Insecticides public health usage

The development of malathion in 1950 was an important milestone in the emergence of selective insecticides. Malathion is from one-half to one-twentieth as toxic to insects as parathion but is only about one two-hundredths as toxic to mammals. Its worldwide usage in quantities of thousands of metric tons in the home, garden, field, orchard, woodland, on animals, and in public health programs has demonstrated substantial safety coupled with pest control effectiveness. The biochemical basis for the selectivity of malathion is its rapid detoxication in the mammalian liver, but not in the insect, through the attack of carboxyesterase enzymes on the aliphatic ester moieties of the molecule. 

These findings are highly significant. The fact that domestic usage of the chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides has reached a peak and is on the decline can only mean that the maximum amounts of this class of pesticide chemicals in the environment have already been reached and can only decline in the future. It stands to reason, therefore, that the residue levels of these compounds have reached a peak in the fatty tissues of humans, wildlife, and domestic animals that have had access to residues of these pesticide chemicals in the environment and are probably declining. From the standpoint of public health, there is not one shred of evidence that the traces of these compounds in the body fat have any detrimental effect. Of course, it cannot be stated absolutely that some effect will not be discovered in the future. However, by the same token, it cannot be stated absolutely that this effect will not be beneficial ... 

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