Sept. 13, 1962 - A public frame of mind “bordering on hysteria” can be generated by “one-sided” books such as that just written by Rachel Carson, it was charged today by Dr. C. Glen King, head of the Nutrition Foundation. The Nutrition Foundation is a research-sponsoring organization largely supported by the food industry. His attack highlighted the second day on which specialists, attending a New York meeting of the American Chemical Society, criticized the book “Silent Spring.” The book is to be published by Houghton Mifflin on Sept. 27, but copies are already widely available. Dr. King argued that the U.S. could not maintain an adequate food supply for its population without agricultural chemicals. True, he said, there have been tragic accidents in the use of such chemicals, as described extensively in Miss Carson’s book on pesticides. However, he said, to concentrate on such mishaps is like writing an account of car travel that relies on nationwide records of accidents in which people are maimed and “pretends all this happened in one community at one time.” This, he asserted, “is exactly what ‘Silent Spring’ has done.”
Comments