Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was born on 27 May 1907 on the family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, on the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh. Her father Robert Warden Carson was an insurance salesman and her mother was Maria McLean. As a child she explored the land around the farm, read widely and began writing stories, often about animals, at a young age.

She studied at the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) and switched from English to biology in 1928. In the summer of 1929 she took a course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, where, by her own account, she first had prolonged contact with the sea. In 1932 she earned a master's degree in zoology at Johns Hopkins University.

From 1935 she worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, at first writing radio scripts about aquatic life. In 1936 she became the second woman appointed to a permanent professional post there, as an aquatic biologist. The bureau later became part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where in 1949 she became chief editor of publications.

Alongside her work she wrote about the sea. 'Under the Sea Wind' (1941) sold poorly at first; 'The Sea Around Us' (1951) stayed 86 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, won the 1952 National Book Award and gave her the financial freedom to leave her job. 'The Edge of the Sea' followed in 1955; together the three books form her sea trilogy.

From the late 1950s she turned to the effects of synthetic pesticides, including DDT. In 'Silent Spring' (1962) she argued that large-scale, poorly targeted spraying harmed birds, other animals and possibly humans. She did not call for a ban on all pesticides, but for careful, limited use with attention to the whole ecosystem.

After the Second World War DDT was regarded as a wonder weapon against insects and disease, sometimes called the 'insect bomb' in the press. Governments ran large spraying programmes, for example against the red imported fire ant. Trust in science and the chemical industry was high, and the Department of Agriculture both promoted farming and regulated pesticides.

News of thalidomide, which broke shortly before publication, prompted comparisons between Carson and Frances Kelsey, the regulator who had blocked approval of that drug in the United States. Carson wrote as a sick woman in a scientific world where women rarely held authority, and critics questioned her qualifications and her character.

'Silent Spring' appeared first in instalments in The New Yorker (from 16 June 1962) and then as a book from Houghton Mifflin (27 September). The chemical industry, including DuPont, Velsicol and American Cyanamid, reacted fiercely and also attacked Carson's training and person. Many scientists backed her scientific claims, and public attention to pesticides grew strongly.

The television programme 'The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson' (CBS Reports, 3 April 1963) reached an estimated ten to fifteen million viewers. President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee largely supported her findings in its report of 15 May 1963, and Carson testified before a Senate subcommittee. The book thus contributed to a revision of US pesticide policy.

Carson died on 14 April 1964 in Silver Spring, Maryland, aged 56, after a long illness (breast cancer); the immediate cause was a heart attack. Part of her ashes was interred in Maryland and part scattered along the coast of Maine. In 1980 she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 1967 scientists and lawyers founded the Environmental Defense Fund, which brought lawsuits against DDT. In 1970 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created; in 1972 it announced a ban on most uses of DDT in the US, with conditional exemptions for public health. The EPA cites harm to wildlife and potential health risks as its reasons.

Research after 1962 confirmed that DDT and its breakdown product DDE thin the eggshells of birds of prey; this is regarded as a major cause of the decline of species such as the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, osprey and brown pelican. According to the EPA, US and international authorities regard DDT as a probable human carcinogen.

Later critics, including organisations such as Africa Fighting Malaria and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, claim that Carson or DDT policy is responsible for millions of malaria deaths. Opponents point out that the 1972 US ban was not a worldwide ban on disease control, that Carson did not call for a total ban, and that mosquito resistance sometimes made DDT less effective. The Stockholm Convention still permits DDT for malaria control.