Organochlorine pesticides BHC and DDE in human blood in and around Madurai, India.

In this study blood samples are taken from two groups of people, one that has direct exposure to pesticides (agriculturists & public health workers) the second group, which has indirect exposure to pesticides through food chain. The objective of our investigation is to analyze the blood of the patients with minimum health complaints and skin diseases for the residue of the banned organochlorine pesticides DDE and BHC using Gas Chromatography. High concentrations of both BHC&DDE were observed in the serum samples of the people who had direct exposure to the pesticides, namely agriculturalists and public health workers with few exceptions. The pesticide residue concentration in serum ranges from 0.006 to 0.130 ppm for BHC and 0.002 to 0.033 ppm for DDE. Significance of this study reveals that the presence of these banned pesticides in human serum.