História do DDT no Brasil (1940 a 1980): de defensivo a veneno

Abstract

This master's thesis aims to analyze the media perceptions of the pesticide DDT (Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane) between the 1940s and 1980s in Brazil, through two periodicals that can be found in online collections. DDT was used all over the world as an organochlorine insecticide to control agricultural pests and vectors of various insect-borne human diseases, such as malaria. It was banned in most industrialized countries in the 1970s, and in Brazil it was banned for agricultural purposes in 1985, and later in 1998 for sanitary purposes. However, due to its persistence in the environment, DDT residues remain in environmental compartments and are found in the food chain, becoming sources of exposure and long-term contamination. To address these issues, the sources used were the mechanisms of mass opinion formation: the circulation periodicals O Globo, which circulated in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and O Estado de S. Paulo. In both sources, the stories consist of fragments of scanned pages that can be found using key words, the stories consist of narratives used to talk about DDT, of which some were in the format of household advertisements, some defending its use and others attacking it. The research is based on the historiographic approach of Environmental History, which seeks to analyze the changes and transformations of nature and its relationship with human beings, considering human beings as an integral part of the environment where they live, working with interdisciplinarity. In relation to the agricultural use of DDT, the Green Revolution is emphasized, which changed the scenario of world agricultural production; however, it neglected to evaluate the impacts on the environment, of which human beings are a constitutive part, and the consequences of these activities in the short, medium and long term. Other discourses reported in the periodicals were that DDT was not toxic: the articles pointed out the dangers of its use causing intoxication, deaths and other diseases that can affect humans and non-human animals, the contamination of the soil and consequently of water and food. Regarding non-human animals, we identified articles that presented studies conducted in laboratories to evaluate the toxicity of DDT, emphasizing the unnecessary violence caused to them. Thus, the articles found in the newspapers between the 1940s and 1960s demonstrate a content that DDT was a "defensive", in the 1970s there were articles that sometimes attacked the use of DDT, that it was a poison, sometimes defended its use, and finally in the 1980s there was content about the toxicity and dangers of it.