Banned

by Frederick Rowe Davis

  NOTES

  Abbreviations to Notes

  Environmental Health Perspectives

  E.H.P.

  Journal of the American Medical Association

  J.A.M.A.

  Journal of Economic Entomology

  J.E.E.

  Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics

  J.P.E.T.

  Journal of Wildlife Management

  J.W.M.

  Public Health Reports

  P.H.R.

  Chapter 1. Toxicology Emerges in Public Health Crises

  1. See William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), James Harvey Young, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).

  2. Adelynne Hiller Whitaker, “Federal Pesticide Legislation in the United States to 1947” (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1974), 46.

  3. For a thorough study of sulfanilamide and the toxic diethylene glycol, see James Harvey Young, “Sulfanilamide and Diethylene Glycol,” in Chemistry and Modern Society: Historical Essays in Honor of Aaron J. Ihde, ed. John Parascandola and James C. Whorton (Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1983). For a brief discussion of the case with respect to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act of 1938, see Whorton, Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). See also Charles O. Jackson, Food and Drug Legislation in the New Deal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 151–174, Philip J. Hilts, Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 72–94, and Daniel Carpenter, Reputation and Power: Organization Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 85–117.

  4. Whorton, Before Silent Spring, 5.

  5. Ibid., 15–16.

  6. Quoted in ibid., 21.

  7. See Robert J. Spear, The Great Gypsy Moth War: A History of the First Campaign to Eradicate the Gypsy Moth, 1890–1901 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005).

  8. Whitaker, “Federal Pesticide Legislation in the U.S.,” 81.

  9. Ibid., 104.

  10. Ibid., 107.

  11. Christopher Bosso, Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), 48.

  12. See Christopher Sellers, Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

  13. See Christian Warren, Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Occupational Disease in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), and David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith, Jr., Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont R&D, 1902–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

  14. Seller, Hazards of the Job, 21–31.

  15. Hounshell and Smith, Science and Corporate Strategy, 555.

  16. See Sellers, Hazards of the Job.

  17. Ibid., 164.

  18. Ibid., 166–172.

  19. This section draws on Robert Proctor, Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don’t Know About Cancer (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 36–48, Benjamin Ross and Steven Amter, The Polluters: The Making of Our Chemically Altered Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 59–72, Sellers, Hazards of the Job, 221–223, Proctor, “Discovering Environmental Cancer: Wilhelm Hueper, Post-World War II Epidemiology, and the Vanishing Clinician’s Eye,” American Journal of Public Health 87 (11) (November 1997): 1824–1835, and Hounshell and Smith, Science and Corporate Strategy, 555–563.

  20. Hounshell and Smith, Science and Corporate Strategy, 563. See also Ross and Amter, Polluters, 61.

  21. Proctor, Cancer Wars, 40. See also Ross and Amter, Polluters, 59–72.

  22. Proctor, Cancer Wars, 41.

  23. Paul B. Dunbar, “Memories of Early Days of Federal Food and Drug Law Enforcement,” Food, Drug, Cosmetic Law Journal 14 (February 1959), 134. Cited in Jackson, Food and Drug Legislation, 3.

  24. Jackson, Food and Drug Legislation, 4–5.

  25. Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1933), 4.

  26. Ruth deForest Lamb, American Chamber of Horrors: The Truth about Food and Drugs (New York: J. J. Little and Ives, 1936), 3.

  27. Whorton, Before Silent Spring, 81–82.

  28. Note: throughout this study, measurements and units will appear as in the original source. For the sake of comparison and consistency, I have inserted metric conversions as appropriate.

  29. See Ross and Amter, Polluters, 46, and Whitaker, “Federal Pesticide Legislation in the U.S.,” 342–343.

  30. Ibid.

  31. C. N. Myers, Binford Throne, Florence Gustafson, and Jerome Kings-bury, “Significance and Danger of Spray Residue,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (June 1933): 624.

  32. Ibid., 625.

  33. Kallet and Schlink, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, 57.

  34. Whorton, Before Silent Spring, 200.

  35. Remarkably, enforceable tolerances for lead and arsenic were not set until 1950, by which time DDT and other synthetic insecticides had replaced heavy metal insecticides. See Ross and Amter, Polluters, 49–51.

