Studies on commercial insecticides with the dominant lethal mutations test.

The dominant lethal test was performed on male Balb/c mice to examine three commercial forms of insecticide demeton, dichlorvos and endosulfan (Metasystox I forte, Nogos 50 EC and Thiodan 35, respectively). The assay was done by intraperitoneal treatment of animals both acutely (1 dose) and subacutely (5 daily administrations). The number of total implantations differed from the control value only after five-fold injection of dichlorvos. There was no statistically-significant decrease in the number of live implantations. The frequency of postimplantation lethality was no significantly increased over the control level.