Thread by @elenaconis

Why would Big Tobacco secretly fight to protect another poison? Why was DDT—the pesticide that devastated ecosystems, & banned partly thanks to Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING—beloved by cigarette manufacturers? The answer is not what you’d think: #EarthDay 🧵

Growing up on Long Island in the 80s, I learned that the pesticide DDT was why our part of New York had lost the osprey, a bird of prey with a wingspan as wide as my father was tall.

Familiar with robins and sparrows, I couldn’t believe something as powerful as an osprey had ever soared through our skies.

To encourage the birds’ return, wildlife biologists built twiggy osprey nests atop teetering posts. But throughout my childhood, every time my family drove past one, it was empty.

My young mind concluded that DDT, banned in the 70s, had ended an era. We sprayed it to kill bugs. It took our most majestic birds with it. I lived in its aftermath.

Over a decade later, in my early adulthood, I was at a public health conference. A group of scientists described worsening malaria rates in parts of Africa. Things had gotten so bad, they said—and this surprised me—that it was time to bring DDT back.

People around me nodded in agreement. But I had grown up thinking of DDT as one of our most toxic chemicals. Had it been quietly exonerated?

This was the early 2000s; soon, newspapers and TV news took up the call. Everywhere from the New York Times to the evening news, journalists I respected and admired said it was time to bring back DDT.

The media cry coincided with negotiations over a global treaty to eliminate chemicals known as “persistent organic pollutants.” DDT was on the list to be banned. Over 100 nations ratified the agreement. The U.S. did not.

Something in DDT’s twist of fate didn’t add up. I carried the question of it around with me for another ten years, until I stumbled across what felt like a clue.

In a digitized collection of formerly sealed corporate records—released during litigation not against DDT manufacturers, but, surprisingly, against tobacco companies—I found a document from 1998 titled “International Public Health Strategy.”

The document was from a man named Roger Bate, who wanted Philip Morris to fund a communications campaign. What made Bate's request eye-opening, though, is that he wanted the tobacco giant to drum up interest in how malaria could be stopped by DDT. But why?

The aim, Bate proposed to Philip Morris, was twofold: A) to show that the environmentalists behind DDT’s ban had harmed public health, and B) to show that poorer countries shouldn’t trust or heed policies dictated by rich ones.

Philip Morris funded the malaria project. Other tobacco players chipped in too. But why would Big Tobacco want to protect DDT, let alone advocate for more of it?

It was simple. In the late 90s, Tobacco faced new regulation from two global conventions. The industry bet that the DDT story would confuse the issue: Why would regulating tobacco be good, if even the “uncontroversial” regulation of DDT had gone so wrong?

DDT’s true story—I realized—was the story of how easy it is to manipulate public opinion on science, and how much our opinions matter to interests so much larger than us. Our ideas about science are often shaped by actors we didn’t even know were in the game.

By the time Bate launched his DDT and malaria campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco in the late 90s, Long Island’s ospreys were on the rebound. The island had over 230 active nests and counting. Scientists chalked it up to the decades-long ban on DDT.

In the end, no one actually brought DDT back, but Bate’s campaign did plant a seed of an idea that has since grown: that “liberals’” science can’t be trusted.

Last summer, I flew from California, where I now live, to New York to see my parents. Because of Covid, I hadn’t seen them in the better part of two years.

I was at the town park with my mom when she pointed through a nearby fence to a twiggy nest atop a pole. In the manner of daughters everywhere, I said “I know, mom.” It was an osprey nest, and as I had long ago learned to do, I assumed it was empty.

But she pointed again. And a fuzzy little head poked up, followed by another. It was the first active nest I ever saw. DDT is still gone. But the ospreys are back.

The full story of Big Tobacco, malaria, DDT, and even the osprey can be found in my new book, HOW TO SELL A POISON: boldtypebooks.com/titles/elena-c…