JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM/ SUMMER 2006 • VOL. 26, NO. 2 PESTICIDE BASICS contaminated with pesticides. They play in ways that in- crease their exposure. Also, their growing bodies can be Ten Reasons Not to Use particularly sensitive. EPA succinctly summarizes the reasons why children should not be Pesticides exposed to pesticides: • their internal organs are still BY CAROLINE COX has written, “the range of these adverse developing and maturing, health effects includes acute and persis- • in relation to their body weight, tent injury to the nervous system, lung infants and children eat and drink damage, injury to reproductive organs, more than adults, possibly increasing 1. Pesticides don’t solve pest dysfunction of the immune and endo- problems. They don’t change their exposure to pesticides in food crine [hormone] systems, birth defects, and water. the conditions that encourage and cancer.”3 pests. • certain behaviors--such as play- Pesticides that damage human ing on floors or lawns or putting Some pesticides are remarkably ef- health are used in staggering amounts. objects in their mouths—increase a ficient tools for killing pests, but almost Consider just the 27 most commonly 4 child’s exposure to pesticides used in all do nothing to solve pest problems. used pesticides. Fifteen of these have 8 5 homes and yards. To solve a pest problem, the most been classified as carcinogens by EPA Researchers continue to gather de- important step is to change the con- and their use totals about 300 million 4 tailed evidence that EPA’s concerns ditions that have allowed the pest to pounds every year. Eight cause preg- are important. For example, one re- thrive. As the U.S. Environmental Pro- nancy problems, according to EPA’s 6 cent study showed that mothers are tection Agency (EPA) states, “Pests seek Toxic Release Inventory program, four times more effective than their places to live that satisfy basic needs and their use totals about 150 million 4 infants at detoxifying certain common for air, moisture, food, and shelter. The pounds per year. The National Library insecticides.9 best way to control pests is to try to of Medicine reports that 15 of these prevent them from entering your home pesticides damage genes,7 and their use 4. Pesticides often contami- or garden in the first place. You can totals 350 million pounds per year.4 nate food. The widespread do this by removing the elements that use of pesticides in agricul- 3. Pesticides cause special they need to survive.”1 This concept ture means that pesticides problems for children. For is true for agricultural, forestry, and are frequently found on a vari- their size, they consume more commercial pest managers as well as ety of common foods. food and drink than adults, for homeowners. and both of these can be U.S. Department of Agriculture Simply killing pests, instead of solv- ing pest problems, leads to routine and repeated use of pesticides. Almost a bil- lion pounds of conventional pesticides are used in the U.S. every year, and this use has continued for decades.2 This enormous quantity would have decreased if pesticide use was truly solving pest problems. 2. Pesticides are hazardous to human health. Every year, enormous quantities of pes- ticides known to cause sig- nificant health problems are used in the U.S. Pesticides cause a wide variety of health problems; as Mt. Sinai School of Medicine physician Philip Landrigan Caroline Cox is NCAP’s staff scientist. NORTHWEST COALITION FOR ALTERNATIVES TO PESTICIDES/NCAP 10 P.O. BOX 1393, EUGENE, OREGON 97440 / (541)344-5044 / www.pesticide.org JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM/ SUMMER 2006 • VOL. 26, NO.2 monitoring recently showed that 70 Pesticides are also commonly found percent of the fresh fruits and veg- in air. According to monitoring studies etable samples that the agency tested compiled by the U.S. Geological Sur- were contaminated with at least one vey, the common insecticide malathion pesticide. About 40 percent of the contaminated over 80 percent of the samples were contaminated with more samples analyzed. Over 60 percent of than one pesticide. Certain fruits and the samples were contaminated with vegetables are contaminated even more the common herbicide 2,4-D.22 frequently, including over 95 percent of both apples and peppers. USDA found 8. Pesticides are hazardous pesticide contamination in all of the to fish and birds. Enormous milk samples that the agency tested. quantities of pesticides al- Almost 40 percent of the samples that ready known to EPA to cause USDA tested of soybeans, an ingredi- problems for fish and birds ent in many infant formulas, were are used in the U.S. contaminated.10 EPA assessments demonstrate that pesticides often harm birds and fish. 5. Pesticides are particularly For example, EPA and other agencies hazardous for farmers and collect information about bird poisoning farmworkers. There are no incidents.23 