Volume 20 , Number 4 Winter 2000-2001 Pesticides and You€¦ · analysis, continued use of...

Volume 20 , Number 4 Winter 2000-2001

Pesticides and YouNews from Beyond Pesticides / National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP)

Pesticides Linked to Parkinson’s Disease O Minimizing Mouse Madness OChemicalWATCH Factsheet: Rodenticides O Top Ten Myths Behind Pesticide

Dependent Pest Management in Schools O ls Global Warming Harmful to Health

Global climate change and pesticides

— Jay Feldman is executive director of Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP

Letter from Washington

This issue features an article written by Paul Epstein, M.D.,director of the Center for Health and the Global Envi-ronment at Harvard Medical School, about global cli-

mate change, or global warming, and the impacts that it willcertainly have on increasing insect pressures worldwide. Glo-bal warming, as described by Dr. Epstein, will increase the pres-sure on public health officials to use more pesticides.

We can debate whether public health officials continue tooverreact to the threat of West Nile Virus (WNV) in New YorkCity and in communities from Massachusetts to Maryland.While it can be argued convincingly that WNV has limitedimpact on the population, compared to other public healththreats, the discovery of the disease-infected mosquitoes hasgraphically shown us what we can expect in terms of the publichealth response to insect-borne disease vectors. We can ex-pect a lot more pesticide use in our communities and a higherdegree of public exposure to pesticides, given massive pesti-cide spray applications from aircraft and trucks. We can ex-pect a lot more use of insect repellents, DEET and other neu-rotoxic materials. We can expect discussions suggesting thatthe benefits of pesticide use outweigh the risks of the insect-borne disease. And, just as we are beginning to see a shiftaway from continued use of organophosphates and other neu-rotoxic pesticides, we may see pressure to shift back. In fact,we are already seeing the pressure in motion.

When EPA announced its decision to phase out the use ofchlorpyrifos (Dursban) in June, 2000, it retained public healthuses for mosquito control. This may well have been EPA’s Of-fice Pesticide Programs first global warming decision, recog-nizing that a highly toxic neurotoxic chemical, otherwise tootoxic to allow in widespread use, that hangs around in the en-vironment for a long time because it contains a chlorine ring,is going to be necessary in the battle of the bugs in our newwarmer world. While this is all good news for the pesticideindustry, it is bad news for children, elderly, and anyone whobreathes air, drinks water and eats food.

Dr. Epstein cites the fact that mosquitoes proliferate fasterand bite more as the air becomes warmer. He continues, “Atthe same time, greater heat speeds the rate at which patho-gens inside [mosquitoes] reproduce and mature. At 68 de-grees F, the immature P. falciparum parasite takes 26 days todevelop fully, but at 77 degrees F, it takes only 13 days. TheAnopheles mosquitoes that spread this malaria parasite liveonly several weeks: warmer temperatures raise the odds thatthe parasites will mature in time for the mosquitoes to trans-fer the infection.”

To bring the issue closer to home, Dr. Epstein citesweather and the West Nile Virus. He traces a mild winterwhere more mosquitoes than usual may have survived thewinter in sewers, damp basements and other sources of stillwater. That leads to a dry spring and summer where birdscongregated at dwindling water sources, and predators ofmosquitoes were killed off. The summer heat caused the vi-rus to proliferate rapidly among mosquitoes and the follow-

ing drenching rains created new breeding sites and moremosquitoes where the cycle of infected mosquitoes and birdsand then people resulted.

Yes, there will be improved efforts at insect prevention andmanagement as we learn to control insect breeding sites moreeffectively. However, as the fluctuations in weather conditionsworsen, it becomes increasingly difficult to prevent and man-age the problem.

For those most familiar with the serious problems associ-ated with pesticide use and the real public health threat thatit represents, global climate change must be of critical con-cern. If Dr. Epstein is right, “The conditions underlying out-breaks of [WNV] can be traced to global environmentalchange,” we must fight for the systemic changes necessary toprevent the inevitable increase in pesticide use. We foughtfor the transition to organic agriculture and the adoption ofnational organic policy as the response to poisoning and con-tamination associated with pesticide-dependent conventionalagriculture. Now in similar fashion, we must fight for chang-ing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing the emis-sion of other heat trapping gases into the Earth’s atmospherethat give rise to pesticide-dependent public health solutions.The time is now to address all the conditions that give rise toglobal climate change.

Diazinon: Another PhaseoutIn December, 2000, EPA announced a four-year phase outof residential uses of the home and garden insecticide mostwidely used by homeowners. The voluntary move by themanufacturer of diazinon, while welcomed by environmen-talists and public health advocates, raised concerns aboutcontinued sales to unsuspecting consumers. This is now thepattern of EPA action – identify the hazards of a pesticideand allow its manufacturer and retailers to sell off the prod-uct over an extended time period. In July, 2000 commentsto EPA on its preliminary risks assessment for diazinon, Be-yond Pesticides/NCAMP told EPA, “Based on the EPA’s ownanalysis, continued use of diazinon represents an imminenthazard to the health of people and the environment and assuch EPA must act to remove all uses of diazinon from themarket immediately.”

We can move forward success-fully when we join together as aninformed public interested in thehealth of our families, childrenand communities. Best wishes fora healthy new year.

Working for Systemic Change

Vol. 20, No. 4, 2000-2001 Pesticides and You Page 1Beyond Pesticides/National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides

ContentsPesticides and You ©2000 (ISSN 0896-7253), published 4 times a year by theBeyond Pesticides/National CoalitionAgainst the Misuse of Pesticides(NCAMP), is a voice for pesticide safetyand alternatives. Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP is a non-profit, tax-exemptmembership organization; donations aretax-deductible.

