Carson was formerly with the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department. After the publication of
Silent Spring, President
Kennedy ordered a review of Government
pesticide programs, but nothing was really done until the
EPA was established in
1970. Two years later, it banned
DDT, as well as other "
elixirs of death" written about by Carson, including chlordane, dieldrin, aldrin, and heptachlor. The use of pesticides rose, but it was of the relatively safer kind that dissipated more quickly.