
Carson and her work is unsurprising. This organization has a track record of
anti-environmentalism. In 2003 the institute worked to quash a report on global
warming that had been published in 2000. In 2005 they supported a bill that
would have severely weakened the Endangered Species Act. They are loath to
credit environmental regulation with any success. In May of 1998, during a
fairly upbeat time when more than 20 imperiled plants and animals had recovered
so well that they were about to be delisted as endangered, Brian Seashole, a
CEI spokesman, said that the eagle, peregrine, and other species, “have
recovered despite the ESA, not because of it.”[ii]
On the Rachel Was Wrong website photographs of children, all of
them African, give the impression that CEI is a compassionate organization,
trying to right the wrongs of misguided environmentalists. But this
organization’s positions have not been ones to enhance health or well-being.
They have supported the tobacco industry, on one occasion trying to obfuscate the findings of a 1994 study that found that as many as 3000 American lives are
shortened each year from the passive inhalation of tobacco smoke.
Just this year CEI published an op-ed in USA Today opposing increased
inspection of slaughterhouses and farms and the adoption of risk prevention
controls in food production to stem the incidence of food borne diseases. A
1997 study found that hundreds of thousands of premature deaths could be
prevented each year by curbing the emission of greenhouse gasses and
particulate matter into the atmosphere.
CEI dismissed the findings, saying, “effect of particulates on health is
controversial.”[iii]
So is CEI helping Africa? The cigarette companies that they
support are opening markets in Africa, with some health organizations predicting a "tobacco epidemic" on the horizon there. The oil companies that back the CEI are
causing great environmental damage in Africa, with corresponding human
suffering and loss of life.
Like the beggars in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
who are shown to be faking their lameness and blindness to gain the alms of
their fellow Parisians, Rachel Was Wrong is a similar dishonest ruse, giving us
the impression that CEI cares about suffering children, when they don’t care in
the slightest.
[i] Bouwman, Hindrik,
Henk van den Berg, and Henrik Kylin. "DDT And Malaria Prevention:
Addressing The Paradox." Environmental Health Perspectives 119.6 (2011): 744-747. Environment Complete. Web. 25 Dec. 2012.
[ii] Hebert, Josef. “Bald eagle, peregrine, and
others leaving endangered list.” Ludington Daily News May 6, 1998 page 6 print
[i] Bouwman, Hindrik,
Henk van den Berg, and Henrik Kylin. "DDT And Malaria Prevention:
Addressing The Paradox." Environmental Health Perspectives 119.6 (2011): 744-747. Environment Complete. Web. 25 Dec. 2012.
[ii] Hebert, Josef. “Bald eagle, peregrine, and
others leaving endangered list.” Ludington Daily News May 6, 1998 page 6 print
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