TL: Silent Spring's Warnings Still Ignored: Growing Pesticide Use Puts Planet in Peril SO: GREENPEACE FEATURE SERVICE (GP) DT: September 24, 1992 Keywords: toxics pesticides us effects problems sales markets chlorinated chemicals greenpeace gp enforcement failures epa / Three decades after the public was first warned about the dangers of pesticides, nearly 50 people are being poisoned each minute by these chemicals. Worldwide sales are up 31-fold and the U.S. is today the largest consumer of pesticides. In the fall of 1962, award-winning biologist Rachel Carson published her pioneering book Silent Spring. Its shocking findings quickly turned it into a best seller. Carson said that pesticides such as DDT, heptachlor, and parathion had caused massive deaths of birds and animals and created resistant strains of "super bugs" and other pests. She documented how uncontrolled use of many pesticides upsets the balance of nature and can cause cancer and other diseases in humans. Two years later Carson, at the peak of her career, died of cancer. Silent Spring has since become a classic. A group of prominent Americans recently surveyed by the Port Washington Library, named Silent Spring as the most influential book published in the last 50 years. Indeed, more copies of the book sold this year than at any time since it was published. When the book first appeared, industry critics described Carson as "hysterical" and dismissed her findings as "more poisonous than the pesticides she condemns". Chemical industry spokesman Dr. Robert White-Stevens warned, "If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." To the dismay of Carson's critics, a government investigation of pesticides, initiated by President John Kennedy, supported the findings of Silent Spring. Additional research over the last three decades continues to confirm the validity of her warnings about the dangers of pesticides, and to challenge the extent of their supposed benefits. Under public pressure, a handful of pesticides, most notably DDT, have since been banned in the U.S. Nonetheless, environmental and health damages from pesticide use are now estimated at $100 to $200 billion per year worldwide - or $5 to $10 in damages for every one dollar of pesticides used. Despite these costs to the public, the pesticide industry remains strong. Two-thirds of the pesticides profiled in Silent Spring as especially hazardous are still made, sold and used around the world. Pesticide use is growing fastest in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the late 1980s, for example, an estimated 80 percent of all pesticide imports into sub-Saharan Africa were government "donations" sent as foreign aid from the U.S. and other countries with powerful pesticide lobbies. Chemical manufacturers argue that pesticides are essential to feed the world's poor and prevent famine. Yet many development, environmental and human rights groups disagree. They blame the current famines in Africa on factors such as drought, civil wars, misguided agricultural policies, and declining terms of trade, not on pest-induced crop shortages. Even in the U.S., total crop losses from insects have nearly doubled since 1945 - despite a 10-fold increase in insecticide use. In the end, pesticides prove self-defeating because insects become resistant. At least 650 pest species are now immune to pesticides. Silent Spring also warned and subsequent research has substantiated the human health hazards caused by many pesticides. This is hardly surprising since pesticides are poisons intended to affect living organisms. Of the pesticides under evaluation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 92 are listed as possible, probable, or known carcinogens. In addition to cancer, pesticides have been found to cause genetic and birth defects and to damage the liver, kidneys and immune system. Pesticides are found in human breast milk and can cause nerve and eye damage, dizziness, nausea and fatigue. According to recently published findings, an estimated 25 million people a year in developing countries are poisoned and more than 220,000 die each year from pesticides. In the U.S. alone, between 27,000 and 300,000 farm workers are poisoned annually by pesticides. In Russia, pesticides kill some 14,000 people per year. More than half the pesticides poisonings and three-quarters of the deaths occur in developing countries. Every year American manufacturers, including Dow Elanco, Monsanto, and Velsicol, sell overseas 100 to 150 million pounds of pesticides that have been banned or never been registered in the U.S. These chemicals are used primarily on food and other export crops. According to Greenpeace, this creates a "circle of poison": in the factories and communities where the pesticides are manufactured, in the countries where they are sprayed on crops, and as residues on the food which is then eaten. Pesticide contaminants are now found everywhere. Even countries which have banned highly toxic pesticides cannot escape their global spread. The Society of German Chemists, for example, calculates that 1.8 tons of the pesticide atrazine, which is banned in Germany, fell in rain on that country last year. Even though DDT and toxaphene have been banned in the U.S., scientists have found that the Great Lakes continue to be contaminated by these chemicals because they are carried by air from countries where they are still made or used. Pesticide contamination of groundwater and drinking water, another problem identified by Carson, is also widespread. