Impact of - IDL-BNC @ IDRC - International Development Research ...

Foreword
From their first appearance, pesticides were recognized by farmers and by
public-health officials as valuable adjuncts to food production and disease
prevention. New families of pesticides have since been developed, and the
search for others continues. As research progresses, older pesticides - such
as the organochlorinated compounds - have been banned or restricted
because of their adverse effects on the ecosphere. The development of resistance
in pest species has resulted in increased dosages or the application of
new compounds. Finally, we now realize that pesticide poisoning of humans,
especially in the Third World, is a serious problem.
In recognition of this health hazard, two scientific committees of the International
Commission of Occupational Health (ICOH) - the Committee on
Pesticides and the Committee on Occupational Health in Developing Countries
- and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada
sponsored a symposium entitled "The Impact of Pesticide Use on Health in
Developing Countries." The symposium was held in Ottawa, on 17-21 September
1990, to precede the 23rd International Congress of ICOH held in
Montreal the following week. This book is a collection of expanded and edited
versions of papers that were presented at the symposium.
Soon after the first comprehensive study, commissioned by the World Health
Organization (WHO) in the early 1980s in Sri Lanka, IDRC provided financial
support to four groups of researchers in Southeast Asia to look at occupational
intoxication by pesticides. Their studies confirmed that pesticides do pose a
serious health risk in many Asian countries. The findings are discussed, in the
context of our present knowledge of the risks pesticides pose to public health,
in a monograph by Professor J. Jeyaratnam who spearheaded the WHO study
as well as serving as the regional coordinator of the IDRC project, carried-out
in Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
Results from this project made several points clear: agricultural workers had
little knowledge, if any, of the toxicity of pesticides or of their proper use; what
knowledge that did exist was often erroneous; personal spraying equipment
was more often than not in a sad state of disrepair and operators seldom used
appropriate protective equipment and clothing; and pesticide intoxication in
Southeast Asia had become a serious problem.
More recently, IDRC has supported a number of research projects on pesticide
intoxication in different regions of the Third World, investigating these and
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