A Proud Cult Membership

DDT was billed as the “miracle pesticide” after its successful use during World War II in protecting our troops from insect-borne diseases such as malaria and typhus. In the mosquito-infested jungles on Pacific islands where American soldiers and marines fought to take back Japanese-held territory malaria frequently caused more casualties than the enemy’s bullets and artillery. DDT spraying eliminated large portions of mosquito populations freeing troops to fight. DDT became the GI’s best friend.

After the war DDT was used everywhere insects were considered a problem. Everywhere. The chemical was hawked as harmless to humans and wildlife and a boon to mankind. DDT was manufactured and applied in a scale that was measured in the millions of pounds. DDT was a persistent pesticide, in that it was insoluble in water and so retained its lethality to crop-eating insects over more than one growing season. What wasn’t known was the phenomenon of bioaccumulation, in which both plants and animals concentrated DDT in their tissues at far greater strengths than was originally applied. The environment became saturated with DDT. In the robins that ate contaminated earthworms that fed on the leaves that dropped from trees sprayed with the chemical. In fish-eating birds, such as eagles and double-crested cormorants, that ate fish that ate smaller fish that concentrated the poison from their food and the environment.  In short order the ecosystem supported few birds, fish, and beneficial insects.

Rachael Carson was a marine biologist who spoke out with fervor against this widespread and careless use of DDT in so many applications. Her book, Silent Spring, told the story of how DDT weakened so many organisms in “sinister” ways. In addition to its neural toxicity, the chemical’s estrogenic properties, in which it mimicked female reproductive hormones, caused birds to lay thin-shelled eggs that cracked under the pressure of the incubating parents’ weight, caused heartbreaking birth defects, and “feminized” the males of many species in the food chain. DDT robbed many species of their basic ability to reproduce.

Chemical companies manufacturing the various versions of DDT demonized Rachael Carson and her work.  Their greed and arrogance became the industry’s trademark. They called Carson a “fanatic” and in “the cult of the balance of nature.” The cult of the balance of nature. As if supporting nature, the environment, our environment, was some kind of dark, malevolent movement. Well, the movement was so dark, so malevolent that in 1972 the newly formed EPA, under the direction of the often maligned William Ruckleshaus, banned the use of DDT in the United States.

The Cult of the Balance of Nature is one group in which we all should claim membership.