Industry develops and retracts chemical classes in waves without seeming to absorb the larger lesson.
I've studied environmental and industrial chemistry and I'm not sure exactly what larger lesson the author thinks was available for the taking but left unabsorbed by industry. The highly halogenated structures that dominate persistent organic pollutants (it's the multiple fluorine/chlorine/bromine atoms that cause persistence, not the benzene ring) were largely developed in an effort to improve human welfare. PCBs were not flammable, so safer for use in hot transformers than earlier plain-hydrocarbon dielectric fluids. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers show up in furniture and clothing because they are effective flame retardants. They became ubiquitous in direct service to human safety. DDT seemed, initially, like a miraculous savior of human health and crops from harm by insects.
After many real-world cautionary examples, the availability of better bench screening assays, and the development of quantitative structure-activity relationship models, today we can have a pretty good idea of whether a compound will be an endocrine-disrupting persistent organic pollutant before it becomes a high volume industrial product. None of these lessons or tools were available in the first half of the 20th century when these chemicals entered the mainstream of industry. Animal tests were around, of course, but the insidious thing about a lot of POPs is that they don't have obvious, acute health consequences. The LD50 may be quite high. If you're just trying to figure out "will this kill exposed workers/consumers," the assays won't reveal that (e.g.) long term thyroid function suffers in exposed mammals, or see endocrine effects that interfere with sexual organ development in young animals. You don't know what you don't know.
All that said, I certainly can and do criticize the modern chemical industry for foot-dragging, delaying tactics deployed against regulating chemicals that have demonstrated obvious ill effects in animals, or that are so structurally similar to other POPs that they really shouldn't maintain grandfathered approvals. It took until last year for the EPA to regulate perfluorooctanoic acid in drinking water, whose formula alone should ring chemists' alarm bells with regard to bioaccumulation and persistence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid
It's arguably prudent to avoid any organic compound that doesn't degrade appreciably in typical aerobic and anoxic environments. Maybe that wasn't well appreciated decades ago, but it's pretty obvious now. The comparison of PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and PCBs is instructive. Their toxicities are broadly similar. But PAHs degrade quickly, whereas PCBs accumulate.
"DDT seemed, initially, like a miraculous savior of human health and crops from harm by insects."
DDT saved over 0.5 billion lives before it was banned in the USA.In India, between 1952 and 1962, DDT caused a decrease in annual malaria cases from 100 million to 60,000. By the late 1970s, no longer able to use imported DDT, the number of cases increased to 6 million. India now synthesises it's own DDT and uses it. It is still made and widely used. Worldwide production was around 5 million tons last year.
Penicillin is the only manmade substance that has saved more lives than DDT.
DDT is still allowed to be used for indoor residual spraying by the WHO.
People go all ape st over the potential for radioactive waste contamination, but I think its only a matter of time before we cover the planet in something that really messes with higher life forms in a massively negative way. This may have already happened, and we don't even know it.
Its going to be a case of "hey look a new Plasticizer/dye/whatever, is awesome lets use it in all the new $ConsumerProducts", followed by the realization later after we have basically lets it contaminate every cubic inch of water/soil/air that it damages some fundamental aspect of our biology and is the cause of massive cancer rates/birth defects/IQ loss/whatever.
So, the question is, do you think our knowledge of mammal biochemistry is sufficient to have models that can predict every form of possible damage?
Put another way, is endocrine disruption the only pathway to serious long term biological damage?
Do we even know enough to answer those questions accurately?
I think the larger lesson is to stop assuming that whatever confirmation bias laden evidence you've collected to date regarding the benefits of your new compound do not present a full picture of the dangerous repercussions.
I've studied environmental and industrial chemistry and I'm not sure exactly what larger lesson the author thinks was available for the taking but left unabsorbed by industry. The highly halogenated structures that dominate persistent organic pollutants (it's the multiple fluorine/chlorine/bromine atoms that cause persistence, not the benzene ring) were largely developed in an effort to improve human welfare. PCBs were not flammable, so safer for use in hot transformers than earlier plain-hydrocarbon dielectric fluids. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers show up in furniture and clothing because they are effective flame retardants. They became ubiquitous in direct service to human safety. DDT seemed, initially, like a miraculous savior of human health and crops from harm by insects.
After many real-world cautionary examples, the availability of better bench screening assays, and the development of quantitative structure-activity relationship models, today we can have a pretty good idea of whether a compound will be an endocrine-disrupting persistent organic pollutant before it becomes a high volume industrial product. None of these lessons or tools were available in the first half of the 20th century when these chemicals entered the mainstream of industry. Animal tests were around, of course, but the insidious thing about a lot of POPs is that they don't have obvious, acute health consequences. The LD50 may be quite high. If you're just trying to figure out "will this kill exposed workers/consumers," the assays won't reveal that (e.g.) long term thyroid function suffers in exposed mammals, or see endocrine effects that interfere with sexual organ development in young animals. You don't know what you don't know.
All that said, I certainly can and do criticize the modern chemical industry for foot-dragging, delaying tactics deployed against regulating chemicals that have demonstrated obvious ill effects in animals, or that are so structurally similar to other POPs that they really shouldn't maintain grandfathered approvals. It took until last year for the EPA to regulate perfluorooctanoic acid in drinking water, whose formula alone should ring chemists' alarm bells with regard to bioaccumulation and persistence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid