The alarm went off with Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring and has been sounding ever since. We live, environmentalists warn, in a world laced with dangerous chemicals, from powerful pesticides to toxic industrial wastes like dioxin and PCBs. Despite periodic waves of public concern and efforts at government regulation (the 1972 banning of DDT in the U.S., for example), the chemicals are still found in small but measurable amounts in air, water, soil -- and our own tissues. Many scientists have long argued that even tiny doses of pollutants can cause cancer in humans, but the contention is hotly disputed....
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