10 THE AUDUBON VB U DL Etat 
Major complaints about pesticides center around residues, lack of 
specificity and consequent elimination of beneficial insects, destruction 
of natural enemies, and hazards to fish and wildlife, including disruption 
and poisoning of the food chain. Even those who favor pesticides are 
worried about the increasing insect resistance and the great expense of 
repetitious treatment. But greater than any of these is the BIG UNKNOWN 
— who really knows what we are doing to ourselves and to our descend- 
ants, to animals and their descendants, to our whole complex environment 
— by our use of these poisons? The reckless arrogance of the scientists 
who profess to know the answers is appalling. 
It would be hazardous enough if all chemical treatments were only 
the large scale ones carried out by one-sided bureaucratic agencies and 
farmers, who use the product “according to directions.” But the ordinary 
home gardener can buy big sacks of poisonous material over the counter 
and use it is indiscriminately as he pleases. One well-known product for 
crab grass control, containing 11.8% technical chlordane, is to be used 
in the amount of 6 pounds to every 1,000 sq. ft., which comes to about 
30 lbs. of technical chlordane per acre! This is a drastic amount of a 
persistent poison approximately equal to DDT in toxicity. 
In 1960, a committee (and three sub-committees) was formed by the 
National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council to make a report 
on Pest Control and Wildlife Relationships.(1) Even before publication, 
there was fear in many circles, after announcements of the names of the 
committee, that the report would be biased in favor of chemical pesticides. 
This proved to be true. Many thoughtful scientists and laymen felt that 
the report was not worthy of the stature of the National Academy of 
Sciences nor of its responsibilities to further science for the general welfare. 
The late Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, was published in 1962. 
The controversy burst wide open. The book was extolled by some, de- 
nounced by others. There were accusations, misinterpretations, criticisms. 
First one side had an inning, then the other. The anti-Carson side was 
guilty of the very exaggeration, one-sidedness and emotionalism of which 
it accused the book’s author. The impact of the book, in a word, was 
immense, and its publication will go down as one of the century’s big 
literary events. 
The magazine Today’s Health, which is published by the American 
Medical Association, and appears in the waiting rooms of thousands of 
physicians, printed an anti-Carson article in its February 1963 issue 
entitled: “Pesticides: Facts, Not Fear.”(2) It quoted Dr. M. Therese South- 
gate, who had written in the Journal of the American Medical Association 
that Miss Carson has constructed “. . . an abominable snowman which 
has a chlordane body, long malathion arms, and a parathion head which 
belches forth huge clouds of DDT.” 
A month later, in March 1963, the Illinois State Medical Society Board 
passed a resolution which expressed concern over the fact that the con- 
sequences of the dissemination of toxic substances are only vaguely known; 
over the cumulative aspects and effects on animals; and over the lack 
of purchasing controls. The resolution urged a policy of caution, inquiry, 
maturity of judgment and statesmanship, as well as a study by the Illinois 
Department of Health.(3) 
The report of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, ‘Use of 
Pesticides,’ was published in May 1963.(4) It was a stunning triumph 
for Rachel Carson and those who supported her. While admitting the 
