Rachel Carson's centennial

From the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on May 27 will join the country in celebrating the centennial birthday of Rachel Carson, a one-time Service employee whose pioneering book Silent Spring is often credited with sparking the modern environmental movement.

In honor of the centennial, the Service is hosting events around the country and has developed special environmental education programs and exhibits. For a complete list of programs and events, visit http://www.fws.gov/rachelcarson.

“Rachel Carson is one of our true conservation heroes,” said Service Director H. Dale Hall. “The Service continues to embrace the principles she championed—the importance of sound science, respect for all living things, and the need to connect people, especially children, with nature. Perhaps the greatest gift she left us is the notion that one person, working with passion and a strong sense of purpose, can indeed make a difference.”

The site contains a wealth of information and links plus a handful of videos. Read. Watch. Learn. Share. Act.

Rachel Carson's birthday and the effects of the DDT ban

Rachel Carson, who wrote Silent Spring (1962) and prompted the eventual U.S. ban of pesticide DDT in 1972, would have turned 100 years old on May 27. That anniversary has prompted recent news coverage.

For instance, The Washington Post published a May 18 article about her, which prompted a response that day by Forbes.com columnist Rich Karlgaard. He wrote:

Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that "numerous" deaths might have been prevented by DDT.

Let's stop here. Any curious reader would ask, Just how "numerous" is numerous? Wouldn't you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why?

Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute -- which describes itself as "a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government" and occasionally sends press releases on environmental topics -- sent a release about a new website: Rachel Was Wrong. It focuses on the number of malaria deaths. The homepage says:

In fact, today millions of people around the world suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria because one person sounded a false alarm. That person is Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 best selling book Silent Spring. Many have praised Carson for raising concerns—some legitimate—about problems associated with the overuse of chemicals. Yet her extreme rhetoric generated a culture of fear, resulting in policies have deprived many people access to life-saving chemicals. In particular, many nations curbed the use of the pesticide DDT for malaria control because Carson created unfounded fears about the chemical. As the world commemorates the 100th birthday (May 27, 2007) of the late Rachel Carson, it is time to acknowledge the unintended, adverse effects of Carson’s legacy and find ways to correct them.

It seems to be an informational site only. I didn't see a call to action.

Do birders and environmentalists "acknowledge the unintended, adverse effects of Carson’s legacy"? Is that a topic that this community discusses?