Evidence of Health Risks of Commonly Used Pesticides to Children

Pesticides --weed killers, insecticides, and fungicides-- are designed to kill or damage living things. While these hazardous substances are used primarily on farms to control weeds, insects, and fungi, considerable amounts of pesticides are used in urban areas where more people are likely to be exposed to them.1 Children play in school grounds, parks, and backyards and in every one of these places they are exposed to weed killers. Very young children who put fingers and other objects in their mouths may face even greater exposure.2 Detailed residue studies have shown that herbicides applied to home lawns are brought into the house by foot traffic days after application.3

Frequent exposure to commonly used pesticides pose health threats to all of us, but especially to infants and children. Children's special susceptibility to pesticides was first widely publicized by the National Academy of Sciences 1993 report Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children.4 The report concluded that children are not adequately protected from pesticides on their food. (The report recommended many changes in the regulation of pesticides. Many of these changes were included in a 1996 law, the Food Quality Protection Act, which have yet to be fully implemented.)5

There is also non-food exposure to pesticides, i.e. spray drift from a neighbor's yard, playing and rolling at the park or home lawn just sprayed, hugging a dog treated with flea and tick insecticides, and prenatal exposures. The effects of children's acute exposure to pesticides are discussed in the American Academy of Pediatrics' Handbook of Pediatric Environmental Health.6

The long term health effects on children of exposure to small doses of pesticides are not well understood. However, recent studies have shown associations between children's exposure to pesticides and a wide variety of health problems:

• In Minnesota, farmers licensed to apply pesticides on their farms are more likely to have children with birth defects. This association was particularly strong in counties with high use of fungicides and herbicide related to 2,4-D, a commonly used lawn weed killer.7
  
  
• In California counties with high agricultural pesticide use, the incidence of limb reduction birth defects is also high.8
  
  
• A study of children with brain cancer in Los Angeles County, CA, found that these children were twice as likely as children without the disease to have been exposed prenatally to flea and tick insecticides when their mothers treated their pets.9
  
  
• A study of Canadian farmers found that use of the insecticide carbaryl was associated with increased incidence of miscarriage and the use of the herbicides atrazine and 2,4-DB was associated with increased risk of premature birth.10
  
  
• 2,4-D, one of the most common lawn weed killers has been associated with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in numerous studies. 11

A compilation of recently published studies linking "normal" use pesticides and a variety of illnesses is available at www.chem-tox.com/pesticides .

Taken together, these studies are a clear demonstration that pesticides' effects on human health are a cause for concern. And because we do not fully understand the long term impacts of pesticides on children or on the biosphere, it is simply prudent to greatly minimize their use or preferably not use them at all. Practical, cost-effective, and healthy alternatives do exist.

Excerpted primarily from the Journal of Pesticide Reform Vol. 19, No. 2.
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1. Jenkins, V. S. 1994. The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

2. Wargo, J. 1996. Our Children's Toxic Legacy: How Science and Law Fail to Protect Us from Pesticides. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.

3. Nishioka, M. et al. 1996. Measuring transport of lawn-applied herbicide acids from turf to home: correlation of dislodgeable 2,4-D turf residue with carpet dust and carpet residue. Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 30, No. 11.

4. National Research Council. 1993. Pesticides in the diets of infants and children. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

5. Cox, Caroline. 1999. Do Pesticides Pose Special Hazards to Children? J. of Pesticides Reform. Vol.19, No.2.

6. American Academy of Pediatrics. 1999. Handbook of Pediatric Environmental Health. 141 Northwest Point Boulevard, Elk Grove Village, Illinois 60009-0927.

7. Garry, V.F. 1996. Pesticide appliers, biocides, and birth defects in rural Minnesota. Environ. Health Presp. 104:394-399.

8. Schwartz, D.A. and J.P. LoGerfo. 1988. Congenital limb reduction deficits in the agricultural setting. Am. J. Public Health. 78(6):654-659.

9. Pagoda, J.M and S. Preston-Martin. 1997. Household pesticides and risk of pediatric tumors. Environmental Health Persp. 105:1214-1220.

10. Savitz, D.A. et al. 1997. Male pesticide exposure and pregnancy outcome. Am. J. Epidemiol. 146:1025-1036.

11. Zahm S.H. and A. Blair. 1992. Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Cancer Research (suppl.) 52, 5485s-5488s.

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