# The DDT Myths: History, Science, and Stories of Health and Environment

> **NIH NIH G13** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2020 · $48,593

## Abstract

The DDT Myths: History, Science, and Stories of Health and Environment
Project Summary
The pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was effectively banned in the U.S. in 1972,
in light of evidence that it harmed wildlife and threatened human health. To this day, DDT
persists in the environment; it also persists in narrative form, its story invoked everywhere from
history textbooks to press conferences on the latest insect-borne epidemic. In this familiar story,
DDT was embraced by Americans in the 1940s, became a rallying cry for environmentalists in
the 1960s, and morphed into a panacea for intractable insect-borne diseases, namely malaria, in
the 1990s. DDT's story is oft-repeated because it captures profound social and cultural shifts in
twentieth-century U.S. history, from the U.S.'s emergence as a global superpower, to the rise of
the social movements of the 1960s and 70s, to the creation of an enlightened form of U.S. global
leadership at the turn of the millennium. It is also oft-repeated because DDT's twists of fate
make its story an adaptable morality tale on the optimal pursuit of public health.
This project puts forth a new, domestic history of DDT, based on overlooked aspects of its
history and directed by questions of class, gender, race, power, and the relationship between
health and environmental values. The project has three specific aims. First, to reveal the
oversimplifications in the prevailing DDT narrative and examine the cultural and ideological
functions this narrative has served over time. Second, to put forth an exhaustively researched
new narrative, one that recovers lost voices and little-examined episodes. And third, to
demonstrate the utility of incorporating historical knowledge in health policy making processes,
in part by demonstrating how narratives about public health's past impede or advance the
achievement of public health goals in the present. This new history will be published as an
academic/trade book by a top press and written and marketed for a broad audience of
academics, policymakers, environmental and public health advocates, and the interested public.
Research methods for this historical project include location and analysis of a range of primary
sources. These include historical society and museum collections; state, federal, and global
agency archives; private papers of activists, scientists, and politicians; collected papers of
organizations, such as the United Farm Workers and Environmental Defense Fund; industry
document collections, such as Toxic Docs and the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library;
foundation records, such as the March of Dimes and Rockefeller archives; specialized digital
collections, such as the Bracero Archive; and a range of periodicals, including small-town
newspapers, farm papers, trade magazines, and New Left and mass media publications.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9861267
- **Project number:** 5G13LM013023-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Elena Christine Conis
- **Activity code:** G13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $48,593
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-02-04 → 2022-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9861267

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9861267, The DDT Myths: History, Science, and Stories of Health and Environment (5G13LM013023-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9861267. Licensed CC0.

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