National Headquarters:701 E Street, SE,Washington DC 20003ph: 202-543-5450 fx: 202-543-4791email: [email protected]: www.beyondpesticides.orgPrinted on recycled paper with soy ink

Articles in this newsletter may bereproduced without Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP’s permission unless otherwisenoted. Please credit Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP for reproduced material.

BEYOND PESTICIDES/NCAMP STAFFJay Feldman, Executive DirectorKagan Owens, Program DirectorGreg Kidd, J.D.Science & Legal Policy DirectorJohn Kepner, Program AssociateTerry Shistar, Ph.D., Science ConsultantBecky Crouse, Public Education AssociateLeslie Haug, Intern

PESTICIDES AND YOUJay Feldman, Publisher, EditorKagan Owens, Becky Crouse,Paul Epstein, M.D., Greg Kidd,John Kepner, and Terry Shistar, Ph.D.ContributorsFree Hand Press, Typesetting

BEYOND PESTICIDES/NCAMP BOARDOF DIRECTORSRuth Berlin, LCSW-C, MarylandPesticide Network, Annapolis, MDLaura Caballero, Lideres Campesinas enCalifornia, Greenfield, CANancy and Jim Chuda, Children’s HealthEnvironment Coalition, Malibu, CAMerrill Clark, Roseland Farms,Cassopolis, MIAlan Cohen, Biological PestManagement, Washington, DCShelley Davis, J.D., Farmworker JusticeFund, Washington, DCLorna Donaldson-McMahon, SilvertopFarm, Tiptonville, TNJay Feldman, NCAMP, Washington, DCTessa Hill, Kids for Saving EarthWorldwide, Plymouth, MNPaul Repetto, Horizon Organic DairyBoulder, COTerry Shistar, Ph.D., Kansas Chapter,Sierra Club, Lawrence, KSGregg Small, Pesticide Watch,San Francisco, CAAllen Spalt, Agricultural ResourcesCenter, Carrboro, NCAudrey Thier, Environmental Advocates, NY

Affiliations shown for informational purposes only

2 MailTermite Tenting Next Door Causes Concern,Teacher Injured By School Herbicide Use

4 Washington, D.C.S.C. Johnson and Son Gets Slap on the Wrist AfterEPA Says lt lllegally Sold Pesticide, West Nile Vi-rus Can Be Spread Bird-to-Bird Without Mosqui-toes, EPA Announces Weak Diazinon Phase-Out

6 Around the CountryConnecticut Agrees to lnvestigate LobsterDeaths, Pesticide Use on the Rise in New YorkState, Construction of Golf Course Halted OverEnvironmental Concerns, Wasps Used as a Bio-logical Control for Whiteflies, Pesticide Driftsfrom Farm to School, Two Students Sent Home,Monsanto Says No to New GE Technologies, En-vironmentalists Skeptical

9 Pesticides Linked toParkinson’s DiseaseStudy Reveals Home Pesticide Use Leads to 70%Higher Disease Rateby John Kepner

10 Minimizing Mouse MadnessA Guide to House Mouse Controlby Becky Crouse

13 ChemicalWATCH FactsheetRodenticides

15 Ten Myths Behind Pesticide-Dependent Pest Managementin SchoolsDebunking opponents to school integratedpest management, pesticide bans and notifi-cation programs.

19 ls Global Warming Harmful to Health?by Paul R. Epstein, M.D.

24 ResourceA Review of Making BetterEnvironmental Decisionsby Terry Shistar, Ph.D.

Contents

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Page 2 Pesticides and You Vol. 20, No. 4, 2000-2001Beyond Pesticides/National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides

Termite Tenting NextDoor Causes ConcernDear Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP,I just found out that our next door neigh-bors had their soil treated for subterra-nean termites yesterday, and will be hav-ing their house tented and fumigated fordrywood termites this coming Friday andSaturday. The tent is scheduled to go upbetween 11am and 1pm on Friday, andwon’t be taken off until 1pm on Satur-day. They won’t certify that it is safe forthe homeowners to return until Monday.

I have never had to be right next doorto a house that was being tented. Besideskeeping our windows closed and stayingout of the yard, do you have any adviceor recommendations for us to minimizepossible exposure to the pesticides?

Please send me advice as soon as pos-sible, as I am extremely nervous aboutthe impending fumigation. Thanks!Laura BlackieMission Viejo, CA

Dear Laura,Whole-house fumigation is a common tech-nique employed to eliminate a variety ofstructural pests. The house is covered withan impermeable covering and a toxic gas ispumped in, usually sulfuryl fluoride(Vikane™) or methyl bromide. A couple ofdays later, the house is vented and aired out,and the air is tested to make sure that thegas has dissipated. Generally, we wouldrecommend that you make every effort toleave for the weekend, even to stay in a lo-cal hotel, especially if you and yourneighbor’s houses are in close proximity. Thechemicals are extremely volatile and willtravel, and could penetrate your home aswell. If you cannot leave for the weekend,then try to find out when they will be vent-ing the house after the tenting, and stayaway during that period. That is when theywill be flushing the chemicals out of thehouse and you are most likely to be exposed.Closing all of your windows is a good idea,but there have been studies that have shownthat pesticides can enter your home throughcracks and crevices in the structure (i.e.

