Monday, April 26, 2004
Just in time for summer
The link between common household pesticides and fetal defects, neurological damage and the most deadly cancers is strong enough that family doctors in Ontario are urging citizens to avoid the chemicals in any form.
The frightening message came yesterday when the Ontario College of Family Physicians released the most comprehensive study ever done in Canada on the chronic effects of pesticide exposure at home, in the garden and at work.
"The review found consistent evidence of the health risks to patients with exposure to pesticides," the study said, naming brain cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and leukemia among many other acute illnesses.
As well, the college found consistent links between parents' exposure to certain agricultural pesticides at their jobs and effects on a growing fetus ranging from damage to death. The risks, they concluded, can come even from residue on food, ant spray and the tick collar on the family cat.
The researchers also found that children are far more vulnerable to the effects of pesticides than adults because their bodies are growing, they have a greater skin surface in proportion to their size than adults, they ingest more food for their size than adults and they often have less-developed systems to excrete chemicals.
Not only that, but after examining 12,000 studies conducted from 1990 to 2003 around the world, and winnowing that down to the most sound 250, the researchers said there is no evidence that some pesticides are less dangerous than others, just that they have different effects on health that take different periods to show up.
Story.
posted by chris at 10:08 AM
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