DDT

A detailed Summary of DDT

For years, people have heard about the American Bald Eagle's declining population and the tremendous rebound that it made in the last few years. Even now the population is still endangered. Recently, bald eagle days have shown the massive support for one of our nation's emblems. This all could have been avoided by not using DDT, DDE, and DDD.

DDT was the first chlorinated organic insecticide. It was originally prepared in 1873, but it was not until 1939 that Paul Muller of Geigy Pharmaceutical in Switzerland discovered that DDT could be used as an effective insecticide. This was such an amazing discovery that in 1948 he was given the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology. In the years that DDT was used as an insecticide, the World Health Organization estimated that approximately 25 million lives were saved as a result of insects that carry typhoid and malaria being killed.

For the first 2 decades that DDT was used, scientists thought that the toxicity of DDT and related insecticides were harmless to both plants and the animals that were not targeted by DDT. It was not until the late 1950's that the effects of DDT became widely researched. In 1962, Rachel Carson released her book Silent Spring. Shortly thereafter, scientists re

DDT can also enter the body mainly when a person eats contaminated food. The amount that enters the body depends of the contamination level of the food and how much of the food was eaten. Foods most susceptible to DDT are fish and shellfish, due to the fact most contamination is in water, the habitat for these animals. DDT can also be inhaled but is often too large and is usually swallowed instead of being sent to the lungs. Absorption through the skin is rare.

In trying to show how the eggshells became brittle, I put an egg in apple cider vinegar. On my first attempt, the egg's inner membrane broke and started to smell, and had to be disposed. My second attempt showed no change from the beginning to the end of the experiment.

This led to the banning of the use of DDT in 1972, except in the case of public health emergencies. Even though it was banned, the manufacturing of DDT was still allowed until 1984, when manufacturing was banned in the United States. The use of DDT is still common in several developing countries where malaria and typhoid are considered a high risk to the human population. Places where DDT is still used are Central Africa, Indonesia, and Madagascar.

Once inside the body, DDT is usually stored in fat. The Half-Life of DDT when stored in fat is about 8 years, so continual ingestion is a worry for some people that work in the 330 sites in the country that still have DDT contamination.

I was really surprised when I found out that there were human test on DDT sense the banning. People are gi

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Approximate Word count = 1030
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science