around windows). You need to be carefulthat you don’t inadvertently trap the chemi-cal in your home. Be sure to turn off anyventilation devices that will draw in out-side air, and, after they have finished tent-ing and venting your neighbor’s house, thor-oughly ventilate your own home. Run floorand ceiling fans, and open the windows and

doors. Be sure to move air that may becometrapped under stairwells and near the ceil-ing in small areas, such as hallways. Ac-cording to the Extension Toxicology Net-work Pesticide Information Profiles, acuteeffects of sulfuryl fluoride exposure includedepression, slowed gait, slurred speech, nau-sea, vomiting, drunkenness, itching, twitch-ing, and seizures. Chronic exposure cancause injury to lungs and kidneys, weak-ness, weight loss, anemia, bone brittleness,stiff joints, and general ill health. Acute tox-icity of methyl bromide may cause head-ache; dizziness; nausea or vomiting; chestand abdominal pain; irritated eyes, nose,and throat; slurred speech; blurred vision;temporary blindness; mental confusion;sweating; lung swelling; hemorrhaging ofthe brain, heart, and spleen; severe kidneydamage; and numbness, tremors, and con-vulsion. Chronic exposure to methyl bro-mide can include dizziness, vision and hear-ing disturbances, depression, confusion, hal-lucinations, euphoria, personality changes,irritability, and chronic pneumonia-like

symptoms. Both methyl bromide and sulfu-ryl fluoride are highly toxic, colorless andodorless gasses, and are mixed with chlo-ropicrin (a pesticide registered as a grainfumigant), which acts as a warning agentto those handling either gas by irritatingthe eyes and nose. If you feel any healtheffects from the chemicals used in the tent-ing, find out which chemical was used, seea doctor immediately, and contact your stateand regional EPA offices to report that youhave had a reaction to a pesticide treatment.It should be noted that there are alterna-tives to toxic-chemical tenting, which in-clude cold and heat treatments.

Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP has informa-tion about the toxicity of the chemicals usedin structural fumigation and about least-toxic termite control available for $4ppd.

Teacher lnjured BySchool Herbicide UseDear Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP,I would like to share with you the reasonI am no longer teaching. I taught physicaleducation for twenty years and alsocoached a variety of sports. I loved myteaching career and planned to continueteaching for many years. However, I wentto school as usual on a Monday morningthree years ago and was overwhelmed bypesticide fumes. Our janitors had sprayedour building with a pesticide containingdiazinon, and I immediately became se-verely ill. My eyes burned, it became veryhard to breathe, numbness spread up myarms, I got a migraine headache, and myheart was skipping beats. I had never takenmany sick days, so I initially assumed Iwould probably be sick a few days andthen quickly get back to “normal.” Unfor-tunately, the pesticide damaged my im-mune system and my body will never re-turn to normal.

I got sicker each time I tried to re-turn to the building, but I was deter-mined to find a way to teach. Since Itaught P.E., I was able to teach for a whileoutdoors, calling in sick when it rained.A big shade tree became my “classroom.”When cold weather came, I was forced

edited by Becky Couse


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to start a leave of absence. Eventually, Ifound a doctor who specializes in thetreatment of chemical injuries. She di-agnosed me with an illness called Mul-tiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS),which means my body now reactsto a number of “everyday”chemicals: All pesticides/her-bicides; perfume; gasoline;paint; glue; smoke; clean-ing products; many medi-cations; and virtually anypetrochemical product.This has radically changedmy life. Not only have I beenforced to give up a career Iloved, but also I am basicallyhomebound because somany different products nowcause me severe reactions. Iused to keep my campinggear packed in my truck andtwice went on 5,000-milesolo camping trips. I havenever been one to sit athome, but now I am unableto leave home because of the widespreaduse of weed killer chemicals.

My reason for sharing this with you isto ask your help to see that this neverhappens to anyone else! I can’t stop think-ing about all the kids who may not feelwell every day because they are breath-ing in pesticides such as diazinon. Mydoctor, who is one of the leading MCSresearchers in the country, says HALF ofall allergy and asthma patients suffer ad-verse affects from pesticides. How manykids are suffering needlessly? We also of-ten hear about test scores dropping andabout aggressive behavior in school.What do we expect when neurotoxicchemicals are routinely used around stu-dents? We have got to do a better job ofprotecting our students and staff form thehealth hazards associated with toxicchemicals such as diazinon.Linda Baker

Dear Linda,Thank you for sharing your story with us.Unfortunately, it is similar to many oth-

ers’ personal experiences. A memo writ-ten by a Health Statistician with the HealthEffects Division in the Office of Prevention,

Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, En-vironmental Protection Agency

(EPA), stated that 11,808 uninten-tional diazinon residential expo-

sures were reported to PoisonControl Centers from 1993-1996. That memo alsostated, “diazinon is one ofthe leading causes ofacute reactions to insecti-cide use reported as poi-soning incidents in theU.S.” And EPA’s now de-funct Pesticide IncidentMonitoring System re-ported 903 diazinon relatedhuman poisonings between1966-1980.

You will be happy tolearn that, on December 5,2000, the EPA announced afour-year phase out of the or-

ganophosphate pesticidediazinon. Although I am sure you agreethat all uses of diazinon should be haltedimmediately, according to the EPADiazinon Revised Risk Assessment andAgreement with Registrants (12/5/00),products for indoor crack and crevice, andany other indoor residential or indoor non-residential uses will be canceled. Registra-tion of these products will be canceled asof March 2001, and retailers must stopsales of the products as of December 31,2002. For outdoor non-agricultural uses(home lawn, garden, and any other out-door residential or outdoor non-agricul-tural uses), production will be phaseddown, with technical registrants requiredto reduce the amount of diazinon producedby 50% or more by 2003. Outdoor non-agricultural uses will also be phased out –formulation of products must cease by June2003, and sale to retailers must stop byAugust 2003. Beginning December 31,2004, technical registrants will start buy-ing back existing products from retailers,and, as of the same date, product registra-tions will expire with no provision for ex-

isting stocks. Diazinon is the most widelyused pesticide by homeowners on lawns,and is one of the most widely used pesti-cide ingredients for application around thehome and in gardens, according to the EPApress release, EPA Announces Elimina-tion of All Indoor Uses of Widely-usedPesticide Diazinon; Begins Phase-out ofLawn and Garden Uses (12/5/00). Allow-ing the sale of diazinon during this phase-out period raises concerns within the en-vironmental community about continuedsales to unsuspecting consumers. Compli-ance with a pesticide label does not offerthe protection that consumers assume, es-pecially in cases such as this, where theEPA has identified the pesticide as hazard-ous but left it in commerce. Diazinon is amember of the organophosphate family ofpesticides, whose common mode of actionis on the nervous system. Short-term ef-fects of exposure could include: headaches,nausea, dizziness, swelling joints, disori-entation, and respiratory problems, whilelong-term impacts on the nervous systemcan impair bodily functions.