  36. This section draws on Daniel E. Rusyniak, R. Brent Furbee, and Robert Pascuzzi, “Historical Neurotoxins: What We Have Learned from Toxins of the Past about Diseases of the Present,” Neurologic Clinics 23 (2005): 337–352; John P. Morgan and Thomas C. Tulloss, “A Toxicologic Tragedy Mirrored in American Popular Music,” Annals of Internal Medicine 85 (1976): 804–808; John P. Morgan, “The Jamaica Ginger Paralysis,” J.A.M.A. 248 (October 15, 1982): 1864–1867; and John Parascandola, “The Public Health Service and Jamaica Ginger Paralysis in the 1930s,” P.H.R. 110 (May–June 1995): 361–363.

  37. Morgan, “Jamaica Ginger Paralysis,” 1866.

  38. Rusyniak et al., “Historical Neurotoxins,” 339.

  39. Morgan and Tulloss, “Toxicologic Tragedy,” 804–808.

  40. Maurice I. Smith, “The Pharmacological Action of Certain Phenol Esters, with Special Reference to the Etiology of So-Called Ginger Paralysis (Second Report),” P.H.R. 45 (42) (October 17, 1930): 2518.

  41. B. T. Burley, “The 1930 Type of Polyneuritis,” New England Journal of Medicine 262 (1930): 1139–1142.

  42. Cited in Kallet and Schlink, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, 155. Emphasis added.

  43. John Pfeiffer, “Sulfanilamide: The Story of a Medical Discovery,” Harper’s Magazine 178 (1939): 387.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Anon., “Young Roosevelt Saved by New Drug: Doctor Uses Prontylin in Fight on Streptococcus Infection,” New York Times (December 17, 1936), 1.

  46. Waldemar Kaempffert, “The Week in Science: Cause of the Tulsa Deaths,” New York Times (October 24, 1937), 6.

  47. Henry A. Wallace, Elixir Sulfanilamide: Letter from the Secretary of Agriculture, in 75th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Document 124, Serial 10247 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), 3.

  48. Young, “Sulfanilamide and Diethylene Glycol,” 108. Though seemingly naïve, Watkins’s statement merits further analysis. See below.

  49. Morris Fishbein, “Sulfanilamide—A Warning,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1128.

  50. Ibid.

  51. Ibid.

  52. Homer A. Ruprecht and I. A. Nelson, “Clinical and Pathologic Observations,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1537.

  53. Wallace, Elixir Sulfanilamide, 4–5, reprinted as Wallace, “Deaths due to Elixir of Sulfanilamide-Massengill. Report of Secretary of Agriculture Submitted in Response to House Resolution 352 of Nov. 18, 1937, and Senate Resolution 194 of
Nov. 16, 1937,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1986.

  54. Ibid.

  55. Ibid.

  56. Paul Nicholas Leech, “Elixir of Sulfanilamide-Massengill: II,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1531.

  57. Wallace, Elixir Sulfanilamide, 1.

  58. E. W. Schoefel, H. R. Kreider, and J. B. Peterson, “Chemical Examination of Elixir of Sulfanilamide-Massengill,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1532.

  59. E. M. K. Geiling, Julius M. Coon, and E. W. Schoefel, “Preliminary Report of Toxicity Studies on Rats, Rabbits and Dogs Following Ingestion in Divided Doses of Diethylene Glycol, Elixir of Sulfanilamide-Massengill and ‘Synthetic’ Elixir,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1532.

  60. Ibid., 1535.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ibid.

  63. Paul R. Cannon, “Pathologic Effects Following the Ingestion of Diethylene Glycol, Elixir of Sulfanilamide-Massengill, ‘Synthetic’ Elixir of Sulfanilamide, and Sulfanilamide Alone,” J.A.M.A. 109 (1937): 1536–1537.

