The article is a strange one, it's not really about DDT, but uses DDT to look at how we tell stories to shape our understanding of the past. From the article:

The article is a strange one, it's not really about DDT, but uses DDT to look at how we tell stories to shape our understanding of the past. From the article: "But the fears didn’t fade away. In the spring of 1949 headlines across the country carried the news that DDT had found its way into the nation’s dairy supply and that the “slow, insidious poison” was building up in human bodies. The following year, and for the rest of the 1950s, DDT became a focus of congressional hearings about the safety of the food supply. FDA scientist Arnold J. Lehman testified that small amounts of DDT were being stored in human fat and accumulating over time and that, unlike with the older poisons, no one knew what the consequences would be. Physician Morton Biskind shared his concern that DDT was behind a new epidemic, so-called virus X (an epidemic later attributed to chlorinated naphthalene, a chemical in farm machinery lubricants). Pesticide-eschewing farmers, such as Louis Bromfield, testified they simply could not meet the demand for spray-free crops from Heinz, Campbell’s, A&P, and other companies—all of which were themselves trying to meet the demands of consumers worried about pesticides generally, and specifically the ubiquitous and well-publicized DDT. By the time Rachel Carson detailed DDT’s harm to falcons, salmon, eagles, and other forms of wildlife in Silent Spring, a good number of Americans had been demanding more information about the insecticide’s ill effects for the better part of two decades. And yet to this day that’s not how we talk about DDT’s past. Instead, we tell the story of a chemical whose powers were so awe-inspiring that no one gave any thought to its downsides—at least not until they were brought to light by one renegade scientist. It’s a narrative that gave Americans a hero for the latter part of the 20th century, a female scientist and writer smart enough and brave enough to take on the establishment and win. It’s a story about the power of social movements to remake society for the better. And it’s a story of a nation reformed, able to set aside hubris for reason."