Contact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP formore information about diazinon ($4 ppd),see page 5 of this issue, or see our websiteat www.beyondpesticides.org.

Washington, DC


S.C. Johnson and SonGets Slap on the WristAfter EPA Says ltlllegally Sold PesticideCould you imagine buying a productthat actually causes the problem it issupposed to solve? Like buying coldmedicine that makes you sneeze, orsoap that makes your handsdirty? Certainly no companywould make a productlike this, right? Well,S.C. Johnson andSon did. Last Janu-ary, the Environ-mental ProtectionAgency (EPA) re-called AllerCareTM

Dust Mite AllergenSpray for Carpet andUpholstery, an al-lergy spray contain-ing the pesticidebenzyl benzoate thatcan actually causeallergic reactions,and charged S.CJohnson and Sonwith the illegal saleand distribution ofthe pesticide. TheEPA recall came nearly three monthsafter the agency began receiving ad-verse effect reports on the product andrealized the spray was not registered asa pesticide product with the agency.(See the Spring 2000 edition of Pesti-cides and You (Vol. 20, No. 1) for moreinformation on the AllerCareTM recall.)Now, after nearly nine months of wait-ing, EPA announced that S.C. Johnsonreached a small monetary settlementfor victims of AllercareTM poisoning.Since October, over 400 incidents,ranging from severe to minor reactions,including asthma attacks, respiratoryproblems, burning sensations, and skinirritation, have been documented byEPA. Allergy and asthma sufferers ap-pear to be most negatively affected bythe use of the spray, with most reac-

tions occurring within 15 to 30minutes of product application.EPA has also received some re-ports of reactions in pets.

AllerCareTM Dust Mite Aller-gen Spray for Carpet and Uphol-stery has been removed fromstore shelves and is no longer pro-duced by the S.C Johnson and Son,Inc. Under the agreement, the com-pany has to pay only $200,000 in civil

penalties, but will provide fund-ing to the Asthma and Allergy

Foundation of America topurchase and staff a Mo-

bile Asthma Clinic“Breathmobile®” forspecialized healthcare to Baltimore’s in-ner-city children.The settlement fundsthe “Breathmobile®”for one year of diag-nosis and treatmentat a cost of just un-der $700,000. Manypeople feel this is asmall price to pay forputting children andother allergy suffer-ers at risk.

For more informa-tion on the recall, visitEPA’s website at:

www.epa.gov/pesticides/citizens/recalls.htm.If you have had an adverse reaction toAllerCareTM products, contact Jerry Blondell,EPA, Health Effects Division (7509C), ArielRios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW,Washington, DC 20460, 1-800-858-7378,[email protected]. If you have AllerCareTM

Dust Mite Allergen Spray for Carpet andUpholstery in your home, contact SCJohnson, 1-877-255-3722, for instructionson where to take the product for recovery,or for a refund.

West Nile Virus Can BeSpread Bird-to-BirdWithout MosquitoesLast summer, communities were load-ing their trucks with insecticides to

combat the West Nile Virus (WNV) atthe first sight of a dead crow. But a newstudy adds more suspect to the posi-tion that spraying based only on deadbirds was premature. On October 25,2000, scientists at the U.S. GeologicalSurvey’s (USGS) Wildlife Health Cen-ter in Madison, Wisconsin announcedthat WNV can be transmitted directlybetween birds, without the help ofmosquitoes, previously thought to bethe sole means of transmission. Afterscientists placed infected birds in thesame biocontainment aviary withhealthy control birds, nine infectedbirds died within five to eight days.Four healthy control birds died fromthe virus five to eight days later. Thefifth control bird died eleven days af-ter that, meaning the virus was trans-mitted from once healthy birds to an-other healthy bird. “It confirms a sus-picion that we had and wanted toverify,” said Dr. Robert McLean, direc-tor of the USGS National WildlifeHealth Center. “The setting was a verycontrolled scientific experiment andwe’re not sure if or how this relates towhat is happening in the wild. Mosqui-toes are the primary means of transmis-sion of the virus between birds and tohumans. But this certainly opens up ahost of new questions.”

Environmentalists maintain that in-fected crows do not indicate the pres-ence of infected mosquitoes in the area,and should not trigger pesticide sprayprograms. Environmentalists also raiseconcerns about the effect of toxic pesti-cides on beneficial mosquito-eating or-


ganisms, the likelihood mosquito resis-tance to the pes-ticides, andthe inaccu-racy of pesti-cide spraytrucks atr e a c h i n gtheir target.Because ofthe ineffec-tiveness ofp e s t i c i d espraying andthe adverse ef-fects on humanhealth, many com-munities lobbied withthese arguments follow-ing the 1999 mosquitoseason. Based on experienceand effective management techniques,infected birds did not trigger sprayingin some communities, including NassauCounty, New York and Fairfield County,Connecticut. This policy drew sharpcriticism from New York City Mayor,Rudolf Giulliani, who has insisted thepesticides used in New York are safe andsaid the reluctance of Nassau County tospray was putting New Yorkers in dan-ger. Co-founder of Connecticut SeekingAlternatives for the Environment, RivkaLieber, who was instrumental in stop-ping the Fairfield County spraying,has a different philosophy. “The currentsystem assumes pesticides areinnocent until proven guilty and that’swrong,” Ms. Lieber told the HartfordCourant. “The presumption of inno-cence has made people sick and dam-aged the ecosystem.”