While certainly not a com- comprehensive systems for plete record, these incidents involve 7 of tracking pesticide illnesses, the 27 most commonly used pesticides. and research shows that cancer in dogs. Use of these pesticides totals almost 300 farmers and farmworkers million pounds per year.24 face risks of both short-term According to the American Soci- EPA also requires pesticide manufac- poisonings and long-term ety for the Prevention of Cruelty to turers to measure pesticides’ toxicity to illness. Animals, over 30,000 pet poisonings related to pesticides are reported to the fish. The U.S. Geological Survey com- Between 10 and 20 thousand pesti- society’s animal poison control center piled this information, and identified 6 cide-related illnesses and injuries occur every year.19 common pesticides that kill fish in tiny among farmers and farmworkers every Pesticides also have been linked amounts.25 Use of these pesticides is year, according to EPA, but the agency with cancer in pets. For example, vet- almost 100 million pounds per year.26 also believes that these are serious erinarians at Purdue University studied These statistics don’t include pesti- underestimates.11 a common kind of bladder cancer in cides that cause long-term problems for Long-term health problems are also Scottish terriers. They found that dogs birds or fish. For example, EPA research important. The National Institutes of who lived in homes with pesticide- recently showed that minute amounts of Health are conducting a study of over treated lawns were more likely than two common herbicides caused genetic 50,000 farmers to understand how pes- other dogs to develop this bladder damage and other problems in fish.27 ticide use impacts their health. Here are cancer.20 Use of just these two herbicides totals some examples of the kinds of pesti- about 90 million pounds per year.28 cide-related problems this study has 7. Pesticides contaminate wa- identified: neurological problems, like ter and air. Monitoring stud- 9. Pesticides are immensely tremors, depression, and fatigue12; re- ies find pesticides in almost profitable for the corporations spiratory problems (wheezing)13; some every sample that is tested. who manufacture them, yet cancers14; degeneration of the retina15,16 Much of the information we have these corporations conduct (the part of the eye that receives im- about pesticides in water comes from or sponsor the tests used to ages); longer-than-average menstrual the U.S. Geological Survey, and the determine their safety. cycles; and missed periods.17 results are startling: Pesticides are enormously profitable Farmworkers’ pesticide exposure • A national monitoring study that for the companies who make and sell is linked with unique problems. For collected data from 50 river basins them. Pesticide sales worldwide every example, recent research showed that around the country found that “pes- year top $30 billion. In the U.S., sales newborns with pesticide-exposed moth- ticides or their degradates were de- total more than $10 billion.29 ers did not have normal reflexes.18 tected in one or more water samples This potential for immense profits 21 creates a conflict of interest because 6. Pesticides are hazardous from every stream sampled.” our regulatory system requires pesticide to pets. Pet poisonings occur • The same study found that between manufacturers themselves to provide frequently, and exposure to 30 and 60 percent of wells (de- the data30 showing that their product lawncare pesticides is asso- pending on the type of well) were does not have “unreasonable adverse ciated with a higher risk of contaminated with at least one pes- ticide.21 effects on the environment.”31 NORTHWEST COALITION FOR ALTERNATIVES TO PESTICIDES/NCAP P.O. BOX 1393, EUGENE, OREGON 97440 / (541)344-5044 / www.pesticide.org 11 JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM/ SUMMER 2006 • VOL. 26, NO. 2 secrecy. “When the public protests,” she the Agricultural Health Study. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 165:683-689. http://www.aghealth. wrote, “confronted with some obvious org/publications.html. evidence of damaging results of pesti- 14. Alavanja, M.C.R. et al. 2004. Pesticides and lung cancer in the Agricultural Health Study cohort. Am. cide applications, it is fed tranquilizing J. Epidemiol. 160:876-885. http://www.aghealth. pills of half truth. We urgently need an org/publications.html. end to these false assurances, to the 15. Kamel, et al. 2000. Retinal degeneration in 35 licensed pesticide applicators. Am. J. Ind. Med. sugar coating of unpalatable facts.” 37:618-628. http://www.aghealth.org/publications. Her words are no less true today than html. they were decades ago. 16. Kirrane, E.F. 2005. Retinal degeneration and other eye disorders in wives of farmer pesticide applica- tors enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study. Am. References J. Epidemiol. 161:1020-1029. http://www.aghealth.