Did you take your poison today? - Integrated Pest Management in ...

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Did you take your poison today?
13. Do these pesticides stay in the body?
They certainly can.
Between 1992 and 1998, the Ministry of Public Health carried
out more than 2 million blood tests on farmers. More than 18%
of the samples contained measurable amounts of pesticides. In
some years, the number of blood samples containing pesticides
was more than 25%.
In a more recent study carried out by Chiang Mai University,
blood tests were carried out on people living in three farming
communities. In one community, where fields and orchards
surround the houses, more than two-thirds of the people had a
risky or unsafe level of pesticides in their blood.
Some of these pesticides stay in the environment for many
years, and can accumulate in the tissue of farm animals and
humans. These chemicals are called ‘Persistent Organic
Pollutants’, and DDT is a well-known example. Tests in Northern
Thailand have shown that traces of DDT can be measured in
the blood of villagers more than 10 years after the chemical
was last used. This chemical is passed on to babies who are
breastfed.
A health officer takes a small blood sample of a farmer’s finger. A
simple test will show if he is contaminated with pesticides.
“What’s your poison?” is a report by the Environmental
Justice Foundation. It summarizes health risks associated
with pesticide exposure. The report can be downloaded
from: www.ejfoundation.org.
14. Are there any long-term effects from pesticides?
Yes. The symptoms listed above (see question 12) are the acute effects of
pesticides, which happen within a few hours or days after exposure to the
chemicals. Pesticides can also have chronic effects, which happen over
months or years. The chronic effects of these chemicals might include:
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Infertility and miscarriages, which means it is difficult for people to
have babies;
Birth defects, which means that babies are born with damage to the
brain or body;
Skin problems, such as dermatitis and eczema (dry and cracked
skin);
Damage to the nervous system, which means people suffer from
headaches, poor memory, lack of coordination and sleep problems;
Cancer, including breast or brain tumours, liver or stomach cancer,
skin cancer and leukaemia.
There are many reasons why people could suffer from these problems,
including genetic defects, poor diet, smoking, and other kinds of pollution.
Nobody knows exactly how many cases are caused by pesticides, but the
Ministry of Public Health has estimated that food contamination is causing
at least 50,000 cases of cancer in Thailand each year.