Methods of control include insecticides, trapping, removal of aggregates of beetles, and mechanically preventing entry to buildings.

Some treatments are dangerous, however, and have included the use of bleach, veterinary medicines intended for deworming horses, and industrial insecticides.

The stored chemicals included, beside urea and fluorescent dye, organophosphate insecticides, mercury compounds and organochlorines.

A very old and broken sewerage system has been blamed for the contaminants which included soaps, insecticides, caffeine and anticonvulsants.

Toxins from this source include dioxins, PCBs, insecticides and heavy metals.

Pesticides, also called "crop protection chemicals", are about 10 percent of this category and include herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.

A pesticide: this includes fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, algicides, molluscicides, miticides and rodenticides.

They included insecticides sprayed on uniforms, insect repellents rubbed on the skin and a drug, pyridostigmine, given orally to most American troops as a precaution against chemical attack.

These practices include corn variety selection, early planting, insecticides, crop rotation and transgenic corn varieties.

"Some pesticides, and these include insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, are neurotoxins; some are carcinogens and many are endocrine disrupters," she said.