  64. See Carpenter, Reputation and Power, 76. See also Young, Pure Food, and Anderson, Health of a Nation.

  65. Bosso, Pesticides and Politics, 49.

  66. Bert J. Vos et al., “History of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Retired FDA Pharmacologists” (hereafter, “Retired FDA Pharmacologists”), (Rockville, Md.: National Library of Medicine, 1980), 10–16.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Ibid.

  69. Chester I. Bliss, “The Calculation of the Dose-Mortality Curve,” Annals of Applied Biology 22 (1935): 166.

  70. Edwin P. Laug et al., “The Toxicology of Some Glycols and Derivatives,” J. Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology 21 (5) (1939): 200.

  71. Ibid.

  72. For examples of the development of chronic toxicity profiles for lead and other heavy metals, see Sellers, Hazards of the Job, 81–98, and Warren, Brush with Death, 64–83.

  73. Vos et al., “Retired FDA Pharmacologists,” 17–18.

  74. Ibid., 24.

  75. See Ross and Amter, Polluters.

  76. See, for example, H. O. Calvery, E. P. Laug, and H. J. Morris, “The Chronic Effects on Dogs of Feeding Diets Containing Lead Acetate, Lead Arsenate, and Arsenic Trioxide in Varying Concentrations,” J.P.E.T. 64 (4) (1938): 364–387, and Lucy L. Finner and H. O. Calvery, “Pathologic Changes in Rats and in Dogs Fed Diets Containing Lead and Arsenic Compounds,” Archives of Pathology 27 (3) (1938): 433–466.

  77. Bosso, Pesticides and Politics, 50.

  78. Wallace, Elixir Sulfanilamide, 9.

  79. Ibid.

  80. In July 1934 Oettingen became the first director of Haskell Laboratory, an in-house medical research facility, at DuPont, one of the first such facilities in an American company. See Hounshell and Smith, Science and Corporate Strategy, 555–572.

  81. W. F. von Oettingen and E. A. Jirouch, “The Pharmacology of Ethylene Glycol and Some of Its Derivatives in Relation to Chemical Constitution and Physical Chemical Properties,” J.P.E.T. 42 (3) (1931): 371.

  82. Young, “Sulfanilamide and Diethylene Glycol,” 112.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Ibid. Estimates of the settlements varied from a confirmed amount of $2,000 to an FDA report of a rumor that S. E. Massengill paid out more than $500,000 in damage suit settlements.

  85. Wallace, Elixir Sulfanilamide, 10.

  86. Carpenter, Reputation and Power, 100.

  87. E. M. K. Geiling, “Therapeutic Applications of Sulfanilamide and Allied Compounds,” Illinois Medical Journal (November 1940): 404–405.

  88. Ibid., 405.

  89. Ibid.

  90. Ibid., 410.

  91. Cited in Anon., “Bristol Calls Ads Safety Insurance,” New York Times (December 8, 1937), 38.

  92. Ibid.

  93. Morris Fishbein, “Elixir of Sulfanilamide Deaths and New Legislation,” Hygeia 15 (1937): 1067.

  94. Hilts, 89. Hilts’s emphasis.

  95. This section is drawn from Young, “Sulfanilamide and Diethylene Glycol.” See also Bosso, Pesticides and Politics, 51–52.

  96. Gwen Kay, “Healthy Public Relations: The FDA’s 1930s Legislative Campaign,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (3) (Fall 2001): 446–487.

  Chapter 2. DDT and Environmental Toxicology

  1. See “War on Insects,” Time 46 (August 27, 1945): 67. For a meticulous analysis of the development of DDT and its role in World War II, see Edmund Russell, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Russell, “War on Insects: Warfare, Insecticides, and Environmental Change in the United States, 1870–1945” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1993). For another perspective on DDT and the war, see John H. Perkins, “Reshaping Technology in Wartime: The Effect of Military Goals on Entomological Research and Insect-Control Practices,” Technology and Culture 19 (1978): 169–186. For more general historical analyses of insecticides, including DDT, see Thomas R. Dunlap, DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and Public Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); Whorton, Before Silent Spring; John H. Perkins, Insects, Experts, and the Insecticide Crisis: The Quest for New Management Strategies (New York: Plenum Press, 1982); Paul W. Riegert, From Arsenic to DDT: A History of Entomology in Western Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980); and David Kinkela, DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 2010.

