Environmental Effects of Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT) in New JerseyDDT, or dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, is a powerful pesticide invented in 1874 byan Austrian student. Its insecticidal properties however were not realized until 1939 when Dr.Paul Muller, a Swiss-born scientist, discovered its effectiveness against the common house fly aswell as a variety of other insects considered pests. He was granted a Swiss patent for its synthesisin 1940, and products containing the new insecticide were made commercially available by 1942(Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine, 1942-1962:1964). Muller’s discovery was touted as agiant leap forward for controlling vector-borne diseases, and he would win a Nobel Prize inmedicine for his discovery. Unfortunately, exhaustive testing of the new chemical fell victim toits efficacy against malaria-carrying mosquitoes and typhus; World War II had broken out, and amass producible alternative to the insecticide pyrethrum was needed to combat the rampantmalaria mosquitoes in the Pacific Theater. It proved more than up to the task, being called the“atomic bomb” of pesticides, and entirely eradicatedmalaria from several Pacific islands (DDT:An Introduction).Due in part to its success during World War II, and the manufacturing infrastructure itsnecessity in the war helped put in place, DDT found a welcoming commercial market in theyears following. The list of pest insects it was effective in controlling grew, and included crop-damaging potato beetles, moths, and tobacco worms (DDT: An Introduction). As such, itsapplications in the US was no longer limited to eradicating malaria, itself still a real threat of thetime, but decreasing agricultural losses as well. Though concerns were raised beginning in the1940s, it was not until the 1960s that any truly meaningful investigation or questioning in to theenvironmental impact of widespread DDT usage was conducted.
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