In the mid-1990s, CDC's Environmental Health Laboratory assisted the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry by assessing exposure to the pesticide methyl parathion among residents of seven states in the South and Midwest whose home interiors had been illegally sprayed with the pesticide. With these measurements, health officials were able to establish which houses needed to be cleaned up and which did not, resulting not only in a saving of hundreds of thousands of dollars in clean-up and relocation costs, but also in lessening health concerns among homeowners. Knowing levels of the absorbed dose of methyl parathion also helped health officials determine which families needed to move immediately and which could continue to live in their homes.