  2. For a thorough study of Müller and DDT’s early history, see Russell, War and Nature.

  3. Paul Herman Müller, Histoire du DDT (1948). Cited by Perkins, “Reshaping Technology in Wartime,” 171.

  4. See Perkins, “Reshaping Technology in Wartime,” 171.

  5. Ibid., 173.

  6. For a thorough analysis of the evolution of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, see Russell, War and Nature, especially 264–348, and Perkins, “Reshaping Technology in Wartime,” 169–186.

  7. David Kinkela, DDT and the American Century, 16.

  8. R. C. Bushland et al., “DDT for the Control of Human Lice,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 126.

  9. Kinkela, DDT and the American Century, 22.

  10. See ibid., 35–61.

  11. E. F. Knipling, “Insect Control Investigations of the Orlando, Fla., Laboratory during World War II,” in Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1948), 336.

  12. DDT’s efficacy was the subject of numerous reports in an issue of the J.E.E. in 1944.

  13. A. H. Madden, A. W. Lindquist, and E. F. Knipling, “DDT as a Residual Spray for the Control of Bedbugs,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 127.

  14. H. K. Gouck and C. N. Smith, “DDT in the Control of Ticks on Dogs,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 130.

  15. J. B. Gahan and E. F. Knipling, “Efficacy of DDT as a Roach Poison,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 139.

  16. M. C. Swingle and E. L. Mayer, “Laboratory Tests of DDT against Various Insect Pests,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 142.

  17. O. A. Hills, “Tests with DDT against Pentatomids, Mirids, the Boll-worm, and the Cotton Aphid,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 142.

  18. J. C. Clark, “Tests of DDT Dust against a Stinkbug and the Cotton Leafworm,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 144, and George L. Smith, “Tests with DDT against the Boll Weevil,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 144.

  19. J. W. Ingram, “Tests of DDT Dust against the Sugarcane Borer, the Yellow Sugarcane Aphid, and the Argentine Ant,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 145.

  20. E. E. Ivy, “Tests with DDT on the More Important Cotton Insects,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 142.

  21. W. E. Fleming and R. D. Chisholm, “DDT as a Protective Spray against the Japanese Beetle,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 155.

  22. L. F. Steiner, C. H. Arnold, and S. A. Summerland, “Laboratory and Field Tests of DDT for Control of the Codling Moth,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 157.

  23. E. C. Holst, “DDT as a Stomach and Contact Poison for Honeybees,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 159.<
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  24. C. C. Plummer, “DDT and the Mexican Fruitfly,” J.E.E. 37 (1) (1944): 158.

  25. For a complete description of war time research at the Orlando laboratory, see Knipling, “Insect Control Investigations of the Orlando, Fla., Laboratory,” 331–348.

  26. R. L. Metcalf et al., “Observations on the Use of DDT for the Control of Anopheles quadrimaculatus,” P.H.R. 60 (27) (1945): 773.

  27. Survivors had the capacity to develop resistance.

  28. P. N. Annand, “How about DDT?” in Address before the 41st Annual Convention, National Audubon Society, October 22, 1945, New York, New York (Washington, D.C.: USDA Agricultural Research Administration, 1945), 5.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Ibid., 6. This statement anticipated the debate inspired by Silent Spring.

  31. Ibid.

  32. M. I. Smith and E. F. Stohlman, “The Pharmacologic Action of 2,2 bis (p-Chlorophenyl) 1,1,1 Trichlorethane and Its Estimation in the Tissues and Body Fluids,” P.H.R. 59 (1944): 985.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Ibid.

  36. R. D. Lillie and M. I. Smith, “Pathology of Experimental Poisoning in Cats, Rabbits, and Rats with 2,2 bis-Parachlorphenyl-1,1,1 Trichlorethane,” P.H.R. 59 (1944): 984.

  37. P. A. Neal et al., “Toxicity and Potential Dangers of Aerosols, Mists, and Dusting Powders Containing DDT,” P.H.R., Supplement No. 177 (1944): 4.

  38. Ibid., 7.

  39. Ibid., 14.