Author Description

Experience of all former Soviet republics with the use of pesticides is imminent in order to properly understand the causes and effects of pesticide dissemination all over the globe. Never in any country has so much medical and biological research on the consequences of pesticide use been seen as in the USSR in the 1970's through 1980's. These data mostly remained secret until the 1990's. Part of this material is being presented here to the Western reader for the first time. Among the problems discussed, there are: regulation, control, and economic use of pesticides in USSR agriculture; air, water and soil contamination; transformation of pesticides in the environment and in food products; human and animal poisoning by different types of pesticide; morbidity and mortality associated with pesticides, genetic effects, and effects on reproduction, endocrine and other systems; bioaccumulation; pesticides as poisons for cultivated plants; pesticide resistance in target species; connection of chemical weaponry plants with pesticide production.