Record Display for the EPA National Library Catalog

RECORD NUMBER: 4 OF 41

Main Title Before Silent spring : pesticides and public health in pre-DDT America /
Author Whorton, James C.,
Publisher Princeton University Press
Year Published 1975
OCLC Number 00948040
ISBN 0691081395; 9780691081397
Subjects Pesticides--Toxicology ; Pesticide residues in food--United States ; Food contamination ; Food adulteration and inspection--United States--History ; Pesticides--Environmental aspects ; Pesticides--poisoning ; Pestizid ; Umwelt ; USA ; Pesticiden ; Levensmiddelen ; Gezondheid
Additional Subjects Pesticides--Toxicology ; Pesticide residues in food--United States ; Food contamination ; Food adulteration and inspection--United States--History
Internet Access
Description Access URL
Publisher description http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1504/74011071-d.html
Holdings
Library Call Number Additional Info Location Last
Modified
Checkout
Status
EIAM  RA1270.P4W45 1975 Region 2 Library/New York,NY 05/20/2005
EJBM  RA1270.P4W45 1975 Headquarters Library/Washington,DC 01/01/1988
EJEM  RA1270.P4W45 1975 OCSPP Chemical Library/Washington,DC 03/31/2006
ERAM  RA1270.P4W45 1975 Region 9 Library/San Francisco,CA 01/01/1988
Collation xv, 288 pages ; 23 cm
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Contents Notes
The insect emergency -- The lingering dram -- "Spray, o spray" -- Regulatory prelude -- Regulatory perplexities -- Regulatory publicity -- "No longer a hazard" -- Epilogue -- Bibliographic notes -- Index. Modern consumers are well aware that the food they eat is tainted by pesticidal residues; they are less aware that their great-grandparents faced the same hazard. The author's history of this public health menace emphasizes that insecticides have been contaminating produce since the introduction of chemical pesticides in the 1860s. This book examines the period before the publication of Rachel Carson's famous 'Silent Spring', tracing the origins of the residue problem and exploring the complicated network of interest groups that formed around the issue. The author shows how economic necessities, technological limitations, and pressures on regulatory agencies have brought us to 'our present dilemma of seemingly having to poison our food in order to protect it.' In the first part of the book, the agricultural and medical literature of the past century is used to analyze the emergence by 1920 of a public health danger of serious proportions. The second part draws heavily on the unpublished records of the Food and Drug Administration to document how the ineffective handling of this danger established precedents for present pesticide abuses. This particular aspect of food adulteration has not been adequately dealt with before; in previous histories of food and drug control, it has, at best, only been mentioned. This book clarifies a significant area of history of food regulation while providing the historical perspective for a health problem of contemporary urgency. -- from Book Jacket.