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TWO TOXIC DISCLOSURE THE GROWING AWARENESS OF ENVIRONMENTALLY CONTAMINATED BREASTMILK IN THE CONTEXT OF MUCH-NEEDED BREASTFEEDING ADVOCACY RACHEL CARSON’S LEGACY Many people who care deeply about environmental issues know of Rachel Carson as the “mother” of contemporary environmental movements. We think of Silent Spring, published in 1962, as the seminal text that informs our thinking about the relationship between contemporary Americans and the environment in which we live. It, almost single-handedly, began to rouse us, as a nation, to the stark truth—that our approach to the world that surrounds us has begun to leave a silent, deadly scourge in its wake. Carson’s nostalgic and fairy-tale opening of “a town in the heart of America” teeming with abundant plants, animals, and birds, where fields of luscious crops, fruitladen trees, and rivers flowing with fish inhabited the land until “a strange blight crept over the area” and “things began to wither and die” speaks to our longing for a place and a time in which the profound effects of environmental degradation have not taken hold. It sparks a hope in us that we can create a world where people’s decision-making always prioritizes ecosystem health and human well-being (1–2). One of the most striking features of Carson’s approach is her scientistpoet ’s attention, the way she speaks with such precision and awareness about the effects that human intervention has wrought, while at the same time never allowing the urgency of what she says to give readers the impression that she puts persuasiveness ahead of truth-telling. We believe her because the evenness of her tone and the wealth of details she provides suggest that she is more interested in telling the truth than in convincing us that something must 61 62 TAINTED MILK be done. And yet, perhaps because of her skill in explaining complex scientific concepts in terms that all of us can understand, we realize the impact of her message and feel it nudge us toward acting more responsibly. Two examples serve to illustrate this. In discussing the use of insecticides, Carson describes several situations in which “the result of chemical spraying has been a tremendous upsurge of the very insect the spraying was intended to control, as when blackflies in Ontario became 17 times more abundant after spraying than they had been before” (252). She explains that “the broader problem . . . is the fact that our chemical attack is weakening the defenses inherent in the environment itself” (246). And then, even-handedly, she proclaims: “It is not my contention that chemical insecticides must never be used” (12). Instead, she lays out her belief that in this “era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits,” we fail to look for long-term consequences. “We train ecologists in our universities and even employ them in our governmental agencies but we seldom take their advice” (11–12). Carson also maintains a pragmatic eye and sees that in an “era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged,” we go for the quick fix and thereby imperil our health. Faced with “false assurances” and “little tranquilizing pills of half-truth,” the public must look deeper and “must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road” (13). Perhaps Carson’s greatest contribution is her explanation of how things have changed and why urgency must prevail. As she tells it, the silencing of the spring began in the mid-1940s when “sprays, dusts, and aerosols,” and other “elixirs of death” began to be used universally and without testing, “still[ing] the song of the birds and the leaping of fish in the streams . . . coat[ing] the leaves with a deadly film, and . . . lingering in soil” (7). She notes “For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death” (15). We realize the importance of her message and its continuing importance when we think about the prevalence of the belief that “we don’t really have to confront environmental problems, because—look at us—we’re all fine!” She reminds us that when we fail to examine the effects on human health and ecosystem health in the aggregate , we support policies that contribute to ill health. Carson points out that polluting industries...

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