Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Insecticides in Human Body Fat in the United States

Abstract

THE DISTRIBUTION of pesticides in the environment has become a matter of considerable interest throughout the world. Those compounds which are known to accumulate in body fat have excited particular attention, and reports of the body burden of these chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides have appeared from time to time.^1-6The most widely used insecticide, DDT, is stored in body fat and has been the most intensively studied of all of the chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides. Recently Hoffman et al⁵reported the DDT content of human body fat from 282 persons, presumably in the Chicago area. They found lindane in all but five of the 282 samples and, in a separate analysis, found dieldrin in only 29 of 64 samples. They were unable to identify endrin in any of the 64 selected samples. Recent developments in analytic methods^3,7have made possible the analysis of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides in human fat