The carcinogenic DDT has been yet again confirmed of causing disastrous health effects as a recent study published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism asserts that high levels of pesticide DDT exposure of pregnant mothers resulted in daughters having four times higher risk of breast cancer.

Researchers analyzed blood samples for DDT levels in 20,754 women who had given birth in Oakland, California between 1959 and 1967 when the use of DDT was at peak high. The samples of the 9,300 daughters born to these women were also studied by scientists using state cancer registry records.

The results revealed that these mothers who were exposed to the hazardous chemical gave birth to daughters who had 3.7 times higher risk of breast cancer. Analyses revealed that out of 9,300 daughters born, 137 had developed breast tumors by the age of 52.

Barbara Cohn, director of child health and development studies at the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, California and the lead author stated, "It has long been suspected that environmental chemicals that interfere with hormone systems could be connected to risk of breast cancer. Here we found the first direct connection for measured levels of DDT in mothers' pregnancy blood".

The researchers explained that DDT behaves like a synthetic estrogen hormone and signals the breast cells to grow and divide leading to development of cancerous tumor.

The EPA lists DDT as a probable carcinogen and its use was banned in the US in 1972 but alarmingly the pesticide is still widely used in Africa and Asia to control malaria causing mosquitoes.