Talk:DEET/Archive 1

i would suggest to remove the passage about the mode of action of deet.this is speculaton and not proven. based on the NOR guidelines i cant say its wrong, but my data suggest that it might be not correct (blood substitute with ATP as sole attractant is also 'protected' by DEET (while there is no lactic acid...). Kuzao (talk) 01:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed the "natural alternatives" or actually added a question mark. Added refs to show that these "alternatives" do not work. Also removed various distinctions between "natural" and "synthetic". There is no difference between a molecule synthesised chemically and naturally. Last: DEET is a repellant, NOT an insecticide. Sikkema 13:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

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 ?gay? (eh? - Ed) and 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 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 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 evidence 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)
 * No worries. Now you know and can make great contributions. There are plenty of things to help out with, so do some research and add what you can. If you don't feel like doing that, just fix formatting errors and help link all the related concepts, etc. - Taxman Talk 17:37, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

I would change a couple of the wordings from "pesticide" to "repellent" or "chemical" so it does not imply that DEET functions as a pesticide. There seems to be a lot of confusion about that on various sites so perhaps it would be useful to state that here outright? Californica 14:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Some more pages on DEET
I was searching to see why (on my bottle) DEET has such a pronounced federal warning about application to hands of children and found these pages:
 * Personal Protective Measures Against Insects and Other Arthropods of Military Significance
 * http://www.brooks.af.mil/afioh/health%20Programs/rsrh_ent_protect.htm
 * DEET-based insect repellents: safety implications for children and pregnant and lactating women
 * search for "we found only 10 reports describing seizures"

Maybe there could be a note about the effectiveness of a 30% concentation of DEET, over 90% concentations.

Γνώθι Σεαυτόν 06:40, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Article contradicts itself?
Earlier in the article, it's mentioned that DEET is "relatively harmless", yet underneath the References section, it says that DEET has been shown to cause major neurological damage if it comes into contact with the CNS. Contradiction? Does this need to be clarified? Waelwulf 23:19, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The "major neurological damage" paragraph is flatly contradicted by the cited source, which says DEET has a "remarkable safety profile". I've removed it until someone can find a reliable medical or epidemiological source which supports this claim. Thanks for noticing the discrepancy. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:25, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As a related point, note that many substances are "relatively harmless" until you take enough of them. It's often a question of scale.  For example, one whiff of a cholinersterase inhibitor (common insecticide ingredient)from a spray can sprayed into the air (and you are standing in the room ) will most likely not affect you at all - but it will quickly kill the mosquito, at which you are aiming.  On the other hand, if you decide to "huff" the spray can, the emergency room at your local hospital will be very busy trying to save your life, assuming somebody actually got to you in time.Raryel (talk) 15:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Acronym and nomenclature
How does "Meta-N,N-diethyl toluamide" abbreviate to DEET? It doesn't make sense. Can somebody add an explanationin the article?--Sonjaaa 22:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Di-Ethyl-Toluamide... was probably better than calling it DIET =) --Lionelbrits 20:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I had to edit the Chikungunya page to fix the insect repellent recommendation because people had BOTH NNDB and DEET listed while they're the same thing. I agree with Sonjaa, the abbreviation is kind of stupid. "diethyl toluamide" doesn't tell you where the ethyls are. Worse, it doesn't match the IUPAC name, which is where the confusion came in on the chikungunya page. Xenobiologista (talk) 03:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Environmental consequences?
What sorts of effects does DEET have on the environment? When it is washed off in the shower it must go into the water supply

How long does it take to break down in the environment? Thanks.

11 June 2007

Infromation difference from DEET and Mosquito articles?
From (DEET, Concentrations): DEET is often sold and used in concentrations up to 100%. Consumer Reports found a direct correlation between DEET concentration and hours of protection against insect bites. 100% DEET was found to offer up to 12 hours of protection while several lower concentration DEET formulations (20%-34%) offered 3-6 hours of protection[1].

From (Mosquito, Mosquito repellents and personal mosquito control): Solutions containing above 50% DEET (higher concentrations gave no more protection) gave maximum protection of about 12 hours before needing to be re-applied. Thirty percent DEET was good for about 6 hours, 20% about 3 hours and 7% DEET solutions only gave about 1 hour of protection.

Nothing huge, just that it claims in DEET that 100% offers 12 hours, but doesn't mention that anything higher than 50% gave no more protection...just something that could be clarified, to avoid confusion.

--Dante ssjskipp 22:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Side effects info from Merck index
Don't have the time/computer access these days to spend much time on WP, but I thought I'd post some info from my Merck Index's (12 ed) entry on DEET. It seems to be somewhat at odds with the "Effects on health" section, particularly the unsourced statement "Studies into the health effects of using DEET in the approved way (as a topical application) have not shown any significant harm to human health; exposure to large amounts (by means such as accidental ingestion) has similar effects to comparable exposure to other pesticides". As someone else mentions above, the "other pesticides" part is also problematic since DEET is typically used to repel insects, not kill them.


 * Potential symptoms of toxicity due to acute or chronic overexposure are hypotension, bradycardia, erythema, bullous eruptions, contact urticaria, anaphylaxis, confusion, slurred speech, muscle cramping, insomnia, tremor, clonic jerking, psychosis, seizures, coma (Clem.) Direct contact may cause eye irritation

Someone was asking above about an LD50 value: "LD50 orally in rats: ~2g/kg"--Eloil 04:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Natural repellents
I've rewritten the natural alternative section, to up-grade it to include research based commentary, and remove misapplied references.

On the efficacy of essentail oil based repellents I've retained some references that cite DEET as being more effective than some essential oils, but have included references that cite essentail oils as being comparable to DEET. To stay consistent with the references I had to change some of the generalized wording of this section.

