Hey farmer, farmer put away that DDT now,
give me spots on my apples,
but leave me the birds and the bees please!
"Big Yellow Taxi"- Joni Mitchell
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| DDT |
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or as it is commonly known, DDT, is an organochlorine (carbon and hydrogen that share an electron bond with one or more chlorine atoms), and is used in insect control. Way back in 1874 it was first synthesized, and it was not until 1940 that it insecticidal properties were discovered by the Swiss Paul Müller. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as it was proven highly proficient in sticking onto the shell of arthropods. It was marketed in 1942 as a pesticide that was good to specifically use against the housefly, louse, Colorado beetle, and the deadly mosquito.
The insecticide used before the war was slowly running low on its reserves, so the introduction of DDT was welcome. Typhus is spread by the louse, which is very prevalent in crowded wartime conditions, and DDT killed the louse very efficiently. Malaria is spread by the mosquito, and DDT was used throughout the world to quell the epidemic. The Colorado beetle was a menace to crops and DDT was seen as a probable answer. During these years the chemical was sprayed everywhere, on crops, sprayed through neighborhoods (like our modern day mosquito trucks), and apparently down soldier’s shirt fronts.
DDT has saved many lives, supposedly 25 million soldiers were saved from malaria and typhus due to its extensive use in those disease prone areas of the world (click the photo caption for more info). How DDT kills is not really known, but it acts as a sort of nerve poison. What I have been able to gather from my sources is that the pesticide sticks to the exoskeleton of arthropods, and then it eventually makes its way into the body, where it begins to force open sodium ion channels in neurons. Because of these rapidly firing neurons, the insect starts to spasm, these spasms are a precursor to death.
Things were looking well for the first synthetic of the industrial era, but soon it was to be known of its disastrous effects on the environment. In 1947 tests were done of insects resistance to DDT, but the results were not widely published. By the eighties over 200 insect species were shown to be resistant to DDT. This was mainly because of overuse in agriculture.
Not only were insects building up a resistance to the pesticide, it was revealed that the stuff sits in the soil for up to two to fifteen years in water it can last up to 150 years! It is also said to “bioacculmulate” which means that if DDT is ingested it is not expressed naturally out of the body. It sits in the fatty stores of the body and when a person begins to lose weight, the toxin is released and is detrimental to the liver. It is highly toxic to fish, which in turn can be passed onto birds. It was found that their egg shells were thinning, the American Bald Eagle almost went extinct, possibly due to DDT.
Even if a place never spayed DDT it can spread to it by water currents and wind, so it is a global risk and not a localized one. When DDT was first introduced it was seen as continued human dominion over the animal kingdom, another one of our manifest destinies, but it made us kings of perfect crops but quiet fields. DDT was banned in 1972, but the U.S. still produces and exports to countries that still use it. It is also stockpiled in case of a medical emergency, but one would think with its track record, that it would cause more damage than fix it.
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