Toxins Awareness Group NZ Inc
P. O. Box 99-315, Newmarket Auckland
Pesticides and Health
Contents
Should we be concerned?
What are pesticides?
Do we need pesticides?
If a pesticide is on the market - isn't it safe?
How are individuals harmed by pesticides?
What are symptoms?
Are children and elderly more vulnerable?
How are cancer and pesticides related?
How can we work for change?
The concern...
Pesticides are everywhere and growing in use. They are in our food, air,
water, buildings and consumer products.
Most of us are unaware of the extent to which we are exposed to pesticides
in and around our homes and throughout the community. Pesticides are poisons.
In humans, they can cause sever illness. They can have serious immediate
effects, such as nausea or convulsion, as well as long-term effects such as
cancer and reproductive damage.
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What are pesticides?
Pesticides include insecticides, herbicides, fingies and rodentcides. Many
of these such as disinfectants and wood preservatives are not commly thought
of as pesticides.
- Each of us is exposed to pesticides, usually without our knowledge or
consent.
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Do we need pesticides?
- The modern chemical approach to agriculture is a very new radical
development. Until the 1940's farmers dealt with pests by natural methods, keeping
soil healthy, rotating crops, utilizing a pest's natural enemies, physically
removing weeds. In the 1940's (in the USA) about 7% of crops were lost to
pests. Today farming is based upon chemically sterilizing the soil (the source
of all nutriment!), mono cropping, fewer seed varieties, and mass
mechanisation. While farm yields (and incomes) have increased, the nutrient
value of food have declined (contributing to immune deficiency diseases),
billion of kilos of pesticides have fouled the environment and caused disease
and death, and the current percentage of crops lost to pests has nearly
doubled to 13%.
- We do not need pesticides to meet the world's food needs. The U.S. National
Academy of Sciences recently completed a 10 year study of chemical and
non-chemical farms. The report concluded that non-chemical farms could (after
a couple of years of transition and with a few changes in the structure of
government subsidies) sustain comparable crop yields and farm profits.
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If a pesticide is on the market, Isn't it safe?
- Thousand of pesticides have been marketed without the required laboratory
testing. The use of any pesticide pose some hazard. Data on home use pesticide
is insufficient, In 1987 the American Consumers Union compiled a list of 50
active ingredients of pesticides used around the home and found that 66% had
been inadequately tested to determine whether they could cause cancer, 72%
inadequately test for mutations, 62% for birth defects, 64% for adverse
effects on reproduction, and 98% for neurobehavioral effects.
- A huge multi-billion dollar agro-chemical industry has emerged worldwide.
using it's political and economic power this vested interest shapes government
policies, produces it's own "scientific" research and constantly
minimizes the adverse health and environmental effect, resorting to deceptive
and sometimes fraudulent activities. The product "Round-Up" is an
example of inadequate testing. It is well acknowledged that the surfactant of
"Round-Up" is more toxic than glyposate the active ingredient which
registration is based on. The International Agency for research on cancer has
indicated that it is "sufficient" to know that 1,4 - dioxins (an
ingredient of this herbicide) causes cancer in animals. *
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Cancer and Pesticides
- World authority on cancer Professor Samuel E. Epstein has written -
"Government, industry and a small coterie of scientists have combined to
stymie efforts to introduce preventative measures, such as strict pollution
control standards. But cancer remains a preventable disease. It is up to citizens
to push for action."
- National Cancer Institute studies in the USA have linked the herbicide
2,4-D, an ingredient in more than 1,500 pesticides formulations, to cancer in
farmers as well as malignant lymphoma in dogs. Recently scientists have found
evidence that certain pesticides such as synthetic pyrethoids may act to
disrupt the hormonal system of animals. These pesticides appear to mimic
natural sex hormones resulting in malformed sexual organs, birth defects, changes
in sex-linked behavior, decreased fertility, and immune system suppression.
"Growing evidence demonstrates that pervasion contamination of air,
water, soil, and food with a wide range of industrial carcinogens, generally
without public knowledge and consent, is important in causation of modern
preventable cancer. Even if hazards posed by any industrial carcinogen are
small, their cumulative, possible synergistic, effects are likely to be
substantial." (Science, Vol 240.)
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Pesticides and Health
- Pesticides can affect every living organism. Human beings are no exception.
Physicians are trained to recognize only the specific signs of acute, severe
poisonings associated with pesticide toxicity. Acute severe poisonings are
rare in comparison with accumulated low-level cumulative exposures from work,
home or garden use. The effects of low level exposure are much more difficult
to diagnose.
- Individuals vary widely in their susceptibility. A chemically sensitive
individual can be severely affected by even a slight exposure.
- Dr. Douglas Seba (Consultant on Environmental Hazards, and former adviser
to the Environmental Protection Agency, USA) referring to Body Burden and
Biological Individuality said "We all have different size 'backpacks'
in which to carry a load. We put a teaspoon of pollutant in it every day. At
some point one person will stagger forward, another will topple sideways,
some will collapse backwards; an individual response."
- Pesticides enter the body through inhalation, ingestion, or contact with
the skin. They can be absorbed faster when inhaled.
- Despite these hazardous products being in use for over 40 years testing
for pesticides residues has not been established.
- As a result, airborne pesticides are especially threatening from
inhalation.
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Acute and Chronic Effects of Chemical Poisoning
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Flu-like symptoms
- Skin rashes
- Muscular and joint pain
- Irritability often with aggression
- Palpitations
- Digestive upset
- Nausea vomiting and diarrhea
- Insomnia and night sweats
- Onset of allergies and asthma
- Food, Chemical and noise intolerance
- Impaired sight and hearing
- Memory and concentration loss
- Swollen glands
- Exacerbation of existing conditions
- Hormonal imbalances
- Behavioral disorders
- Stinging tummy in children
- Learning impairment
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Vulnerability of children and the elderly
- Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of pesticides. Many of
the most frequently used pesticides affect the nervous system, and children
have been found to be more susceptible to neurotoxins than adults.
- Exposure to carcinogens is of special concern. The National Cancer Institute
USA found an increase risk of leukemia in children whose parents used
pesticides in the home and garden.
- The elderly can also be at greater risk from pesticide exposure because their
immune systems and organ functions decline with age.
- New Zealand has declined from one of the world's most healthy nations to a
nation troubled with high rates of Hepatitis B, Asthma, M. E., Cot Death and
an increasing incidence of varied forms of cancer, muscular diseases and
nervous disorders. What is known in New Zealand as M. E. is recognized in
USA as Chemical Hypersensitivity Syndrome.
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Work for change
- Enlist the help of your neighbors, local churches, schools and
universities and citizen groups to identify and eliminate pesticide use in
public areas. Make your position known to local authorities about the use of
pesticides on public lands, school yards and playing fields, on roadsides
and parks.
- Suggest alternatives. Give local authorities examples of non-chemical
methods that have worked in other communities.
- Work for stricter certification requirements for applicators and
registration of the chemically sensitive.
- If for example you play golf, urge the use of non-chemical methods of
truf management.
- Institute legal redress for chemical trespass
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