Fenitrothion (
IUPAC
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...
name: ''O'',''O''-dimethyl ''O''-(3-methyl-4-nitrophenyl) phosphorothioate) is a
phosphorothioate (
organophosphate
In organic chemistry, organophosphates (also known as phosphate esters, or OPEs) are a class of organophosphorus compounds with the general structure , a central phosphate molecule with alkyl or aromatic substituents. They can be considered ...
)
insecticide
Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, i ...
that is inexpensive and widely used worldwide. Trade names include ''Sumithion'', a 94.2% solution of fenitrothion.
Health effects
Fenitrothion at sublethal doses affected the motor movement of marsupials, and at acute dose levels it reduced the energy of birds.
In chronic (low) dose tests, unexpectedly only the lowest concentration (0.011 microgram/liter) of fenitrothion depressed the growth of an algae, though all of the chronic dose levels used were toxic in other ways to the algae.
Just half of fenitrothion's minimally effective dose altered the thyroid structure of a freshwater murrel (the snakehead fish).
Cases of non-specific
encephalopathy
Encephalopathy (; ) means any disorder or disease of the brain, especially chronic degenerative conditions. In modern usage, encephalopathy does not refer to a single disease, but rather to a syndrome of overall brain dysfunction; this syndrome ...
and fatty visceral changes (
Reye's syndrome) in children living in the vicinity of fenitrothion-spraying operations invoked the research described latterly in ''
Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
'', and originally in ''
The Lancet
''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823. It is one of the world's highest-impact academic journals and also one of the oldest medical journals still in publication.
The journal publishes ...
'':
Further study showed that the illness was caused not by fenitrothion itself, but combinations which included the surfactants and the solvent (with or without the pesticide) clearly showed that pretreatment with these chemicals markedly increased the viral lethality in the test mice.
Resistance
In an unusual demonstration of resistance to pesticides, 8% of insects in farm fields were found to carry a symbiotic gut microbe that can metabolize and detoxify fenitrothion; after in-vitro tests showed that the microbe significantly increased the survival of fenitrothion-treated insects.
References
Further reading
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External links
*
Hazardous Substances Data Bank (source of data)Re-evaluation of Fenitrothion
by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency of Canada
{{Acetylcholine metabolism and transport modulators
Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors
Organophosphate insecticides
Nitrotoluene derivatives
Organothiophosphate esters