What Would Rachel Say?

Spheres of Influence. Re-reading Silent Spring, Thomas R. Hawkins
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/1994/102-6-7/spheres.html


Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 102, Number 6-7, June-July 1994

• Teach the use of brain power and team work instead of toxic chemicals to prevent and control pests such as head lice, mice and cockroaches.
• Teach others to spot conditions that invite pests and allow them to thrive such as open dumpsters, leaky faucets and wet trash.
• Keep things clean and dry. Encourage collaboration among all building users in adopting the good hygiene, sanitation and maintenance practices that protect against pest infestations.
• Help schools reap the health, educational and financial benefits of planning and prevention in the operation of school facilities.
• Help educate the whole community, including children, about the principles of pollution prevention and sustainable practices that benefit everyone.

Unthinkable Risk: How Children Are Exposed and Harmed When Pesticides Are Used at School , The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP), (541) 344-5044. www.pesticide.org/UnthinkableRisk.html

Celebrating Rachel Carson, Friday, May 4 Kennebec Journal Morning Sentinel

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/view/columns/3867865.html#begin

Readers of "Silent Spring" told Carson how she inspired in them a new sense of personal responsibility.   The writer Terry Tempest Williams calls Carson a "model for a true patriot, one who not only cared to define democratic principles as ecological ones, but demanded through her grace and fierce intelligence that we hold corporations and our government accountable for the health of our communities, cultured and wild. ( Gail Carlson is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at Colby College.)

If Malaria's the Problem, DDT's Not the Only Answer

By May Berenbaum, Washington Post, Sunday, June 5, 2005; B03

...What critics of Carson forget about the history of DDT is that, in many places, it failed to eradicate malaria not because of restrictions on its use but because it simply stopped working. By 1972, 19 species of mosquitoes capable of transmitting malaria, including some in Africa, were resistant to DDT. Genes for DDT resistance can persist in populations for decades...

...Insects have a phenomenal capacity to adapt to new poisons; anything that kills a large proportion of a population ends up changing the insects' genetic composition so as to favor those few individuals that manage to survive due to random mutation. In the continued presence of the insecticide, susceptible populations can be rapidly replaced by resistant ones. Though widespread use of DDT didn't begin until WWII, there were resistant houseflies in Europe by 1947, and by 1949, DDT-resistant mosquitoes were documented on two continents...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400130.html

The non-profit organization, Prevent Cancer Now, a consortium of health practitioners, educators, scientists and activists, will be holding its first national conference, Cancer: It's About Prevention. It's About Time! in Canada's capital, at the University of Ottawa, May 24-27th. www.preventcancernow.ca

Speakers and workshops at the conference will address the many environmental and occupational factors that contribute to cancer,including the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat - plus numerous toxic substances in our homes, schools, workplaces and in common, everyday products.

"There are several reasons why we're staging this conference at the end of May in Ottawa," says Angela Rickman, Executive Director of Prevent Cancer Now. "One of the most interesting is that Sunday, May 27 is the exact centenary of Rachel Carson's birth. It was Carson, in her famous 1962 book, Silent Spring, who warned that unless we eliminated the man-made causes of cancer, that cancer rates would continue to rise to epidemic levels."

"Carson was right. Back in 1962, cancer struck one in every four North Americans, and killed one in five," Rickman states. "Now, cancer strikes nearly half of all men in Canada and the United States, over one third of women - and kills one in four."

Prevent Cancer Now, and its main conference co-sponsor, the Saunders-Matthey Cancer Prevention Coalition, agrees with all of the major cancer agencies that smoking is the major cause of lung cancer and a certain contributor to several other malignancies. But there is much more to the cancer prevention picture than'personal lifestyle,'including these 10 issues... For the complete article go to  Not Enough Cancer Awareness Focused On Prevention - Prevent Cancer

Rachel Carson: A Centenary Celebration

Daniel Anderson, UC Davis; Amir Attaran, University of Ottawa, Canada; Suzanne Snedeker, Cornell University May 3, 2007  7:00 PM

The American Museum of Natural History will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Rachel Carson's birth with a panel discussion that will re-examine her findings on DDT use in light of current research and ongoing efforts to eradicate malaria worldwide. Rachel Carson was a writer, marine biologist and, zoologist. She was best known, however, for her groundbreaking book Silent Spring, which warned about the dangers of pesticide use and is credited by many with launching the modern environmental movement. The panel will discuss the effects of DDT on the environment, malaria prevention, and health policy.

American Museum of Natural History, Kauffmann, 79th St. & CPW, use entrance on 77th St. between CPW and Columbus Ave.
Price: $15, $13.50 members, seniors, students