Is DEET bad for your kids?
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One of the challenges of being in the great outdoors is that biting insects are there too.There are many diseases that can be spread by ticks and mosquitos, and they are a huge threat to world health.
DEET, an ingredient in many insect repellents, is a well-known way to keep flies, fleas, and other small flying insects away.It has a bad reputation in its 60-plus-year history.We look at how safe DEET is.
The compound is known as N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide and was developed by the U.S. Army in 1946 and registered for the general public in 1957.
It doesn't kill insects, but it does keep them from landing on you.There is a theory that it prevents bugs from smelling you.
There were safety concerns about DEET in 1998.It looked at reports that a small percentage of people who had used DEET had experienced seizures, but they couldn't be sure if the exposures were caused by the pesticide or not.There have been reports of products with high concentrations of DEET.