ABSTRACT
The concern generated about environmental toxicology arose more over pesticide-related issues than over any other group of toxicants. Pesticides are also important in public health for mosquito, flea, and vermin control and in domestic/urban applications in cockroach and ant control; however, these latter applications are of less relevance than agricultural usage from the standpoint of environmental toxicology. However, pesticides can also selectively affect certain strains of microorganisms and thereby alter the composition of the microbiological community. Many organochlorine insecticides have lower acute mammalian toxicity than many of the new generation insecticides which succeeded them. Because pyrethroids are readily detoxified both by enzymatic actions and environmentally, they are not persistent and have not posed severe environmental contamination problems. One of the primary problems arising from the use of the persistent, lipophilic organochlorine insecticides has been the problem of bioconcentration and biomagnification, collectively called bioaccumulation. The organophosphorus and the carbamate insecticides are considerably less stable.
