Morphological and Metabolic Hazards of chlorinated insecticides on small mammels in pakistan

Abstract

The present report is a tribute to thousands of workers in the Agricultural, sector, who constantly expbse themselves to the danger of unintentional and accidental exposure to insecticides and,- other pesticides. They undergo this unnoticed process just to increase the agricultural produce by saving the crops, vegetables, fruits etc., from the pest attack. The present research project was aimed at assessing the visible and or invisible damage done to non target organisms by chlorinated insecticides. Rats were used as experimental (model) animals and the results obtained and reported in this document can be extrapolated to human system, despite all the arguments for and against such extrapolations. The research project. MORPHOLOGICAL AND.. METABOLIC HAZARDS OF CHLORINATED INSECTICIDES ON. SMALL MALMAIS IN PAKISTAN was initiated in August, 1980 and vot' the experiMental work was completed in September, 1985. Maintenance of a large rat colony for long term experiments in which animals were fed with insecticides continuously for two years for 4 different insecticides was the major problem. This had to be done in the face of acute heat during summer in Lahore, tremendous financial constraints and quite a few unforeseen mishaps. The results being reported in this document are completed according to the approved plan of work of the projedt. The report has been divided into five Chapters. The first four Chapters deals with one insecticide each viz. Dieldrin, aldrin, rBHC and DDT, while the fifth Chapter interrelates the major findings reported in the first four Chapters. The main conclusions, various recommendation and future line of action with regard toresearch activities in this field have also been included in the 5th Chapter. In each Chapter the effects of insecticides have been described with reference to effect on body weight and liver weight, haematology, biochemical analysis of blood, and biochemical and histological analysis of liver. Thee data has adequately been tabulated and illustiated. This work has solely been done in the. Cell Biology. Labs. of. the Department of Zoology, which is fully equipped. to do this type of biochemical work. For a part of this work during initial stages laboratory facilities at Nuclear InStitute of Agriculture & Biology;. Faisalabad and Quaid-i-AzamUniversityslamabad were also used,. which is gratefully acknowledged. Syed Shahid Ali, M.Sc. has been working as . a Research Officer in the project and has therefore been the main technical help. The data presented in this report will form a major part of the thesis which Mr. Ali is preparing for his Ph. D.' degree: Thanks are due to Pakistan Science Foundation for financial support, without which this work would not have been possible.