Pesticides and Your Health

Approximately 3.4 million residential and commercial customers use TruGreen ChemLawn services, making it the largest lawn care service in the United States.[i] When potential customers call TruGreen ChemLawn, they are offered a lawn care plan and a price quote. TruGreen ChemLawn’s prescription for this is usually a heavy dose of chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.[ii] Many customers are unaware that this method of lawn care threatens their health and the health of their children.

A growing pool of research links exposure to pesticides to nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and headaches and chronic illnesses like lymphoma, leukemia, bladder cancer, and learning disabilities.

Acute and Chronic Health Impacts of Pesticide Exposure

Acute toxicity refers to the immediate effects of a particular dose of a pesticide on human health. Acute effects can present numerous symptoms, including respiratory problems, nervous system disorders, and aggravation of pre-existing conditions such as asthma. Symptoms range from mild irritations to death.

Pesticides can cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat; burning, stinging, itches, rashes, and blistering of the skin; nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea; and coughing, wheezing, headache, and general malaise. Because these symptoms are similar or identical to those caused by other illnesses, acute pesticide poisoning is often misdiagnosed. *

Exposure to pesticides are also linked with chronic illness, such as cancer, behavioral impairment, reproductive dysfunction, endocrine disruption, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, skin conditions, and respiratory diseases such as asthma.

Chronic health effects from pesticides are problematic to study in humans because most people are exposed to low doses of pesticide mixtures, and delayed health effects are difficult to link to past exposures. Pesticides are biologically active: some are genotoxic; others disrupt normal neurotransmitter function, while still others mimic human hormones, any of which may create subtle health effects.**

*Pesticides and Human Health: A Resource for Health Lawn Professionals. Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2000, p 7. Gina Solomon, MD, MPH

**Pesticides and Human Health: A Resource for Health Lawn Professionals. Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2000, p 8. Gina Solomon, MD, MPH

Children Are the Most Vulnerable to the Dangers of Pesticides

Children are at a higher risk for health effects from exposure to pesticides than adults.  Why?

• Children’s internal organs are still developing and maturing and their enzymatic, metabolic, and immune systems provide less natural protection than those of an adult.
• There are "critical periods" in human development when exposure to a toxin can permanently alter the way a child’s biological system develops and operates.[iii]
• Children eat more and drink more per body weight than adults, so pesticide exposure has a bigger impact on their bodies.
• A child’s behavior outdoors or in the home brings them in contact with the ground more than an adult, potentially exposing him or her more directly to pesticides when playing on grass or carpets. Pesticides are often tracked indoors by pets and shoes. Young children also engage in more frequent hand-to-mouth behavior.[iv]

A National Cancer Institute study states that, "although research is underway to characterize the risks of childhood cancer associated with pesticides and identify the specific pesticides responsible, it is prudent to reduce or, where possible, eliminate pesticide exposure to children, given their increased vulnerability and susceptibility. In particular, efforts should be focused to reduce exposure to pesticides used in homes and gardens and on lawns and public lands, which are major sources of exposure for most children."[v]

A number of studies have linked lawn pesticides to childhood illnesses:

• A University of Southern California study showed that children whose parents used garden pesticides were 6.5 times more likely to develop leukemia.[vi]
• According to EPA’s Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment, children receive 50 percent of their lifetime cancer risks in the first two years of life.[vii]
• Children with brain cancer are more likely than normal controls to have been exposed to insecticides in the home.[viii]
• Children in families that use professional pest control services are at higher risk of developing leukemia than children in families that don’t use pesticides. [ix]
• A 1990 study by the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment concluded that “in general, [human health] research demonstrates that pesticide poisoning can lead to poor performance on tests including intellectual functioning, academic skills, abstraction, flexibility of thought, and motor skills; memory disturbances and inability to focus attention; deficits in intelligence, reaction time, and manual dexterity; and reduced perceptual speed. Increased anxiety and emotional problems have also been reported.”[x]

Pesticides persist for even longer inside homes.

Without exposure to sunlight or rain, lawn pesticides will last longer when they are tracked inside.

• A USEPA study found that residues from outdoor pesticides are tracked in by pets and people’s shoes, and can increase the pesticide loads in carpet dust as much as 400-fold. These pesticides, intended for outdoor use, will persist for years indoors because they are sheltered from sun, rain and other forces that can degrade them.[xi]
• A study published in November 2003 by the Silent Spring Institute, which was funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, showed that residents may be continuously exposed to dangerous levels of pesticides in their home decades after application.[xii] One pesticide found in the study was DDT, which has been banned from use for over 30 years.

Because pesticides persist, they have more opportunities to get into our bodies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a study of 9,282 people nationwide, found pesticides in 100% of the people who had both blood and urine tested. The average person carried 13 of 23 pesticides tested. The study found that children carried the highest body burden of pesticides.[xiii] Fat soluble pesticides accumulate over time in our bodies. Pesticides that accumulate in women can be passed to children through breast milk.[xiv]

A number of doctors in Canada have concluded that pesticides pose a major public health threat The Ontario College of Family Physicians is strongly recommending that people reduce their exposure to pesticides wherever possible after compiling a comprehensive review of research on the effects of pesticides on human health. The review showed consistent links to serious illnesses such as cancer, reproductive problems and neurological diseases, among others.

“Many of the health problems linked with pesticide use are serious and difficult to treat – so we are advocating reducing exposure to pesticides and prevention of harm as the best approach”, said Dr. Margaret Sanborn of McMaster University, one of the review’s author’s.[xv]

For more information on the specific health risks associated with TruGreen ChemLawn products, download the full report here.

---