JULY 2022 - AudioFile
Casey Turner's delivery is direct and clear, creating the perfect listening experience for this progressively disturbing audiobook. DDT, originally considered a harmless insecticide, was at one time so prevalent that local governments would fog entire neighborhoods in an effort to eliminate insects. Laborers would be covered with the chemical to kill lice. But the discovery of a high correlation with cancer and devastating environmental impacts led to government regulation, yet corporate interests have helped force the return of its use. This pushback included successful attempts to demonize researchers who sounded the alarm about its risks. Turner's engaging no-frills performance provides consistent focus to this decades-long injustice. Her voice conveys the weight of this returning problem. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
02/14/2022
Historian Conis (Vaccine Nation) offers a thorough history of the U.S. government’s use of the chemical insecticide DDT. Swiss chemist Victor Froelicher is credited as breaking it into the U.S. market, having brought his research on a new pest-killing compound called dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane to the USDA in 1941. The U.S. military was quick to implement its use in the Pacific, where dengue fever, malaria, and typhus were running rampant among U.S. troops. After the war, DDT was floated as a potential solution to polio stateside, resulting in the use of planes to dust entire cities with the chemical. Though DDT proved to be ineffective at curtailing polio, dusting continued as a means of eliminating crop pests. Though many credit environmentalist Rachel Carson as having spearheaded anti-DDT efforts, Conis goes beyond that narrative to highlight the roles some less celebrated figures played: in 1957, for example, a lawsuit was filed by the Committee Against Mass Poisoning, a group of concerned citizens on Long Island. This lawsuit, led by organic farmer Marjorie Spock, was crucial in Carson’s writing of the 1962 bestseller Silent Spring, and the EPA’s ban of DDT followed in 1972. Conis’s account is impressively researched, and her narrative carefully constructed. This is a worthy contribution to environmental history. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Monumental…One of Conis’s greatest achievements is to put a human face on this science of risk.”—The New Republic
“How to Sell a Poison deepened my understanding of this chemical in unexpected ways… It’s a gripping examination of corporate influence over science — and how this tried-and-true playbook continues to manipulate public opinion today… Conis has a prescient way of framing the past so as to inform our future.”—Los Angeles Times
“Conis writes with a journalist’s clarity and remove, and a historian’s exacting fidelity to primary sources. She conveys her findings through narrative (more than through historical argument), with scenes rich in dialogue and description.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Rich in human narratives… How to Sell a Poison sounds a warning about how easily scientific understanding can be undermined by outside forces.”—Civil Eats
“The phrase ‘trust the science’ should be replaced with ‘understand how the science gets made.’ This deeply researched, beautifully written, and well-argued explanation of how DDT was sold, misregulated, and resold should scare everyone from the ardent scientist to the fearful conspiracy theorist into rethinking.”—Susan M. Reverby, author of Examining Tuskegee
“What Merchants of Doubt did for earlier campaigns of corporate disinformation, How to Sell a Poison does, superbly, for a toxin I thought we’d gotten rid of. Elena Conis’s fast-paced account is all the more important in an era when powerful forces are trying to discredit science.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost
“Elena Conis is a historian who writes nonfiction like a fiction writer. In elegant prose, she reveals the often forgotten and captivating history of how ordinary people discovered the dangers of DDT—and persisted in having it banned against all odds and despite false assurances of its safety from public health officials.”
—Sheldon Krimsky, author of GMOs Decoded
"Why do we still talk about DDT? In this provocative and richly detailed retelling of the DDT story, Elena Conis deftly explores why a pesticide banned since 1972 remains so politically divisive. For Conis, the answer lies in the intersection of science and politics, revealing a story rooted in the past, but framed by contemporary political and ecological debates. It is a fascinating story that will resonate with readers trying to make sense of the uncertainty of scientific knowledge in our highly politicized world.” —David Kinkela, author of DDT and the American Century
"Science is often thought to be the antonym of politics. Yet the human side of innovation, along with fierce competition, can create the conditions for behavior that is anything but apolitical. How to Sell a Poison brilliantly retells the story of the rise, fall, and reemergence of DDT to highlight how context shapes what we think we know about science and health policy. Rigorously researched and delightfully written, this book sets a new standard for science journalism."—Osagie Obasogie, author of Blinded by Sight
“In How to Sell a Poison, Elena Conis skillfully narrates the complex, toxic history of DDT, among the world’s most popular and dangerous chemical pesticides. Initially heralded, ultimately banned, still widely used, the vagaries of the production, sale, and regulation of DDT opens up the most fundamental questions of corporate greed, the role of government, and scientific practice. Anyone interested in the problem of scientific authority in our toxic world should read this important, essential book."
