Talk:DEET
From Academic Kids
Made new page on DEET, using material gleaned largely from the CDC and EPA pages, and a couple of studies on health effects and insect-repellant effectiveness (from Google). Although a bunch of the pages say one should be careful only to wear DEET when necessary, not under clothing, etc., they don't spell out why they're concerned. I'm guessing DEET is chemically nasty (is it an organo-phosphate?), and so may have carcinogenic or other unfortunate properties. If someone knows (and ideally can show) what these suspected effects might be, I think a short (hopefully rational) addition to the DEET page is called for. -- Finlay McWalter 15:03, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
What was Charlie Coll's contribution? Some Canadians think he invented the stuff. 142.177.24.163 22:13, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Is it a poison? If so, what is the LD_50? Is it liquid or a gas or solid (at room temp and standard conditions)? Thanks. massa 16:43, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
As mentioned in the article, its effect on the human body is not yet fully understood; it's not an organophosphate (as seen from the chemical formula image) but the effect seen with leeches provides a clue as to what might happen if enough of it entered the body. The effect on leeches is added from my own experience, using a concentrated DEET stick (like a deodorant applicator) and only needing to touch the leech for it to convulse off. It's a liquid at rtp, as far as I can tell. --Firien 10:10, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Be careful adding from your own experience. That basically violates the Wikipedia:No original research policy. But that's simple to avoid, since if you've seen the effect, most likely someone else has. Wikipedia needs to be a secondary source, citing other published sources. So find a published source that finds the same thing, and the addition would be much better. Also it is liquid, as long as the repellant product bottles that say they are 100% deet really are. Also, just eyeballing from it's structure, liquid looks about right. I read a bunch of studies on DEET, and they all basically say it is safe as far as they can tell, but avoid overexposure as much as possible. A very small percentage of the time, some people (12 if I recall the study correctly, out of a large population) have a reaction to DEET. Basically the 60 years it has been used and the large amount of usage is strong evidence that at least the stuff is not really really nasty. So the article looks pretty accurate in that respect. - Taxman Talk</sup> 12:00, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
- Whoops, didn't know about that. Thanks. I'll leave it in for the moment and will try to remember to do backup research when I get home; if anyone believes that the information is unreliable enough please feel free to mark it out, and I'll just have to find a better source than word of mouth from my parents at the time ;)
- Later: Researched. Found a fair bit of anecdotal (http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/tripreports/Malaysia00.html) evidence (http://www.naturalist.co.uk/reports2004/madagascar.php) but not enough hard evidence to keep my previous addition in. Also a 1998 study shows DEET may actually accelerate absorption through the skin, so going to revert the edit. Putting in a link with lots of detail I found to make myself feel better ;) --Firien 16:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
