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After reading Cesar Chavez Warns of Pesticide Risks, 1993, I couldn’t help but think of Rachel Carson and the legacy she left us with. Carson had curiosity in the relationship between environmental contamination and the safety of the public’s health. Like Chavez, she saw the deliberate disregard for the publics health, and the failure to inform the public about these potentially lethal, and hidden poisonings on earth. Her legacy was for this information to be accessible and that the people be given a chance to protect themselves. We will never be able to release our carcinogenic burden, unless our industry, government, and society take on awareness and prevention. Either public or private sectors of our society need to try to prevent harm before it happens. Carcinogenic substances should not have to be taken out of the environment, because the truth should have been known prior to consideration of use. We should not to have to find a dead body to recognize a problem. It should be up to the manufacturers to tell us if a product is potentially dangerous. It should not have to be the citizens fighting to prove it to the manufacturers. Carson spoke of the least toxic alternative as way of prevention. This means that if there is a less toxic alternative to a certain substance, regardless of cost, it should be used.
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