Risk Assessment of Malathion: Uses vs. Health Hazards

Risk Assessment of Malathion: Uses vs. Health Hazards

  • Submitted By: mineonlytwo
  • Date Submitted: 02/19/2009 3:54 PM
  • Category: Science
  • Words: 618
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 5297

Risk Assessment of Malathion As we all know that the mosquitoes are starting to be a problem here in Genericville. With the mosquitos’ population growing, the residents of Genericville are starting to worry about the spread of the West Nile Virus. As stated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the West Nile Virus is a potentially serious illness that affects the nervous system; this virus is spread primarily by mosquitoes. In recent times there is a new program that can help reduce the population of the mosquitoes and this should help reduce the risk of the West Nile Virus. The proposed program would be to implement pesticide spraying to help reduce the population of the mosquitoes. The program would be founded by a resident of Genericville. The pesticide in use when be Malathion. Malathion is a pesticide that is widely used in agriculture, residential landscaping, and public recreation areas and in public health pest control programs such as mosquito eradication (Wikipedia, 2008). Malathionis used to kill adult mosquitoes. Marathon is applied as an ultra-low volume spray that is applied by truck mounted or aircraft-mounted sprayers (US EPA, 2008). Hazard Identification Malathion is a man-made organophosphate insecticide that is commonly used to control mosquitoes and a variety of insects that attack fruits, vegetables, landscaping plants, and shrubs(New York State Department of Health, 2004). Malathion itself is of low toxicity; however, absorption or ingestion into the human body readily results in its metabolism to malaoxon, which is substantially more toxic. There is currently no reliable information on adverse health effects of chronic exposure to Malathion (Wikipedia, 2008). Dose response Marathon was sprayed in many cities to fight the West Nile Virus. It has been confirmed that many Marathon was used over decades on a regular basis during the summer months to kill mosquitoes, but residents of were allowed to exclude their homes and other...

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