Daily News Archive
July 19, 2006
Pesticide Levels Found in Children
(Beyond Pesticides, July 19, 2006)
According to the Wake
Forest University Baptist Medical Center and Science
Daily, two studies of immigrant farmworker families in North
Carolina and Virginia find evidence of pesticide exposure in young children,
which prompted researchers to call for pesticide safety training for
In the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, researchers
from Wake Forest University School of Medicine report that urine samples
from 60 children reveal higher levels of pesticide exposure than had
been found in similar studies elsewhere. And, in Health Education
& Behavior, researchers conclude that workers' spouses need
more education to protect their children from exposure.
"Efforts to reduce the exposure of these children to pesticides
must be redoubled," said Thomas Arcury, Ph.D., lead researcher.
"While science continues to grapple with the question of 'how much
is too much,' measures need to be taken to minimize exposure."
In the study of children from six North Carolina counties, urine samples
were analyzed for evidence of exposure to organophosphate insecticides,
the most widely used pesticides. High levels of exposure can cause coma
and death. Long-term exposure at lower levels can increase risk for
sterility, birth defects and cancer.
The levels found are higher than those found in other parts of the United
States. Although research has demonstrated a link between pesticide
exposure and health effects, the question of how much exposure over
what period of time has not yet been answered," said Dr. Arcury,
a professor of family and community medicine. "Because we don't
know how much is safe, we must, as a precaution, assume that no level
Generally, the risks of exposure are considered greater to children
than adults because of their small size and rapid physical and mental
development. The study involved children from ages one to six years
from Duplin, Harnett, Johnston, Sampson, Wake and Wayne counties.
The North Carolina Employment Security Commission estimated in 2004
that more than 21,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers were employed
in these counties during peak harvest, accounting for 25 percent of
the migrant and seasonal workers in the state.
As part of the study, mothers were interviewed to learn more about risk
factors for exposure. Researchers learned that 40 percent of mothers
and 30 percent of fathers were employed in farmwork, but had not received
pesticide training, which would violate Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) regulations. Three in five children lived in households in which
farmworkers did not shower immediately after work and four in five lived
in households in which workers changed their clothes in the dwelling.
In a separate study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 41 Latino
women in farmworker households in five North Carolina counties (Alleghany,
Ashe, Avery, Mitchell, and Watauga) and three counties in Virginia (Smyth,
Grayson and Carroll). The goal was to learn more about the women's knowledge
and perceptions about pesticides. In general, participants considered
smell the most important aspect of pesticides.
"They therefore took few protective measures beyond avoiding or
eliminating the smell," wrote the authors. "They did not realize
that pesticides and residues often have no detectable odor."
Nearly one-third of the women thought of pesticides as contagious or
exposure as an infection. Some mothers allowed their children in the
fields, believing that as long as they didn't touch the crops, they
weren't at risk of exposure.
"Their perceptions and behavior differ from scientific understanding
of how to limit exposure and result in behaviors that may increase children's
risk of exposure and health problems," said Dr. Arcury. The researchers
called for expanding the EPA regulation requiring pesticide safety training
for workers to include those who live with farmworkers, possibly through
brochures or videos that can be brought home.