If you use mothballs as a form of deodoriser for your bathroom, you may soon be facing Government regulation regarding its usage.

Mothballs have been used by generations of Jamaicans for protecting clothes from the ravages of insects. Already, they are coming under the microscope in the United States of America (USA) and Canada where scientific re-evaluation of its health risks is propelling regulations regarding the packaging, sale and use and Jamaica is set to follow suit.

Michael Ramsay, registrar of the Pesticides Control Authority (PCA) explained that mothballs are comprised almost entirely of one of two pesticides - naphthalene or para-diclorobenzene. He told the weekend Star: "Most other pesticides are some percentage of the active ingredient and then other things are added to dilute and stabilise it but mothballs are almost 99 per cent of either of these two active ingredients. In addition to mothballs being used to kill clothes moths, there are some people who use it as an air freshener and widely as a deodorising agent in urinals. The issue is that the fumes which make them so effective and popular are a possible health problem and so mothballs should not be used as an air freshener."

According to information gleaned from the Internet, the US state of California has recognised para-dichlorobenzene as a cancer-causing agent, while Scorecard (www.scorecard.org) reports that it is suspected of causing "developmental toxicity" as well as "kidney toxicity". Health Canada Information Update 2012, 46 reported that "exposure to naphthalene vapours can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness and vomiting. Hemolytic anemia, the abnormal breakdown of red blood cells, may occur following ingestion or sufficient exposure to mothballs or mothball-treated fabrics" (particularly infants).

While recognising that the vapours if sufficiently accumulated could be harmful to human health, the PCA does not see that this is cause for concern here in Jamaica where houses are fairly open year round. However, it does endorse the view that there is a very real risk of young children swallowing these familiar items, which look like sweets, especially since Jamaicans are not socialised to see them as potentially dangerous. There is a greater health risk to a young child's system from ingestion, as it takes a smaller amount of the chemical to affect the smaller body than for an adult. In addition, mothballs present a choking hazard.

Because of this double threat to young children from mothballs, the Jamaican authorities are joining their North American colleagues in pushing for enforcing regulations on the packaging and labelling of this product, which is imported into Jamaica from places such as China with the labelling sometimes in their language only. In addition to warnings of the potential health risks and instructions for usage written in English, the Americans and Canadians are also pushing for smaller packages, as is Jamaica. For us, smaller pack sizes should eliminate illegal repackaging by retailers, while ensuring that in the home there is no half-used pack of mothballs left around to pose a danger to children.