With all the reports I’ve been hearing lately about DDT and how it’s no longer effective against bed bugs, it got me to wondering how did they used to use it.
My understanding is it came into common use after WWII. So how was it used? Was it in a can like Raid? Or was it a powder or what? If it’s so bad, how did people use it without poisoning themselves?
The main problem with DDT was it washing into the water and affecting animals. It wasn’t all that more dangerous than other pesticides, but it didn’t degrade and made its way up the food chain, where it would cause problems.
IIRC, it was originally a powder you spread around, though it may also have been spray cans. It was not a big danger to the user if used correctly.
As I’ve said before. DDT is harmless to vertebrates. Many of the “bad” effects (eggshell studies etc…) are artifacts of bad experimental design. It can accumulate in the food chain, but here is no evidence that it causes any harm.
My entomology professor used to eat spoonfuls of the stuff to show how harmless it was. He died in his 80’s after a heart attack while hiking in the mountains. If he had been in civilization when it happened, he’d probably still be alive today.
As to how it was used, it was either sprayed or used in powder form.
When I was a kid, my dad was in the Air Force and sometimes we lived in base housing. I remember during the summer once or twice a month they would drive around in a truck spraying DDT all over the neightorhood. Not sure how it was handled in the “civilian world”.
This was commonly done in the civilian community as well.
When I was a kid, polio was the big scourge of the nation and indeed Canada. The government felt they had to do something to squelch the public fear so they came up with the idea of spraying up and down every street with DDT from truck mounted sprayers. All the trees and anything standing there were covered with this sticky stuff. The idea was that insects on the trees were spreading the polio. Canada did the same thing. I doubt whether it affected the epidemic, but that’s one big use of DDT in our history.
In the US Army in Korea, which was where my dad learned to hate camping-out, they threw a DDT bomb in their sleeping bags to kill sand fleas, then jumped right in. :eek:
Quite the opposite, DDT is much, much safer than the pesticides that replaced it. As mozchron notes, DDT is effectively harmless to mammals under any realistic use and it is extremely stable in the soil, and thus less likely to travel from point of use. In contrast the carbamates and organoohosphates that replaced it are potent mammalian nerve toxins that have both acute and chronic helath effects and don’t bind to the soil, and thus inevitably end up in waterways.
In the home DDT was mostly applied as an aerosol, just like most household insecticdes are today. The difference being that it was applied using one of these devices ratrher than an aerosol pressure can.
DDT was never a big danger, or even a small threat, to humans even if used incorrectly and in a reckless and irresponsible manner. You really neeeded to drink the stuff by the glass for it to pose a threat.
There has never been a confirmed case of death from DDT poisonining in humans. There are about 5 cases where people have died after consuming large quanities of DDT solutions, but in those cases the amountoif solvent consumed was more than sufficient to be lethal, so there is no evidence that DDT even contributed to the death.
The same goes for any other health effects of DDT. Animals fed massive amounts of DDT for prolonged periods show some minor, temporary health problems, but nothing applicable to the real world. Real world studies of people exposed to high levels of DDT show no health effects, which certainly cannot be said of most of the insecticides that replaced it.
Agreed, except that even drinking glassfuls of the stuff wouldn’t hurt you. I learned entomology at the knee of J. Gordon “Doc” Edwards. Doc used to eat spoonfuls of PURE crystalline DDT. He did it OFTEN, especially during the DDT debates - weekly at one point, and was the picture of health. Hell, he once fended off an angry mother grizzly bear (true story!).
A PHENOMENAL man. I was privileged to know him.
DDT is very safe. Organophosphates kill people.
To late to edit. OP’s are not the only toxic insecticides.
Here is a recent case where someone possibly killed themselves by permethrin poisoning trying to self-treat a bedbug infestation.
Interesting as one poster said it didn’t degrade so that would make it very effecitve for killing reoccurring pests like bed bugs (yech) and roaches and the like.
Does anyone know was DDT branded? In other words, did something like Raid contain DDT or was DDT a brand in of itself?
No, DDT is a short way of saying dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
My mom used it in powder form to in the yard to kill fleas (this is in central Arkansas) and it worked extremely well. She always called it “cotton poison”.
As far as I know, DDT is still effective, it just isn’t used.
[quote=“ramel, post:14, topic:553083”]
Wrong wrong wrong. All the data suggest that the emerging bugs (at least in the USA) are resistant to DDT.
That’s not what it says here.
[quote=“mozchron, post:15, topic:553083”]
Cite??? I recently had the pleasure of dealing with a bedbug infestation in a large city apartment building and all the exterminators we spoke with - we interviewed 4 that had a reputation as bedbug specialists - expressed the opinion that if DDT were legal it would solve our problem quickly.
That is exactly what it says there. Did you read it?
I just read a great paper looking at bedbug susceptibility and resistance to many insecticides - DDT was essentially non-functional - but in true absent-minded professor style I can’t find it right now.
But here is another paper from my colleagues at the University of Arkansas looking at resistance in bedbug populations in poultry houses (warning, PDF!).
I’ll see if I can dig up the other reference.
I basically read that DDT has such a bad rep that no one is willing to touch it. In otherwords even if you could show DDT still worked, the public outcry wouldn’t allow it to be used ever.
So why should anyone bother financing reserach to find out if there is no chance of getting it OK’d again.
The thing is bed bugs don’t carry disease, they just suck your blood. They’ve never been know to transmit any disease, though in theory they can, but it’s never happened in real life.
So there is no real urgency to get things on the market to destroy them. If bed bugs were a vector for disease you can bet we’d be looking at DDT again. I’m not saying we’d use it but we’d look at it.
In the coming years we will, as they had a series of reports in Chicago (now rate the 5th most infested bed bug city -After NYC, Philly, and Cincinnati) and they are being found in hospitals, health clubs, public libraries and movie theatres. Basically anywhere you have upholstered furniture you are finding them.
The New York Times says one in every 5 residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan has had them in their residence.
But even if you could show DDT was effective, the public wouldn’t go for it, at least till the bed bug problem becomes as bad as it once was.
