The impact of Silent Spring went beyond America and the West. DDT was banned in the West but is still used in Africa through impregnated mosquito nets against malaria and insecticides used to "protect" the cultures. For many people, the elimination of DDT in Africa is a disaster, even considered a crime against humanity. The website Rachelwaswrong.org says that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was of poor scientific knowledge. We have read Rachel Carson in our course as an environmentalist whose ultimate objective was the protection of human beings. But others see the opposite. Here's how she is presented by Aaron Swartz: "Sometimes you find mass murderers in the most unlikely places. Take Rachel Carson. She was, by all accounts, a mild-mannered writer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—hardly a sociopath’s breeding ground. And yet, according to many in the media, Carson has more blood on her hands than Hitler."(www.fair.com).
Rachel Carson is accused of crimes against humanity. On the website Rachelwaswrong.org, photos of Ugandan children who died from malaria are exhibited, as if to show the damage caused by the abandonment of DDT. The Ugandan Minister of Health has asked for the use of DDT to fight against malaria. However, people tend to ignore the consequences of such toxic substances on the environment and humans. Different types of diseases like cancer can appear and not all of them would be diagnosed as such.
Moreover, many think that stopping the use of DDT in agriculture has caused crop failure and consequently famine in Africa. One wonders if the DDT is manna from heaven. Is this the ultimate single solution? I think they are less dangerous tracks that are exploitable to fight the problems of malaria and famine in Africa. It is a question of political will. It could also appears that the attacks against Rachel Carson’s work fall under the misogyny in science that we were discussing in class.
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