ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The use of chemicals as pesticides dates back as far as 1000 BC, when a fumigant of elemental sulfur was identified as having fungicidal properties (Williams and Cooper, 2004), and its use in the United States for this purpose continued into the twentieth century. But it was not until World War II and the postwar period that pesticide production in the United States took giant strides forward, and since then pesticides have occupied a significant share of the 70,000 plus chemical substances that have entered the market (Epidemiological Bulletin, 2002). Until the early postwar period, chemical agents employed to control or eradicate the wide variety of pest species were largely unregulated. Then in 1947, the United States passed the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) (later revised in 1972), requiring registration of toxicants intended for economic use. Since that time, the process of controlling the spread of the large variety of pest species has been both undeniably successful and occasionally a cause of unintended damage to the environment and wildlife populations.
