Pesticides can be found in the air we breathe, the food we
eat, and the water we drink. They are found in our soil and even in our breast
milk. These pesticides are the only toxic substances released intentionally
into our environment to kill living things: to kill weeds (herbicides), insects
(insecticides), fungus (fungicides), rodents (rodenticides), and others. They
are used almost everywhere — not only in agricultural fields, but also in
homes, parks, schools, buildings, forests, and roads.
Since the publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark 1962 book
Silent Spring, which reveals the horrifying impacts of pesticides like DDT,
scientists are continually discovering new and disturbing ways that pesticides
threaten our environment and our health. We now know that:
Pesticides Are Hazardous To Human Health causing reproductive and developmental effects, cancer,
kidney and liver damage, endocrine disruption, etc. Exposure mainly occurs
through the skin, inhalation, orally, or through the eyes.
Pesticides Cause Special Problems For Children whose bodies and developing organs are particularly
vulnerable. Children take in pesticides in the womb, at home and daycare, and
on schools and playgrounds. Using MRI technology, researchers found that even
low levels exposure to the widely used insecticide chlorpyrifos in utero caused
irreversible brain damage.
"Children Ages 6-11 Nationwide Have Significantly Higher
Levels Of Pesticide Residues In Their Bodies Than All Other Age Categories"
Pesticides Are Particularly Dangerous For Farmers And
Farmworkers.
People and families working on and living near industrial
farms are some of the most at-risk populations. And they are some of the least
protected workers.
Pesticides Can Contaminate Our Food, Harm Pollinators, And
Threaten Our Ecosystems.
Pesticides, especially a group of pesticides called
neonicitinoids (or neonics), are killing the pollinators we depend on to
support our food systems: bees, butterflies, bats, hummingbirds, moths, other
insects, and even lizards and small mammals.
The steps we can take to curb the risk to some extent;
1- Kitchen Gardening
2- Reduce use of synthetic chemicals at least in our home, lawns and schools.
3- Increase use of organics
Source: toxicsaction.org
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