By: Janelle Urquilla


DDT's Effect on Human Beings-

It was in the early mid 1950's when DDT became one of the largest used pesticides. DDT is a chlorohydrocarbon and was made for controlling mosquitoes and other insects. But, some of them developed a resistance for DDT over a lot of generations. It was used widely around the world. That was when it was used to control lice. Even though humans were in contact with the pesticide it did not harm or affect humans. One of the reasons DDT did not affect humans is because in the lice control use it was hard for DDT to be absorbed through human skin.

Concern occured when we found out that some DDT was staying in our bodies. In fact, it was found that an average American was receiving .025 milligrams of it a day! It was being used for many things such as agricultural products and livestock. Concern arose because of it's many uses. This concern started around the 1960's because of information found in a study.

In this study we also found that DDT gets into our bodies and it stays there, usually in thyroid, testes, fatty organs,and adrenals. DDT also stayed in tinier concentrations in our livers and kidneys. It tends to stay in the fat bodies of our bodies. DDT concentrations were very high in human milk.

Because of the effects on our environment and animals there were many other effects that DDT had on humans, due to the flow of contamination and direct contamination. For example, in the flow of contamination, we have seen many birds and eagles and other animals go down. Many of you have probably eaten fish. Well, around the time when DDT was in use, like for agricultural use, DDT would drain into streams. Then the DDT would flow into river, ponds, and lakes. Which, of course, is where people fish. Do you see where I'm getting? The fish are affected by DDT and birds and eagles eat fish. One of the birds affected was the American Bald Eagle. The population of birds (special birds also) dramatically decreased. Humans also ate fish, which also placed DDT into our systems.These affected them in ways such as thinning their eggshells, which made reproduction a problem. This made their population numbers go downdramatically.

DDT brought attention to toxic substances in the environment and the questions and concerns of degragation led to a growing focus by both general society and the scientific community.

In conclusion, since DDT had a lot of negative effects, it was later banned. Thank you for reading my web page and Good-Bye!