Chapter 12 "The Human Price" Summary

This chapter is titled Public health problems used to be caused by diseases such as smallpox, cholera, and plague. Infectious disease has been largely controlled through improved living conditions, better sanitation, and miraculous drugs, but now we have caused a new kind of public health crisis by introducing dangerous radiation and chemicals into our environment in huge quantities. The results of our actions in bombarding our planet with these unpredictable substances are equally unpredictable. Previous chapters have shown how pesticides have already drastically affected the water, soil, and food, as well as many species of wildlife and livestock - and how pesticides affect people in both the short term and long term. Long-term effects are easy to ignore as long as they are invisible, but they are there nonetheless.

Our individual bodies have a kind...