Rachel Carson and Silent Spring

by Julia G. Brody, Ph.D., Executive Director

In her book, Silent Spring, published in 1962, Rachel Carson sounded one of the earliest alarms about the dangers of releasing untested chemicals into the environment. Writing like the well-trained scientist that she was, Carson chronicled in minute detail observations by her fellow biologists and others reporting associations between specific spraying incidents where pesticides — not just DDT, but also dieldrin, toxaphene, heptachlor, and others — were applied to forests, fields, and ponds, causing die-offs of hundreds of fish, birds, frogs, and other wildlife. The book is extraordinary in its scientific scope and also in its lyricism. In writing it, Carson showed her courage and dedication to the need to bring science into public view.

So you may be surprised to learn that this courageous woman who launched the environmental movement was afraid for anyone to know that she had breast cancer. She wore a wig to hide the effects of treatment when she testified before Congress; and two years after publication of Silent Spring she died of metastatic disease.

A cascade of change in environmental policy followed the publication of Silent Spring. In 1970, we celebrated Earth Day, the Clean Air Act, and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1972, the use of DDT was banned in the United States. At the time of Carson's death, though, the rise of breast cancer as a public issue was still decades away. We are honored to celebrate Carson's legacy through careful research and public dialogue that confronts the breast cancer epidemic and searches for prevention through studies of possible environmental links to disease.