A drastic change has occurred in the realm of public health problems. Whereas in past decades, people worried about smallpox, cholera, and such communicable diseases, now they have to worry about the hazards of chemical poisoning. Environmental health problems are many and various. People now live under the fear that their environment is being corrupted. They now fear environmental diseases caused by the pollution of the air they breathe and the food they eat.
The major problem most people face isn't a single large exposure to a chemical poison, but a cumulative effect of multiple minute exposures. People are usually more afraid of sudden and dramatic diseases, but they should be looking to the kind of health problems that creep up on them over a period of years. There is an ecology in the environment in which one poisoned creature upsets the whole system. There is also an ecology in the human body in which "minute causes produce mighty effects." It is very difficult to trace the causes of problems that occur in the human body.
Many people say they use Dieldrin on their lawns all the time and never suffer the affects of convulsions like the spray men of the World Health Organization personnel. These peal aren't aware that the affect of poison is often cumulative. Peal store these poisons in their body fat. One man in New Zealand was undergoing treatment for obesity and suddenly came down with symptoms that looked like poisoning. Tests of his fat revealed levels of Dieldrin. When people are under stress, they draw on fatty reserves. Therefore, when they are suffering sickness, their bodies draw on poisoned fatty reserves. Fats are widely distributed in the whole body. Fat-soluble insecticides are stored n individual cells where they can interfere with the body's natural functions of oxidation and energy production.
Chlorinated Hydrocarbon insecticides affect the liver. The liver is in charge of multiple vital bodily functions. It helps in the digestion of gas, it receives blood from the digestive tract, it metabolizes all food, it stores sugar and regulates blood sugar, it builds body proteins, it helps in blood clotting, it maintains cholesterol, it inactivates hormones when they get out of hand, and it stores essential vitamins. The liver is generally the organ that detoxifies the body. If the liver is damaged by pesticides, it becomes incapable of protecting the body from poisons.
A huge number of insecticides are liver poisons. There was a sharp rise in hepatitis beginning in the 1950s. Cirrhosis is also increasing. It's impossible to set up a one-to-one correspondence of cause and effect between environmental pollutants and liver failure because people's environment, their intake of food, air, and liquids are too varied to choose one cause for any effect. However, it's common sense to see that if we expose ourselves to poisons that have proven themselves to damage the liver, we are making our liver less resistant to disease.
The two major types of insecticides--the chlorinated hydrocarbons and the organic phosphates--directly affect the nervous system. Many experiments on animals have established this fact. Some observations on human exposure also establishes this fact.
The first knowledge of DDT poisoning on human beings was furnished by British scientists who intentionally exposed themselves to the chemical to see the results. They came into contact with walls covered with water-soluble paint containing 2 percent of DDT. They suffered immediate symptoms of severe fatigue and muscle and joint pain. They didn't recover by the time the experiment was over. Now a whole series of experiments prove the connection between insecticides and nervous system collapse.
People suffer in a variety of ways from similar exposure. Some people are more sensitive to poisons than others. In some people, sensitivity develops suddenly after years of presumable immunity. The other problem with predicting the results of chemical poisoning is the fact that there are interactions among various poisons and people come into contact with multiple poisons. One chemical which seems to be somewhat harmless can be made extremely toxic when it comes into contact with another. Damage to the nervous system doesn't only happen in acute poisoning. It happens with cumulative exposure to small doses. Dieldrin for example, has caused a loss of memory, insomnia and nightmares. Lindane is often stored in the brain and in the liver tissue.
The organic phosphates are usually only considered in cases of acute poisoning, but it's important to study their long-term cumulative effects. They have been shown to produce mental disorders. For example, during the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s, people tried to get around the law by drinking what was called Jamaica ginger. It was too expensive, so they created a substitute for it. The substitute included a chemical called Triortheocresynl Phosphate. Like Parathion, this chemical destroys the protective enzyme cholinesterase. 15,000 people developed paralysis. Twenty years later other organic phosphates came into use as insecticides and people began to develop similar symptoms as those who drank the synthetic Jamaica ginger.
The organic phosphates have been shown to produce mental disease. In one study, 16 cases of mental disease were shown to be caused by organic phosphorus insecticides. People can suffer any thing from confusion, to delusions, to mania.
Carson here moves to the medical research that links insecticides and pesticides to disease and death in humans. She notes at one point that people need to realize that they are part of nature; the war on nature entails a war on humanity. Carson is careful to point out the difficulties of setting up cause and effect links between chemical poisons and human beings. She must point this out since it is so often pointed out by chemical industry spokespeople. She does, however, provide enough compelling evidence that the reader will, with her, reach the common sense conclusion that a poisoned world is going to produce poisoned people.
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
>.