According to the USGS, crows arehighly susceptible to the virus, and be-cause of their behavior, more likelythan other bird species that live in closecontact with one another to transmitthe disease to one another. The virusattacks the crow’s entire body and of-ten affects all the major organs. Cur-rently scientists are conducting stud-ies to determine exactly how the virusis transmitted without mosquitoespresent. “By keeping the infected and

healthy birds together in close contact,we really maximized the

potential that this bird-to-bird transmission

could take place. Nowwe know it did and

we want to figureout how.” Thee x p e r i m e n twas done incollaborationwith theW i l d l i f eConserva-tion Soci-ety, whichalso helpedfund the

study. Formore informa-

tion on the studycontact Butch Kinerney

of the USGS at 703-648-4732 or visitwww.umesc.usgs.gov/http_data/nwhc/news/westnil2.html. For an informationpacket on WNV send $4 to Beyond Pes-ticides/NCAMP.

EPA Announces WeakDiazinon Phase-OutThe Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) announced on December 5, 2000,an agreement with the Syngenta Corpo-ration that will allow residential uses ofdiazinon, the most widely used insecti-cide by homeowners in the U.S., to bephased out over a four-year period with-out any warning to consumers about itsneurotoxic properties. Under the agree-ment, all sales of diazinon products in-tended for indoor use must cease by De-cember 31, 2002, and sales for productsintended for non-agricultural outdooruse must end by December 31, 2004, atwhich point the manufacturer will be-gin to buy back existing stocks. Approxi-mately 30% of diazinon’s agriculturaluses will be cancelled, retaining use onover 40 crops and additional imports. En-vironmentalists believe that the EPAagreement is too weak, because it doesnot adequately protect public health. Be-

yond Pesticides/NCAMP urgeshomeowners, pest control companiesand farmers to stop their use and retail-ers stop sale of diazinon immediately.

“Nothing short of a ban of diazinonwill protect the public from thechemical’s adverse effects to the nervoussystem,” said Jay Feldman, executive di-rector of Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP.“Since less toxic and non-toxic alterna-tives are available for all diazinon uses,it is wrong and unnecessary to allow itsuses to continue during a long phase outperiod.” In June of this year, EPA an-nounced a similar agreement on anotherwidely used insecticide, chlorpyrifos, andwas sharply criticized for allowing salesto continue through 2001 and all stocksto be used up. A number of states’ attor-neys general urged retailers to stop saleof chlorpyrifos immediately when thataction was announced. With an evenlonger phase-out period for diazinon,similar action can be expected.

Diazinon, a highly toxic organo-phosphate insecticide, is sold under thetrade names Ortho, Spectracide andReal-Kill. It is currently registered foruse in agriculture and for residentialindoor and home garden use to con-trol cockroaches, aphids, scales, mites,fleas and ticks, among others. After along court battle in the late 1980’s, useson sod farms and golf courses werecancelled in 1988. Diazinon is neuro-toxic and causes irritation to the eyesand skin. EPA’s now defunct PesticideIncident Monitoring System (PIMS)reported 903 diazinon related poison-ings between 1966-80. Studies haveshown birth defects in laboratory ani-mals, and birds, especially grazing fowllike ducks and geese, are particularlysusceptible to diazinon poisoning. In1985, diazinon, applied in accordancewith the label instructions, was respon-sible for a bird kill of over 700 Atlan-tic brant in New York State. EPA willbe opening a public comment period ondiazinon’s revised risk assessment in thefollowing weeks. Contact Beyond Pesti-cides/NCAMP for instructions on submit-ting comments and the docket number toinclude with your comments.

Pesticides and You Vol. 20, No. 4, 2000-2001Beyond Pesticides/National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides

Connecticut Agreesto lnvestigate LobsterDeathsHelicopters spraying pesticides were a fa-miliar part of the New York City metroarea skyline in the Fall of 1999. Peopleran for cover as the helicopters dousedthe streets, houses and waterways withinsecticides used to combat the West NileVirus (WNV). Then there was the after-math. In the city, peoplewere exposed to toxic pes-ticides and 200+ reports ofpoisoning were filed. In therivers and the Long IslandSound, the water was con-taminated with pesticidesknown to be toxic to aquaticlife, and the lobsters weredying. But for one reason oranother, not everyone be-lieves the pesticides are toblame. On September 30,2000, the Connecticut Department of En-vironmental Protection (DEP) announcedthat it has allocated $3.5 million to studythe recent die-off of lobsters in the LongIsland Sound. The sound, a 90-mile inletof the Atlantic Ocean located betweenConnecticut and New York, has lost vir-tually all of its harvestable lobster popu-lation since last year’s mosquito spraying.The Connecticut DEP is among the ranksof those who do not believe pesticides areresponsible for the recent decline in the

local lobster population and argues that aparasite is to blame. Other biologists be-lieve that if parasites are responsible, thepesticides certainly played an importantrole, making the lobsters more susceptibleto disease.

In August, local lobstermen filed suitin U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, NY,against the pesticides’ manufacturers,Cheminova Inc. of Wayne, NJ, whichsold malathion-based products to New

York State, and Clarke Industries ofRoselle, IL, which sold pyrethoid-con-taining pesticides to the state of Con-necticut. “I think the people who are outof business should be compensated,” saidNick Crismale, a plaintiff and presidentof the Connecticut Lobstermen’s Asso-ciation told the Stamford Advocate. “Oursecond objective is to stop the sprayingand allow the fishery to come back.”Gladstone Jones, attorney for the Con-necticut lobstermen, contends that the

pesticide manufacturers, particularlyCheminova, knew their products couldharm crustaceans, which are biologicallysimilar to insects. Both malathion andsynthetic pyrethroids are extremely toxicto aquatic organisms. For more informa-tion on the toxic effects of malathion andsynthetic pyrethroids, contact Beyond Pes-ticides/NCAMP or send $4 to receive factsheets through the mail. For more infor-mation on the lawsuit involving thelobstermen, contact Connecticut SeekingAlternatives for the Environment (SAFE)at 203-329-9990 or [email protected].

