Pesticides and toxicology: Episodes in the evolution of environmental risk assessment (1937--1997)

Pesticides and Toxicology: Episodes in the Evolution of Environmental Risk Assessment (1937–1997) analyzes several key moments in the genesis of toxicology and environmental risk assessment and will contribute to a growing literature on the history of pesticides and their effects on landscapes, wildlife, and humans. This study places notions of the benefits and risks of pesticides in historical context. Specifically, I focus on the work of the Toxicity Laboratory at the University of Chicago and the Division of Pharmacology at the Food and Drug Administration in developing toxicological techniques and standards to evaluate and regulate the risks of synthetic pesticides. I trace the evolution of toxicological methods from pharmacology to their application to DDT during World War II to further research developments in response to organophosphate pesticides.; This study delineates four specific episodes beginning with the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy of 1937, which inspired collaboration between federal officials and university researchers in devising toxicological methods to address a series of fatalities resulting from the toxic drug.; Pharmacologists and toxicologists went on to use these methods during World War II in the evaluation of the toxicity of DDT to insects, laboratory animals, wildlife, and humans, the second episode. The next moment is the development of the University of Chicago Toxicity Laboratory under the direction of E. M. K. Geiling. During World War II, the “Tox Lab” trained and employed more than sixty researchers to evaluate the toxicity of thousands of chemicals and they developed numerous methods for toxicological analysis. The final episode reveals the work of Tox Lab researcher Kenneth DuBois and FDA regulator Arnold Lehman as well as other researchers who conducted toxicological evaluations of the organophosphate chemicals such as parathion and malathion.; The Epilogue details the development of toxicology into an independent discipline and tracks organophosphate use and criticism from Silent Spring to the present. In the Conclusion, I relate these episodes to the evolution of environmental risk assessment, which has become the dominant paradigm in the analysis of environmental quality and health.