page_title: DDT
section_title: Human health
hierarchical_section_title: DDT / Human health
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. soldier is demonstrating DDT-hand spraying equipment while applying the insecticide. The use of DDT increased enormously on a worldwide basis after World War II, because of its effectiveness against the mosquito that spreads malaria and lice that carry typhus. The World Health Organization claims that the use of DDT saved 25 million lives. During World War I typhus caused three million deaths in Russia and more in Poland and Romania. De-lousing stations were established for troops on the Western front but the disease ravaged the armies of the Eastern front, with over 150,000 dying in Serbia alone. Fatalities were generally between 10 to 40 percent of those infected, and the disease was a major cause of death for those nursing the sick. Between 1918 and 1922 typhus caused at least 3 million deaths out of 20–30 million cases. In Russia after World War I, during the civil war between the White and Red armies, typhus killed three million, largely civilians. Even larger epidemics in the post-war chaos of Europe were only averted by the widespread use of the newly discovered DDT to kill the lice on millions of refugees and displaced persons.
context_page_description: Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochlorine. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. DDT was first synthesized in 1874 by the Austrian chemist Othmar Zeidler. DDT's insecticidal action was discovered by the Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller in 1939. DDT was used in the second half of World War II to control malaria and typhus among civilians and troops. Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1948 "for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods".
  By October 1945, DDT was available for public sale in the United States. Although it was promoted by government and industry for use as an agricultural and household pesticide, there were also concerns about its use from the beginning. Opposition to DDT was focused by the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring.
context_section_description: DDT is an endocrine disruptor.  It is considered likely to be a human carcinogen although the majority of studies suggest it is not directly genotoxic.  DDE acts as a weak androgen receptor antagonist, but not as an estrogen. p,p'-DDT, DDT's main component, has little or no androgenic or estrogenic activity. The minor component o,p'-DDT has weak estrogenic activity.
caption: A U.S. soldier is demonstrating DDT hand-spraying equipment. DDT was used to control the spread of typhus-carrying lice.
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