Silvia Pérez Criado (Valencia) gave a talk on the history and health risks of DDT this Tuesday in the conference room at Olot Hospital. Pérez Criado explained that from the first years it was used, it was known that DDT could have harmful health effects, but given the post-war emergency, when the priority was feeding the population and fighting diseases, these risks seem justified. The need was so great that, although it was understood that any chemical product could be toxic to some extent, the apparent benefits of DDT overshadowed the initial warnings about its risks. It was used in fields as well as urban campaigns, even in homes.

Her talk looked back at the history of DDT use in Spain, focusing on how this pesticide spread and connecting the impact of its past use with the current concerns about the residue these pesticides leave in the environment and how they affect the health of future generations.

Silvia Pérez Criado is a doctoral researcher and FPI fellow at the University of Valencia López Piñero Inter-university Institute. She has a degree in Chemistry from the University of Granada (2014), a master in History of Science and Scientific Communication (with an extraordinary award) from the University of Valencia (2015) and a master in Science Education from the University of Granada (2016).