Organochlorine Pesticide Content of Human Adipose Tissue in Karachi

Abstract

The organochlorine group of pesticides, because of their persistence in tissue, are suspected of having adverse effects on human health. The present article is a report on the concentration of seven organochlorine compounds in the stored fat of 60 subjects from the Karachi, Pakistan, area who gave no history of occupational exposure to pesticides. The results indicate that people living in this city are heavily exposed to DDT, moderately exposed to benzene hexachloride (BHC), and only lightly exposed to aldrin/dieldrin. The extent of the exposure to pesticides was not related to the age, sex, type of material, residential location of subjects, or period during which samples were collected. The higher mean concentration of dichlorodiphenyl dichlo- roethane (DDD) in the postmortem specimens is probably due to microbial metabolism of DDT under anaerobic conditions after death.