HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
CHEMISTRY LESSONS
“Maybe we didn’t
heed a warning. Can
we really afford to wait
another 50 years?”
—Erin Brockovich
Today, one study after another
repeats the same cautions Carson raised decades ago, including how the tiniest chemical
exposures can lead to long-term
harm, especially to children.
“We’ve discovered many things
that Carson intuitively anticipated, and also some things that she
would’ve never imagined,” says
John Peterson Myers, CEO and
chief scientist at Environmental
Health Sciences.
Optimists, Myers included, suggest that, by combining Carson’s
prescient insights with modern
advancements in biology and
chemistry, we can preserve the
health of future generations.
In 2010, chronic diseases such
as heart disease and cancer surpassed infectious diseases as the
leading causes of death across
the world, notes Bruce Lanphear,
an environmental health expert
at Simon Fraser University in
British Columbia. “That can be
seen as both troubling and an
opportunity,” he says, suggesting that we have the potential to
eliminate some of the exposures
now implicated in chronic diseases. “The problem is that it
is really the mega-corporations
that are designing, or keeping us
from developing, regulatory policies to protect people.”
More than 80,000 chemicals
currently used in the U.S. have
never been fully tested for their
potential to harm humans or the
environment, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Maybe we didn’t heed a
warning,” says environmental
activist and lawyer Erin Brockovich. “Can we really afford to wait
another 50 years?”
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring, Huffington decided to review five of Rachel Carson’s warnings made decades ago to
see how they measure up today.