Pesticide Use on theRise in New York StateOn October 18, 2000, EnvironmentalAdvocates and the New York Public In-terest Research Group (NYPIRG), bothbased in Albany, NY, released a 44-pagereport, The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Useand Sales in New York State 1997-1998,which documents an enormous volumeof toxic pesticide use in New York State,with disproportionately high use in ur-banized areas of the state. The groups uti-

lized data collected by thestate Department of Envi-ronmental Conservation(DEC) under the 1996 Pes-ticide Reporting Law. Thepesticides cited in the re-port pose a constellation ofhazards including: healthrisks such as neurotoxicity,carcinogenicity, and endo-crine, immune, and repro-ductive system damage; en-vironmental risks such as

contamination of indoor and ambient air,water, and food; and increased pest prob-lems due to pesticide resistance and sec-ondary infestations. According to thereport, New York is not unique in itsover-reliance on hazardous pesticides,but it has the opportunity to be uniquein how it faces up to this knowledge. Thepesticide reporting data offer the insightto direct this effort, showing not just thegreatest hazards but also the greatestopportunity for change.

Around the Country by John Kepner


In contrast with the EnvironmentalProtection Agency’s (EPA) finding that77% of all pesticide use is in agriculture,New York urban and suburban use farexceeds agricultural use, with New YorkCity, Long Island, and Westchester ac-counting for 60% of the total pesticidesused by gallons in the state, while consti-tuting only 4% of the state’s geographicarea. This confirms the findings in an ear-lier report, Plagued by Pesticides, by thesame authors. New York City alone ac-counts for 36% of the total gallons of pes-ticides reported for the state in 1998. Thereport reveals that across the state, 4.5million gallons of pesticides were reportedused by commercial applicators or soldto farmers in 1998. This is a 20% increasefrom 1997. Nearly a third of the totalamount of pesticides reported by gallonsin 1998 are classified by EPA as knownor suspected carcinogens. More than aquarter are suspected endocrinedisruptors, and approximately one quar-ter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemi-cal families of organophosphate and car-bamate insecticides. The top pesticide re-ported by gallons in 1998 waschlorpyrifos, sold as Dursban, a broad-spectrum insecticide recently restricted byEPA in June 2000 because of its high tox-icity and the danger it poses to children.

The report concludes that severalsteps must be taken to protect the citi-zens of New York. These actions include:banning the use of the most toxic pesti-cides and eliminating pesticide use insettings where they pose particular dan-gers, actively promoting safer alternativesto pesticides, assessing a variable tax forpesticide manufacturers tied to their pes-ticide sales to finance all pesticide pro-grams, reducing pesticide use in NewYork City, allocating more resources toprotect farmworkers, banning the aes-thetic use of pesticides on lawns, trees,shrubs and ornamental gardens, improv-ing the pesticide reporting data and re-moving barriers to justice for pesticideexposure. For a copy of this report, visitwww.envadvocates.org/public_html/Pest/Toxic_Treadmill/toxic_treadmill.htm orsend $5 to Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP fora hardcopy (44 pp.).

Construction of GolfCourse Halted Over En-vironmental Concerns“Not in my backyard!” exclaimed hun-dreds of concerned parents, citizens andenvironmentalists when constructioncrews in Stony Point, New York brokeground on a new municipal golfcourse. On November 3, 2000,a state court in New York or-dered officials in the LongIsland town to stop con-struction on the golfcourse site pendingcompletion of a de-tailed environmentalimpact study. Thecourt issued a tem-porary restrainingorder in response toa lawsuit filed bythe NeighborhoodNetwork ResearchCenter and theStony Point Ac-tion Committeefor the Environment after the town ofStony Point granted permission for theconstruction of a new municipal golfcourse, stating, “No negative environ-mental impact would result from thecourse.” The lawsuit, filed under article78, asked the court to annul, cancel orset aside a previous decision by a mu-nicipality. “Stony Point failed to accu-rately fill out a detailed form seeking in-formation about the scope of a proposaland its impact on everything from air andwater to traffic and historic sites,” FrankCollyer, a concerned resident involvedwith the lawsuit told the Journal News.“The town also failed to accurately out-line steps that would be taken to lessenthe environmental impact.”

Among issues including sprawl, defor-estation and poor land management, en-vironmentalists and other citizens are con-cerned about the pesticide use that a newgolf course would bring to the commu-nity and local ecosystem. Long IslandNeighborhood Network (LINN), a part-ner organization of the Neighborhood

Network Research Center, believes thatgolf courses should be managed in such away that there are no harmful effects oneither the environment or public health.LINN currently runs an Organic Golf cam-

paign, which has the ultimategoal of eliminating syntheticgolf course pesticide use by

implementing organicmanagement practices at

existing golf coursesand supporting anorganic standard forthe construction ofany new golfcourses. For more

information on the law-suit or the Organic Golfcampaign, contact theLong Island NeighborhoodNetwork at 516-541-4321or visit their website atwww.longislandnn.org.For a pesticides and golfpacket that includes ex-amples of golf courses thathave converted to organicor drastically reduced

their chemical dependence, send $6 to Be-yond Pesticides/NCAMP.

Wasps Used as aBiological Controlfor WhitefliesThey’ve sprayed and sprayed some more,but the pesticides used to controlCalifornia’s giant whitefly problem justaren’t working. While this hasn’t surprisedenvironmentalists familiar with the inef-fectiveness of pesticide spray programs,it has left California researchers scram-bling for a new method of control. Themost recent and most effective solutionhas come out of the University of Califor-nia Cooperative Extension for Orange andLos Angeles counties, which introducedtwo species of parasitic wasps to controlthe giant whitefly population. “Applica-tions of pesticides and removal with wa-ter are only temporary, and pesticide useis actually detrimental,” John Kabashimaof the University of California Coopera-


tive Extension told the Los Angeles Times.“Introducing pesticides into the environ-ment disrupts other natural systems, andactually kills off beneficial predators, in-cluding the wasps, which are more frag-ile. The whiteflies will come back, but thebeneficial parasites may not, and you’llhave a worse problem than you startedwith.” In fact, whiteflies, known as sec-ondary pests, emerged as a serious pestproblem after its natural predators werekilled off by conventional synthetic pes-ticides. The stingerless wasps, which areimported from Mexico, control the giantwhitefly population by laying their eggsinside the whitefly larvae. When the waspeggs hatch, their larvae feed on the giantwhitefly larvae, killing the host. Scientistsat the University of California claim thatthe wasps, while not harmful to other spe-cies, will eventually have a tremendousimpact on the giant whitefly, once thewasp population is established. The num-ber of giant whiteflies has declined sincethe introduction of the wasps last year.

Pesticide Drifts fromFarm to School, TwoStudents Sent HomeOn the morning of November 8, 2000,children arriving at Mound ElementarySchool in Ventura, California walked intoa cloud of LorsbanTM, a pesticidecontaining the active ingredientchlorpyrifos, that had driftedfrom a neighboring lemon or-chard onto school property.Two children were senthome because of symp-toms of pesticide poi-soning. The Los Ange-les Times reported thatdozens of students andschool staff com-plained of headaches,nausea and dizzinessassociated with thepesticide exposure. Be-cause of the incident,the citrus grove owner has agreed to haltspraying during schools hours. But thatis not enough, says the community ac-

tivists group, Community and Children’sAdvocates Against Pesticide Poisoning(CCAAPP). CCAAPP is calling on theAgriculture Commissioner and schoolboard officials to establish a one-milebuffer zone that prohibits the use of pes-ticides around schools. Beyond Pesti-cides/NCAMP’s report, The Schooling ofState Pesticide Laws – 2000, states thatsix states have recognized the importanceof controlling drift by restricting pesti-cide applications in areas neighboring aschool. These states create spray restric-tion zones that range from 300 feet to21/2 miles. Four of these states, Louisi-ana, New Hampshire, New Jersey andNorth Carolina, specifically restrict ag-ricultural pesticide use either duringcommuting hours or regular schoolhours. (See the November 2000 edition ofTechnical Report (Vol. 15, No. 11).)

Chlorpyrifos is in the family of approxi-mately 40 widely used organophosphatepesticides, known neurotoxic chemicals.It is the thirteenth most commonly usedpesticide in agriculture, with 13 millionpounds applied annually. Acute exposurecan result in symptoms such as numbness,incoordination, dizziness, nausea, stomachcramps, headaches, anxiety, drowsiness,depression, and muscle twitching. In 1997,EPA Office of Pesticide Programs, HealthEffects Division reported that chlorpyrifosis one of the leading causes of acute insec-

ticide poisoning incidents in the U.S.Chlorpyrifos has been controversialfor decades. In June 2000, the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) and chlorpyrifosmanufacturers agreed

to phase-out mostchlorpyrifos householduses, citing children’shigh risks associatedwith chlorpyrifos ex-posure. Agriculture(excluding tomatoes),golf course, mosquitocontrol and container-ized baits are not af-fected by the agree-

ment. The EPA chlorpyrifos agreementbegins the process of getting high con-sumer and children exposure uses of

chlorpyrifos off the market, but continuesto put people at risk by not stopping allits uses immediately. See the July 2000 edi-tion of Technical Report (Vol. 15, No. 7).For more information on pesticides andschools, contact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP,for a copy of The Schooling of State Pesti-cide Laws — 2000 report visitwww.beyondpesticides.org or send $2 to Be-yond Pesticides/NCAMP for a hardcopy.

Monsanto Says No toNew GE Technologies,EnvironmentalistsSkepticalAfter years of rejecting genetically modi-fied “frankenfoods,” consumer pressurefinally paid off on November 27, 2000,when the Monsanto Corporation an-nounced that it will back off from somecontroversial genetic engineering technolo-gies and promised to be more receptive togovernment safety regulation. Monsantoalso pledged not to use animal or humangenes in modified crops and promised tosell products commercially only after theyare approved for consumption by humansas well as livestock. “We were blinded byour own enthusiasm,” Monsanto ChiefExecutive Hendrik Verfaillie conceded be-fore a Farm Journal conference, accordingto the Agribusiness Examiner. “We focusedso much on getting this technology rightfor the grower that we didn’t fully take intoaccount the issues and concerns it raisedfor other people.” Despite the step forward,environmentalists remain skeptical. Ac-cording to Julie Miles, a co-founder of Ge-netically Engineered Food Alert,“Monsanto’s acknowledgement thatthey’ve rushed this technology is meaning-ful, but if Monsanto truly wants to respondto consumer concerns, it should supportmandatory testing and mandatory labelingof genetically engineered foods.” Expertsbelieve that Monsanto’s decision was mostlikely based on its poor performance in thestock market. For more information on ge-netically modified crops or the connectionbetween genetic engineering and pesticides,contact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP.