On the misapplication of Pelargonium citrosum to citronella oil, I've removed the reference because it's factually incorrect to apply this reference to citronella oil, which is differently sourced. P.citrosum has a different essentail oil profile to citronella oil and is not used as "citronella oil", and in this situation is especially not applicable because P.citrosum lacks effective levels of citronellal, which is an active repellent present in citronella oil. This confusion is an understandable one, given that P.citrosum was a cleverly marketed as "citronella plant", but is actually not related to the standard source of citronella oil, Cymbopogon nardus and Cymbopogon winterius used in repellent style topical products. In fact, as far as I know P.citrosum has only ever been used as garden plant, and not for commercial extractive purposes.

There is also the issue of perfume allergy with essentail oil repellents, and this is one area where DEET may have a clear advantage over essentail oils (including longevity) and I'll look for suitable references on this allergy issue.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain the changes to this section of the article as they are significant. Cheers. User:John Moss 09:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to comment on changes to the efficacy of some natural repellents. While I have no worries where that is verifiable and objective, it's not the case in this change from: "While some are not as effective as DEET research shows that other essential oil based formulas are comparable to DEET, and somewhat better" to  " While most are not as effective as DEET, research shows that other essential oil based formulae have a mildly repelling effect."

I think " ...mildly repelling .." is not an accurate reflection of the research, because the research actually states that the said essential oil formulae has a higher efficacy than DEET. To quote the research: "Under field conditions, Gel E showed complete protection for 4 hours and gave 95.7% repellency after 5 hours application, whereas Gel B and 20% deet (di-methyl benzamide) provided only 86.8 and 82.7% repellency after treatment, respectively against Ae. aegypti, daytime-biting mosquitos."So if DEET is our measure of insect repellent efficacy, surely something that is stronger is not "mildly repelling". So I'm switching back to my original edit because it's a more accurate and unbiased summary of this research, and on the assumption that Rifleman, who re-edited the text didn't see the details in the research abstract that was referred to.

If you have an issue with me reinstalling the previous edit, please come and discuss it in here, per Wiki protocol. Cheers.User:John Moss 20:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Safety aspects
I've added a reference from the EPA reregistration document, so as the article content is more inline with what has been written by government agencies in regards to DEET safety. John Moss 23:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Testicular cancer
The article states 'A study which examined the risk factors for testicular cancer found evidence that use of insect repellents "mostly containing N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET)" were associated with an elevated risk of testicular cancer.[5]' The abstract of that source states "neither living in a rural area nor any occupational exposure appeared to be a potential environmental TC risk factor". It's difficult to check as the full article needs to be paid for so perhaps someone with access to that article could check the accuracy of the claim. Suitsyou (talk) 09:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Endocrine Disruption
Does anyone know if there is conclusive evidence for or against endocrine disruptive effects of DEET? Given that it's now showing up in water, it seems a relevant question. I can't find anything on a cursory websearch though, except one page that says basically "suspected" (which doesn't really mean anything), but doesn't cite any studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.9.143.32 (talk) 02:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

History
'and civilian use in 1957'

It was in civilian use in Australia in 1953. It was used to protect the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II, on her post-coronation tour, from the scourge of Australian bush flies, not to mention the mosquitoes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.215.145.146 (talk) 14:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Does the queen really count as a civilian? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.224.250.2 (talk) 06:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The verification of the monograph please......
shown in http://www.vifapharm.de/uspinh.pdf --222.64.23.80 (talk) 08:17, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

A tricky question -- What would be the regulatory status when.....
a drug does have pharmacopoeial monograph, but appeared in the following

http://www.morleyevans.com/Contents/FDA_Letter/WHO.pdf

http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/druginformation/en/ --222.64.17.107 (talk) 09:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Very bad section: Alternatives - Citronella Oil
"Some" preparations may be "somewhat more effective"? That's shite language. Dunno how to fix it though...

Composition in those products with DEET concentration less than 100%
I think the composition of those products with less 100% DEET should be mentioned in this article. Since DEET is an oil I suppose that it will be required the use of a good solvent for such kind of molecules.

There are some other queries that I find some readers would try to find here:

Can DEET be diluted at home with a similar result to marketed repellents of that concentration? If so, what are the most available/inexpensive solvents in the market for that purpose?

Why is the shelf life of these repellents so short? What is the estimated reduction of effectiveness per time unit? Which are the best storing conditions to minimize the reduction in effectiveness?

I find the answers to this questions can be especially useful when travelers are in areas where there are no good repellents available and they have to dose (or dilute?) the little repellent they still have.

For instance, some years ago (in the year 2000) it was impossible to find any DEET-based product in Southern Mexico or Guatemala. Even if malaria is under control in Mexico (is Chiapas already malaria free?) travelers may find useful to avoid being beaten by mosquitoes with the risk to contract other nasty diseases such as dengue fever. Could this kind of practical information be freely available in Wikipedia for once? Heathmoor (talk) 05:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

6-12
I have removed the assertion that 6-12 brand insect repellent was a DEET product. I find no evidence to support the claim, and solid evidence against it. See product monographs [ http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Product.jsp?REG_NR=00328200045&DIST_NR=003282 here] and here, and vintage 6-12 bottle here; the active ingredient was in fact ethyl hexanediol. There appears to have been a later product called "6-12 Plus" which did contain DEET, see [ http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Product.jsp?REG_NR=00328200048&DIST_NR=003282 here], but the deleted claim was that 6-12 per se was the first (or one of the first) DEET products. The only other results for a search on 6-12 DEET are this article and mirrors of it. It looks as though someone simply remembered incorrectly. —Scheinwerfermann T·C 19:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)