Monica Bertagnolli, President of National Academy of Medicine, shared on LinkedIn:
“Last Thursday, I was profoundly honored to receive a special award from a truly remarkable organization – the Silent Spring Institute. The Institute has a unique mission to understand and overcome environmental causes of breast cancer – and beyond.
As a breast cancer survivor and a cancer prevention researcher, I could not possibly be more invested in the work of this organization, both personally and professionally. I am profoundly grateful for the dedication and talent of the Institute’s staff and the generosity of its supporters.
The award I was humbled to receive is named in honor of Rachel Carson (1907-1964), a woman of tremendous intellect and courage who loved science. She asked important questions and relentlessly pursued answers. In the early 1960s, her unique observations led her to collaborate widely with a community of scientists who were concerned over increasing evidence that synthetic pesticides – widely used to support agriculture – could be harmful to the environment and the animals and people that inhabit it.
This included Carson’s work with Wilhelm Hueper, founding director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)’s Environmental Cancer Section, whose work identified many pesticides as carcinogens. She used her prodigious talent as a writer to become a galvanizing force for positive change. With her landmark book, Silent Spring, she compellingly detailed the significant and sometimes adverse effect humans have on the natural world.
Predictably, there were powerful people who sought to discredit her work because it went against their economic interests. They attacked her credibility by claiming that her degree in biology meant she was ‘not an expert’ and intentionally spread disinformation – asserting that she was a fanatic calling for a return to the dark ages by demanding elimination of all pesticides. A former US Secretary of Agriculture even went so far as to suggest that she was ‘probably a Communist’.
She also faced the same cruel and destructive attacks so often leveled at women who speak up – her passionate calls for curbing use of pesticides proven to cause harm earned her the labels of ’emotional’ and ‘a woman out of control.’
Yet, after her untimely death from breast cancer at the age of 56, Carson’s work led to a nationwide ban on DDT and a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Today, for all who value health and the environment, including those who are determined to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change on health, Rachel Carson is a tremendous inspiration, reminding us of the importance of science and of speaking truth to power.
Thank you once again to the Silent Spring Institute for this tremendous honor and for propelling such essential research forward.”
Other articles featuring Monica Bertagnolli on OncoDaily.
