Banning DDT - June 14, 1972
"The general use of the pesticide DDT will no longer be legal in the United States after today, ending nearly three decades of application during which time the once-popular chemical was used to control insect pests on crop and forest lands, around homes and gardens, and for industrial and commercial purposes."
- DDT Ban Takes Effect [EPA press release - December 31, 1972] |
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The controversial ban of DDT in 1972 restored much needed ecological balance but also banned an effective weapon for fighting insect-borne diseases. Despite the ban, the residual level of DDT in humans and the environment is dropping at an extremely slow pace.
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Bald Eagle Recovery
Effect on Cancer
"High levels of serum p,p′-DDT predicted a statistically significant 5-fold increased risk of breast cancer among women who were born after 1931. These women were under 14 years of age in 1945, when DDT came into widespread use, and mostly under 20 years as DDT use peaked." -
Cohn,B. , Environmental Health Perspectives, Mar 2015 "Exposure to p,p′-DDT early in life may increase breast cancer risk. Many U.S. women heavily exposed to DDT in childhood have not yet reached 50 years of age. The public health significance of DDT exposure in early life may be large." - Cohn,B. , Environmental Health Perspectives, Mar 2015 |
2006 - World Health Organization endorses DDT use
"U.S. President George W. Bush's malaria initiative, better drugs and more powerful anti-mosquito weapons -- including the pesticide DDT, long reviled but now rehabilitated by the international health community."
- USA Today, 27 June 2007 |