Journal of Drug Metabolism & Toxicology
Open Access

Insect Repellents

Did you know that insect repellents are pesticides? According to pesticide law, a pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances intended for:preventing; destroying; repelling; or  mitigating any pest. (Mitigating means reducing the effect of something.)

​People often think of the term pesticide as referring only to something that kills insects, but "pesticide" is a broad term and includes products that don't kill anything, such as insect repellents. Products labeled as repellents are not designed to eliminate pests. For example, in the case of the skin-applied repellents, the product makes people less attractive to the pest.