Pesticides a key contributor to childhood diseases and disorders

Learning disabilities, childhood cancer and asthma are on the rise in the United States. And a new report points to pesticides – with over 1 billion pounds applied on farms and homes annually – as a critical contributor to these health harms in children.

"Protecting our children from harm is the fundamental duty of parenthood, but how can we do this when developmental toxicants are allowed to freely circulate in our economy?" says Sandra Steingraber, ecologist and acclaimed author. "PAN's report shines a light on a completely preventable tragedy - that an entire generation of children will not reach its full potential. As such, it describes a violation of human rights and a crisis of family life both. For the healthy development of children to become a national priority, we parents must walk ourselves into the political arena and, waving this good report, speak truth to power."

In particular, the report points to the fact that children are sicker today than a generation ago, confronting serious health challenges from pesticides and other chemical exposures that their parents and grandparents were unlikely to face.

Health professionals, mothers and rural leaders across the country released the new report, which draws from academic and government research, to chronicle the emerging threat of pesticides to children’s health. Compiled by researchers and scientists at Pesticide Action Network, A Generation in Jeopardy: How pesticides are undermining our children’s health and intelligence focuses on studies published within the past five years – a growing body of evidence that convincingly demonstrates a link between pesticide exposure and childhood health harms.

“Pesticides can have unique and profound impacts on the developing child, even in very small amounts. The research shows that prenatal exposure to pesticides, in combination with other environmental and genetic factors, can contribute to increased risk of adverse health consequences, such as effects on the developing brain” said Dr. Tracey Woodruff, Director, Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, University of California San Francisco, “We must take swift action to reduce exposure to harmful environmental chemicals to ensure healthier generations”
The report shines a light on the growing links between exposure to pesticides where children, live, learn and play and an array of impacts on the mind and body – including diminished IQ, ADHD & autism, childhood cancers and asthma. In particular, the report points to the following trends across studies:

• The brains and nervous systems of boys are significantly more affected than girls.

• Timing of exposure is critically important. If a child is exposed to even very small amounts of a harmful pesticide during a particular moment of development, the impacts can be severe – and often irreversible.

• Studies link exposure to pesticides during pregnancy to increased risk of childhood leukemia and brain cancer. And children who live in intensively agricultural areas are more likely to have childhood cancer.

The report outlines a series of urgent recommendations for state and federal policymakers to better protect children’s health and intelligence, recommendations emphasized by organizations on Tuesday.
“Enough scientific evidence is in – we can’t fail our children. While individual household choices can help, protecting kids from the health harms of pesticides requires real and swift policy change,” said Emily Marquez, PhD, report co-author and staff scientist at Pesticide Action Network. “Dramatically reducing pesticide use, starting with those most hazardous to children, is the best way to protect current and future generations.”

The report points to the need for the following reforms to reduce pesticide use:

• Create stronger policy tools so enforcement agencies can take swift action to pull existing pesticides off the market and block new pesticides when independent studies suggest they are harmful to children.

• Increase investment and support for innovative farmers as they transition away from pesticide use.

• Set and track national pesticide use reduction goals, focusing first on those pesticides that studies show are harmful to children.

• Withdraw harmful pesticide products from use in homes, daycare centers and schools.

• Establish pesticide-free zones around schools, daycare centers and neighborhoods in agricultural areas to protect children from harmful exposures, especially pesticide drift.

The report highlights states and communities across the country where innovative policies have been put in place to protect children from pesticides where they live, learn and play. From pesticide-free playing fields in Connecticut to protective buffer zones for schools and neighborhoods in California’s central valley and organic school lunch programs in Minnesota, policies designed to keep children out of harm’s way are gaining momentum.

The report was released today in ten cities across the country, including Bakersfield, Des Moines, Fresno, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco, Stockton, and Ventura.