DDT

The use of the chemical, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), is a prime example of how public health benefits and environmental costs tradeoff. DDT was extensively used worldwide beginning in the 1940’s as a means to kill insects; it was also used to prevent malaria from spreading and control agriculture pests. DDT became so popular that at one point the U.S. was the leading producer, developing thousands of metric tons of DDT. With years of scientific research, researches came to find that effects of DDT were a serious threat. In return, as Kathleen Walker from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Marie D. Ricciardone and Janice Jensen from the U.S. Department of State report in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, the United States alongside ninety-one countries signed the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) on May 23, 2001, “thereby pledging their commitment to protect human health and the environment from 12 toxic chemicals of global concern”( 1); DDT was one of the twelve hazardous chemicals designated by the Stockholm Convention. By the 1970s, the EPA cancelled all use of DDT on crops in the U.S. In 1972, the United States and ninety one other countries banned use of DDT. The illegalization of DDT was a crucial safety measure that ensured the prevention of harmful effects caused by DDT. To fully understand why the global ban came to be, a discussion of DDT’s historical background including empirical examples of DDT use is necessary. An understanding of the chemical properties followed by the long term effects of DDT on both the environment and humans will help explain why controlling DDT use became a top priority. Swiss entomologist, Dr. Paul Muller, won the noble prize in 1939 for being the first to discover the effectiveness of DDT to kill insects, even though the existence of DDT dates back to the nineteenth century. The use of DDT during World War II prevented insect-spread epidemics

Cited: "DDT - A Brief History and Status | Pesticides | US EPA." US Environmental Protection Agency. US Environmental Protection Agency, 06 Sept. 2011. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/chemicals/ddt-brief-history-status.htm>. Kathleen R. Walker, Marie D. Ricciardone, Janice Jensen, Developing an international consensus on DDT: a balance of environmental protection and disease control, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, Volume 206, Issues 4-5, 2003, Pages 423-435, ISSN 1438-4639, 10.1078/1438-4639-00239. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1438463904702394> Szaflarski,, Diane, Robert Dean, Melanie Dean, and John Simon. "Pesticides." Cruising Chemistry. University of California, San Diego, 30 Oct. 1998. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/pest/pestindex.html>.