The government needs to fund studies that extend over multiple generations and truly examine the impacts of chemicals such as DDT on human health, he said. Once you let that genie out of the bottle, it keeps on giving. Something went wrong. Please email webmaster sierraclub. By signing up, you are opting in to receive periodic communications from the Sierra Club.
Carey Gillam is a journalist and author , and a public interest researcher for US Right to Know , a not-for-profit food industry research group.
You can follow her on Twitter careygillam. Report shows a critical need to study other pesticides and chemicals. By Carey Gillam Apr 23 Disrupting hormones DDT dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane was introduced in the s as a highly effective insecticide designed to combat the spread of malaria, typhus, and other diseases carried by insects. Like what you read?
Sign up for daily updates from Sierra magazine. Sign up is Processing. Thanks for signing up for the Green Life email newsletter. More stories about: health , pesticides. For example, he said, some types of mosquitoes in South Africa breed in running water, which cannot be easily controlled. When a mosquito strain that had previously been eliminated returned to South Africa, it was resistant to the pyrethroid insecticides that had replaced DDT.
Cases soared from 4, in to 64, in The scientists also recommended study of possible health effects of pyrethroids and other alternatives for DDT. Their goal was "to address the current and legacy implications of DDT production and use," according to their report. Acknowledging that some areas remain dependent on DDT, they recommended monitoring of the spraying to ensure that usage guidelines are followed and improved application techniques.
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Get smart. Since then, studies have continued, and a relationship between DDT exposure and reproductive effects in humans is suspected, based on studies in animals. In addition, some animals exposed to DDT in studies developed liver tumors. As a result, today, DDT is classified as a probable human carcinogen by U. After the use of DDT was discontinued in the United States, its concentration in the environment and animals has decreased, but because of its persistence, residues of concern from historical use still remain.
Since , EPA has been participating in international negotiations to control the use of DDT and other persistent organic pollutants used around the world. Under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme, countries joined together and negotiated a treaty to enact global bans or restrictions on persistent organic pollutants POPs , a group that includes DDT.
The Convention includes a limited exemption for the use of DDT to control mosquitoes that transmit the microbe that causes malaria - a disease that still kills millions of people worldwide.
In September , the World Health Organization WHO declared its support for the indoor use of DDT in African countries where malaria remains a major health problem, citing that benefits of the pesticide outweigh the health and environmental risks.
It is up to individual countries to decide whether or not to use DDT. EPA works with other agencies and countries to advise them on how DDT programs are developed and monitored, with the goal that DDT be used only within the context of programs referred to as Integrated Vector Management.
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