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found 98 different pesticides, including DDT, in groundwater in 40 states. This contaminates the drinking water of more than 10 million residents. A recent study by the Dutch government and the European Community (EC) concluded that groundwater is threatened by pesticides in the 12 EC countries, and that the legal limit for pesticides will be exceeded in 65% of the groundwater in agricultural areas if present farming practices continue. In 1991, British officials calculated that it will cost $900 million to take pesticides out of drinking water in order to meet that country's legal safety standards. Recent evidence indicates that pesticides are contributing, as well, to the massive depletion of the ozone layer, an impact which even Rachel Carson could not have foreseen. Industrial refrigerants - CFCs and HCFCs - are the principal destroyers of the ozone layer, the earth's protective shield from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Nonetheless, methyl bromide, one of the top ten pesticides used in the U.S. is now believed to have caused up to one-tenth of current ozone loss, according to an United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) report. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring not only warned about the hazards of pesticides; she also made a compelling case for ecological alternatives. The challenge which Carson presented policy makers has yet to be embraced. In commemoration of Silent Spring's 30th anniversary, Greenpeace is calling on governments to stop the production and trade in banned, unregistered and severely restricted pesticides. Like Carson, Greenpeace advocates a new approach to farming. It urges governments to change their agricultural policies by providing encouragement and incentives for farmers to make the transition to ecologically sound alternatives, like organic farming. ------------- Greenpeace Feature Service. Written by Sandra Marquardt, Information Coordinator and William Barclay, Policy Analyst, Greenpeace Pesticides Project. For pesticide photos and the new Greenpeace pesticide paper, "30 Years After Silent Spring: The Poisoning Continues," contact Sandra Marquardt, 1436 U Street, Greenpeace, Washington, D.C. 20009. Telephone: 202-319-2472. (From: Sandra Marquardt) Dear Journalist: This Sunday, September 27th, marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of the book Silent Spring. Award winning biologist Rachel Carson penned the controversial masterpiece in 1962, but her critique of pesticide problems remains as timely today as it was thirty years ago. Silent Spring opened the public's eyes to the environmental and public health havoc created by pesticides such as DDT, parathion, lindane, 2,4D and many others. Greenpeace staff have just completed an overview of pesticide problems thirty years after Silent Spring. The report discusses trends both of pesticide impacts on humans and the environment, and the dramatic increase in trade of pesticide products. The report finds that as serious as pesticide problems were in 1962, with few exceptions they are more serious today. And in some cases, entire new classes of environmental problems, such as ozone destruction from pesticide use, have emerged. The overall picture shows us that pesticides have contaminated virtually everything from zooplankton to the upper reaches of the atmosphere. More copies of Silent Spring have been sold this past year than any other since its publication in 1962. Rachel Carson's message continues to speak to our present circumstances, but the need for action has become more urgent than ever. Greenpeace is demanding that governments: 1) prohibit pesticide companies from trading in banned, unregistered and severely restricted pesticides or production technologies; 2) change agricultural policies to promote ecologically sound alternatives, such as organic farming; and 3) draw up national and regional action plans for rapidly phasing out harmful pesticides and introducing ecologically sound alternatives. For more information on the Greenpeace report, 30 Years After Silent Spring: The Poisoning Continues, contact Sandra Marquardt, International Pesticides Project (202) 319-2472. Photos and videotape footage available. __________________ ** See other side for selected Silent Spring report findings ** PESTICIDE PROBLEMS OUTLINED IN 30 YEARS SINCE SILENT SPRING: THE POISONINGS CONTINUE * Sales of pesticides in the U.S. have increased 27 times since 1962, to $7 billion. * The environmental and human health costs from damage due to pesticides around the world is estimated at $100-200 billion per year. This equals $5$10 for every single pound of pesticides used. * Of 23 pesticides profiled by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring, two thirds continue to be manufactured and used around the world. In the U.S., even banned pesticides such as chlordane and heptachlor continue to made for export. ENVIRONMENTAL HARM * Pesticides are carried by the wind, fall in rain, and move in "toxic" fogs far from where they were applied. Toxic fogs, laced with widely used herbicides, threaten forests. * Persistent insecticides, such as chlordane and heptachlor, are found in disturbing concentrations in the tissues of animals such as dolphins, whales, seals and polar bears. * Further contributing to ozone depletion by CFCs and HCFCs, the pesticide methyl bromide is now believed to cause up to 10 percent of the observed ozone hole. * Groundwater is now widely contaminated with pesticides, with at least 98 pesticides now found in the groundwater of 40 states. * Millions of birds continue to die in the U.S. each year from pesticide poisoning. HUMAN IMPACTS * Some 25 million people a year, in developing countries alone, are poisoned by pesticides. This is equal to 48 poisonings per minute. The World Health Organization estimates 220,000 pesticide poisoning deaths every year. * There are up to 315,000 poisonings per year in the U.S., more than 860 per day. * EPA has so far only reregistered 2 out of 19,000 pesticide products under today's stricter standards. EPA has listed 92 pesticides as possible, probable or known carcinogens. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an eminent biologist whose career spanned both a 16year spell with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and academic research at various American universities. Her last book, Silent Spring, is widely credited as marking the birth of the modern environmental movement. ----------