The Evolution of an Environmental Scientist Part I “There are very few living organic peroxide chemists,” warned my first professor of organic chemistry when introducing that relatively brief topic at the end of our second semester. I instantly recalled this precaution some years later when I accidentally dropped a several-pound container of benzoyl peroxide and caught it before it could hit the floor and detonate. This early alert about this acute, if personal environmental insult, thus made a valuable impression on me. However, this was not my only introduction to environmental exposure back in the 20th Century! Hopefully, I am one of the few who has lost a chemist colleague to a chemical hazard, in this case to carbon monoxide.
Dr. Robert “Bob” Landolt
Other chemists may have similar experiences, but other factors subsequently stimulated my personal concern for environmental impacts. In grad school, I was a shocked at the very bitter comment about Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring from a respected faculty member who stated, “that woman is going to ruin everything.” This 1960s attitude resulted from publicity that chemicals constituted unanticipated hazards to birds and the food chains generally. Lesson learned? There are risks to ubiquitous introduction of money-making products into the environment! As a 1960s post-doc, two other experiences impressed to me the need for safety considerations upon exposure to chemicals. The first occurred during two years of very careful work using sodium cyanide as a reagent: “Keep that damn stuff in the hood!” Even novices knew of its danger, due in part Nazi practices in WW II. The second was slow recognition of chronic consequences in our lab when a colleague conducted column chromatography on an open bench. The problem arose when he practiced eluting with chlorinated solvents as well as benzene. At the same time, the general public was at risk when living close to industrial facilities known to belch these things routinely! A health problem may even arise when a common substance, expected safe, is used. Our family experienced this after our three children, upon recovery from chicken pox, developed life threatening cases of Reye’s Syndrome , which widely impacted children in the Midwest in the late 1970s. Our kids recovered with excellent medical care, but I was stimulated to help determine causative agents experienced in common by Reye’s patients. I claim no distinctive contribution to this effort, but ultimately it was discovered that aspirin was the culprit. Read the label on your aspirin bottle! Moreover, the environment has been ‘insulted,’ even from more ubiquitous/routine use of something as common as drinking water, as it became obvious to me upon conducting reMarch 2022
The Southwest RETORT
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