Pesticide Dangers
Many pesticides can cause immediate health problems if you accidentally breathe them in, get them on your skin, or eat them. These acute effects can aggravate pre-existing allergies or asthma, and can result in rashes, difficulty breathing, or even coma.
Some pesticide exposures are also linked to serious problems which may not develop for weeks, months or even years.
These can include:
- reproductive problems (such as birth defects and infertility)
- effects on chromosomes and DNA
- cancer (including occupational cancers, childhood leukemia and brain cancer)
- neurological disorders
- damage to the liver, kidneys and other organs
- impacts on the body's ability to fight diseases
And other pesticide threats are just now coming to light. Scientists, for example, have just begun to study the effects pesticides can have on hormones (known as "endocrine disruption").
What Are Pesticides?
Pesticides are chemical poisons designed to kill or repel different kinds of pests. For example:
- insecticides kill ants, cockroaches, fleas or other insects
- herbicides kill weeds
- rodenticides kill mice and rats
- fungicides kill fungus, mildew and plant diseases
Pesticides are sold in many different forms, including weed-killing sprays, aerosol bug sprays, flea "bombs", powders and collars, shampoos for head lice, and insect-repelling lotions.
Are they safe? No.
It is easy to assume that a pesticide sold in your local supermarket or hardware store must be fairly harmless. But this isn't the case.
It is actually illegal to advertise any pesticide as safe - even if used as directed. Pesticides are specifically designed to poison living creatures, ones whose basic biology is often strikingly similar to our own.
This puts people at risk as well as pests.
Pesticides known to cause cancer - or suspected to cause birth defects - are still sold and used in the USA. Unfortunately, pesticide labels fail to warn parents of potential risks the way that cigarette packs or beer bottles now do.