Modern Poisons: A Brief Introduction to Contemporary Toxicology by Alan Kolok

Author:Alan Kolok [Kolok, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health & Fitness, diseases, General, science, Life Sciences, Biochemistry, chemistry, Environmental Science
ISBN: 9781610913829
Google: p1obDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2016-05-05T23:41:15.251520+00:00

World War II: The Century’s Ultimate Paradigm Shifter

In the early 1900s, environmental regulation was on a relatively slow trajectory as it moved forward, motivated more or less, by one environmental disaster at a time. All of that changed with the advent of World War II, which brought about a series of major technological advancements with enormous implications for environmental regulation and human health. There were advances in medical and veterinary pharmaceuticals, the mass production of penicillin, and the agricultural and public health use of organochlorine pesticides. And of course, World War II marked the beginning of the atomic era, as the war was ended with the detonation of the first atomic weapons. The research and development effort that produced the atom bombs, the Manhattan Project, was a clear testimony to the federal government’s power of innovation. That level of innovation and the government’s capacity to mobilize forces to achieve major goals was demonstrated in numerous other areas as well. One example was the boom in the production of a newly synthesized antibiotic, penicillin. Prior to 1945, the process of producing penicillin was a laborious, small-scale operation. In 1942, there was only enough penicillin produced to be administered to a total of twelve patients. By 1945, the process had become industrial, and production climbed to 4 million sterile packages of the drug per month.

At the height of the war, more than 1.9 billion people were in service on both sides of the war, either directly fighting, or fueling the war effort with other activities. Within the United States, the urgent necessities of World War II precipitated simultaneous innovation in a number of fields: operations research, electronic digital computing, radar, sonar, mechanized agriculture, communication systems, jet aircraft, rocketry, and, of course, medicine. While the use of antibiotics on the battlefield revolutionized medicine, pesticides revolutionized the control of infectious diseases. After the war, many of the changes imposed upon the agricultural, industrial, and social fabric of the United States were refocused toward the development of a postwar society. This included the development of the modern model for scientific inquiry, including the establishment in 1950 of the National Science Foundation.

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