Searching Environmentally Benign Methods for Pest Control Reflections of a Synthetic Chemist

Searching Environmentally Benign Methods for Pest Control Reflections of a Synthetic Chemist 

I have worked for nearly half a century as a synthetic chemist in the field of natural products chemistry relating to pesticide science. This review comprises four topics (1) pesticides and our daily life, (2) contributions to pesticide discovery by Japanese scientists, (3) my lab s past natural product syntheses in relation to pesticide science, and (4) our past efforts in pheromone synthesis. In other words. Sections (1) and (2) are the general treatise on the historical description of human endeavor for searching environmentally benign methods for pest control, while Sections (3) and (4) are reviews of works undertaken in my own laboratory. 

From 1945 to 1950 after World War II, Japan experienced very poor sanitary conditions due to the destruction caused by the war. Various kinds of infectious diseases were prevalent. In order to control the vector arthropods of insect-borne diseases, about 4 million Tokyo citizens were treated with DDT. Indeed, DDT saved the lives of many Japanese people after World War II. 

In that period after World War II, Japan citizens also suffered from shortages of food, especially rice. So as to increase the rice production, synthetic pesticides were used extensively in Japan. For example, parathion was used to control the Asiatic rice borer, Chilo suppressalis. Unfortunately, this phosphorus insecticide was highly toxic, and a number of farmers were killed by poisoning. Another notorious pesticide was phenylmercuric acetate, which was used against rice blast disease. Because it contained mercury, the public could not accept it. 

The reason why the public disliked mercury was the result of a pollution problem caused by the chemical industry. Minamata disease was first reported in 1953, and became the biggest pollution problem in Japan at that time. The 

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K. Mori, Searching Environmentally Benign Methods for Pest Control Reflection of a Synthetic Chemist. In Pesticide Chemistry. Crop Protection, Public Health, Environmental Safety, H. Ohkawa, H. Miyagawa, P. W. Lee, Eds. Wiley-VCH Verlag Weinheim, 2007 Chapter 2, pp 13-22. 

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