Silent Spring and the effects of insecticides

The Silent Spring

in 1962, acclaimed author, Rachel Carson wrote the book "silent spring." the book tackled the controversial issues of the proliferated use of insecticides and especially DDT.
In "Silent Springs" Rachel, explores the history of insecticides and how a connection has been made to its negative effects on the environment, from birds, animals and even to humans.
she comes to explain the discovery of insecticides which she claims is a "child of the second world war." when testing certain chemical agents in the creating of chemical weapons leading to the point of world war 2, some of these chemicals were found to be fatal to insects. insecticides are not a new invention, they existed before in the forms of naturally occurring chemicals, what makes these new synthetic insecticides particularly harmful is the fact that they are designed with one aim in mind and are extremely biologically potent. of these modern insecticides, they are divided into 2 major groups, DDT and "chlorinated hydrocarbons".
the reason why it was thought that DDT was not harmful to humans was because during world war 2, the drug was used to clear out areas in the pacific theatre of war to clear out mosquito s carrying malaria and also to spray thousands of soldiers and prisoners of war to rid them of lice. because DDT in powder form is not readily absorbed by the skin, the effects caused by it were delayed and as a result it was thought that the harmful effects of DDT on humans was negligible.
she continues to explain that DDT is fat soluble and as a result it is stored in the fats of humans and animals, and is continually stored in the body as it is not easily excreted by the body. because of this, the drug continues to accumulate in the body until it reaches a dangerous level.
as early as 1958, Rachel Carson was interested in writing an essay concerning the harmful effects of DDT, but as her opinion on the matter was seen as near blasphemous to her contemporary's line of thought that she was refused to be given an article space on a magazine to write her research paper. As time went on and she accumulated more research and information on the drug, she was finally able to tackle the issue in her own book in 1962.
it seems that Rachel Carson was decades ahead of her time in her research and line of thought. and even though she makes a good case against pesticides that are poisoning our environment, I don't think use of insecticides such as DDT will come to an end as there are no real alternatives to these pesticides and because the demand for food is growing, the only way for farmers to be sure of a good harvest is to use these chemicals. our only hope is that some time in the near future scientists will discover a less harmful way of protecting our crops from insects without harming the consumers of those crops.
K.K.
http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp