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Pesticides and Health

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Greenpeace volunteers gathering vegetables from a supermarket for pesticide toxin testing. The organisation believe the high levels of toxins found in supermarket vegetables is due to the over usage of pesticides and is harmful to humans.

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Many pesticides are toxic and since their first use it has been known that they present a risk to human health. In China, many of the pesticides used are highly toxic and this has resulted in tens of thousands of users suffering the effects of pesticide poisoning which is sometimes fatal. Other users may suffer from long term health impacts as a result exposure to pesticides.

The general public may also be exposed to pesticides if they live in the vicinity of sprayed fields and if they eat food or drink water that is contaminated with pesticides. In general, humans are exposed to a mixture of numerous chemicals (including pesticides) in daily life and the impact of this chronic exposure to mixtures of many chemicals is largely unknown but is likely to have an effect on health.

A recent report has highlighted the risk of pesticide exposure to children. Children may be exposed to pesticides if they play on contaminated soil or if they are brought into contaminated fields to accompany their parents. Older children may be directly exposed if they are working in fields. Children may also be more highly exposed to pesticides than adults because they consume more food per body weight than adults and drink more water kilo for kilo than adults.

Pesticides are toxic and they also represent a danger to the environment. Decades of high utilisation of pesticides in China has resulted in the environment being degraded with serious damage to the structure and function of ecosystems.

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Chronic Effects

As well as the acute, or short term adverse effects of pesticides, there is the possibility of longer term effects on health. These effects may occur following acute exposure. Alternatively, long-term exposure to low levels of pesticides may result in health impacts.

Acute Risks

The most obvious effects on human health are acute poisonings which occur during or shortly after an exposure to a pesticide. Such incidents are common in developing countries where regulations may be less strict, where there is insufficient capacity for enforcing regulations, or where farmers have insufficient access to training, application equipment and appropriate protective clothing.