HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
CHEMISTRY LESSONS
03
“The chemical war is never won, and
all life is caught in its violent crossfire.”
THOUGH WOMEN’S NYLONS
were the subject of the 1962 DuPont ad that adorned Carson’s
New Yorker article, the company
also had a big hand in the pesticide business. In fact, DuPont was
a major manufacturer of the prime
antagonist in Silent Spring: DDT.
Worry over the widespread
aerial spraying of the pesticide inspired Carson to pursue her book.
“Not only forests and cultivated
fields are sprayed, but towns and
cities as well,” she wrote. “The
legend that the herbicides are
toxic only to plants and so pose
no threat to animal life has