—Allan M. Brandt, author of The Cigarette Century
"Elena Conis has rendered a frightening and thoroughly researched account of the poisoning of our environment and ourselves. With great precision and keen analysis, she plainly lays out the case for how one of the twentieth century’s most large-scale toxic exposure events was the direct result of corporate greed and manufactured doubt of science. The story always has been urgent, but no more so than now.” —Samuel Kelton Roberts, Jr., author of Infectious Fear
“A collection of shocking narratives…[Conis] captivatingly examines decades of conflicting reports from scientists and government agencies regarding the pesticide’s toxicity, lawsuits and governmental hearings related to DDT, the related formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and recent efforts by private interests to revive production…An insightful, timely work about ‘the endless game of catch-up we play when we pollute first, regulate later.’”—Kirkus Reviews
“Conis’s account is impressively researched, and her narrative carefully constructed. This is a worthy contribution to environmental history.”—Publishers Weekly
“Conis delivers a compelling, copiously researched account of DDT in America that is both uplifting and utterly bleak…A vitally important contribution to the ongoing discussion over the use of pesticides.”—Booklist
“A superb and well-researched account of a notorious chemical and the clash it has provoked between science and corporate doubters.”—New York Journal of Books
“[A] complex, disturbing study.”—Nature
JULY 2022 - AudioFile
Casey Turner's delivery is direct and clear, creating the perfect listening experience for this progressively disturbing audiobook. DDT, originally considered a harmless insecticide, was at one time so prevalent that local governments would fog entire neighborhoods in an effort to eliminate insects. Laborers would be covered with the chemical to kill lice. But the discovery of a high correlation with cancer and devastating environmental impacts led to government regulation, yet corporate interests have helped force the return of its use. This pushback included successful attempts to demonize researchers who sounded the alarm about its risks. Turner's engaging no-frills performance provides consistent focus to this decades-long injustice. Her voice conveys the weight of this returning problem. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2022-02-01
An exploration of the complex history of DDT and how this banned pesticide is still relevant today.
Through a collection of shocking narratives, historian Conis, author of Vaccine Nation (2014), tracks the history of DDT from its origins as a “miracle bug killer” for soldiers fighting in the South Pacific during World War II to its ban in 1972 as well as on-going cleanup efforts. The author captivatingly examines decades of conflicting reports from scientists and government agencies regarding the pesticide’s toxicity, lawsuits and governmental hearings related to DDT, the related formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and recent efforts by private interests to revive production. Conis also shares stories of individuals affected by the application of DDT, including residents of Triana, Alabama, a small town that “became a battleground for a scientific dispute over just how toxic the banned chemical actually was”; and Mexican farm workers in California’s Central Valley, who were “covered…from head to toe in a white powder to kill lice: DDT.” The author highlights the efforts of activists in the fight against synthetic pesticides and their calls for responsible management—among them, Mexican American labor leader Cesar Chavez and author Rachel Carson, whose publication of Silent Spring faced attack from “the pesticide interests and their hangers-on.” Finally, Conis walks readers through the growing body of research that has linked DDT exposure to various cancers and points out recently discovered DDT dump sites off the shore of California (one oceanographic expedition discovered more than 27,000 barrels). “Decades of intentionally sowed doubt, along with other corporate and free-market practices, are certainly responsible for contemporary skepticism toward science in some circles,” writes the author in this convincing, deeply researched, and disturbing survey. Sadly, we see many of the same dynamics at play in “public doubts about climate change, vaccines, and the very nature of COVID.”
An insightful, timely work about “the endless game of catch-up we play when we pollute first, regulate later.