Pesticides Linked to Parkinson’s DiseaseStudy Reveals Home Pesticide Use Leads to 70% Higher Disease Rate

By John Kepner

The U.S. government spends millions of dollars each yeartrying to find a cure for common diseases — from asthmaand hyperactivity to cancer and neurological disorders.

Researchers work long hours trying to develop that lucrativevaccine that will solve our medical problems. But what if rea-sonable changes in our use of toxic chemicals could actuallyprevent these life-threatening diseases? Many scientific studieslink pesticides to asthma, cancer and other environmental ill-nesses, but we still lack the tough laws to prevent exposure totoxic chemicals, especially pesticides. After years of notably highrates in farming communities1 , recent studies have shownParkinson’s disease to be clearly linked to home-use pesticides.

Parkinson’s DiseaseParkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder characterized byprogressively degenerative symptoms including tremors, musclerigidity, slowness and imbalance. A loss of cells in the substan-tia nigra, a region of the brain that produces the chemicaldopamine, which is essential to signal muscle cells properly,causes the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. According to medi-cal science, the cause of Parkinson’s disease is still uncertain,but recent studies suggest that it is caused by factors in theenvironment, rather than genetics2 . Other researchers believethat there is a genetic predisposition that is triggered by certaintoxics in the environment. These scientists caution that becauseit is impossible to know your genetic disposition, all peopleshould avoid contact with environmental toxics. Pesticides,industrial chemicals and heavy metals are the primary suspectslinked to Parkinson’s disease. While the disease is usually seenin people over 60, recently there has been a rise in cases forpeople under 403 . Today an estimated one million Americansare living with the disease. Treatments are available for the symp-toms, but there is currently no cure for Parkinson’s disease.

Early FindingsThe suspicion that pesticides might be linked to Parkinson’sdisease was theorized in the 1980’s following a wave of drug-induced Parkinson’s-like illnesses. The drug, MPTP, which wasused as a heroin substitute, is transformed in the brain afterinjection. The new compound, MPP+, causes the loss ofdopamine producing cells and the sudden onset of aParkinson’s-like illness4 . It was later discovered that MPP+was not only the breakdown product of an obscure drug, butalso the active ingredient of the herbicide cyperquat, andclosely related to other pesticides.

This discovery sparked interest in studying the link betweenpesticides and Parkinson’s disease. The early studies revealed apositive correlation between rural life, farming or orchard workand the incidence of the disease. A 1988 study published in Neu-rology, discovered that many people living in rural areas, with nodiagnosed neurological disorders, had lower levels of dopamineproducing cells than urban populations5 . This suggested thateven in the absence of the illness, some aspect of rural life wasputting them at risk for Parkinson’s disease. Another importantstudy came in 1990, when Dr. William Koller at the Universityof Kansas interviewed 300 subjects, half of whom suffered fromParkinson’s disease. He discovered that Parkinsonians were twiceas likely as their healthy counterparts to have grown up in farm-ing communities, where pesticides often contaminate groundwater. Dr. Koller’s study showed that people with the diseasewere also more likely to draw their drinking water from wells1.In 1996, a German study linked Parkinson’s disease specificallyto pesticides, particularly organochlorines, alkylated phosphatesand wood preservatives, and found no link to other rural factors.

Recent Findings: From Farm to HomeThrough the end of the 1990’s, most studies linking pesticideuse to Parkinson’s disease were conducted in farming commu-nities, and the decade came to an end with no substantial linkto non-agricultural pesticides. However, in May 2000, Dr.Lorene Nelson, a neuroepidemiologist at Stanford University,released the results of the first study to show a correlation be-tween pesticides and Parkinson’s disease, outside of agricul-ture6 . Her study, which was also the largest ever of its kind,showed a significant link between Parkinson’s disease and homepesticide use. The study questioned about 1000 subjects, halfof whom were recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Theparticipants answered detailed questions about the type of pes-ticides used, frequency of use, and when they were first ex-posed to home and garden pesticides.

Dr. Nelson’s study revealed that people exposed to in-homeinsecticides are 70 percent more likely to develop Parkinson’sdisease. Exposure to garden insecticides carries a 50 percent in-crease of developing the disease. Among herbicide users, the riskof developing Parkinson’s increases as the number of days in con-tact with herbicides accumulates. Respondents who reportedhandling or applying herbicides for up to 30 days were 40 per-cent more likely to develop the Parkinson’s, whereas respondentsthat reported 160 days exposure, had a 70 percent increase. Dr.Nelson’s full report is expected to be published in early 2001.

1 Koller, W. et al. 1990. Environmental Risk Factors in Parkinson’s Disease. Neu-rology 40:1218-1221.

2 Tanner, C. et al. 1999. Parkinson Disease In Twins: An Etiological Study. Jour-nal of the American Medical Association. 281:341-378.

3 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Parkinson’s Disease:Hope Through Research. National Institutes of Health. www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/pubs/parkinson_disease_htr.htm.

4 Langston, W.J. and P. Ballard. 1983. Chronic Parkinsonism in Humans Due toa Product of Meperidine-Analog Synthesis. Science. 219:979-980.

5 Thiessen, B. et al. 1998. Substantia Nigra Neuronal Counts in Normal Ruraland Urban Population. Neurology. 38:348.

6 Stephenson, J. 2000. Exposure to Home Pesticides Linked to Parkinson Dis-ease. JAMA Medical News and Perspectives. 238:3.


Afriend of mine had a pet mouse named Nickodemus.We would take him out of his cage and pet him, andlet him run up and down our arms. Unfortunately, my

friend’s mom didn’t find him so endearing. You know that“EEK!” heard in every cartoon featuring a rodent? Peoplereally do that. Poor Nickodemus was given up for adoption.Now, having awoken to something scurrying across my bed,and having found a fuzzy friend in my kitchen, I under-stand that it’s more than a little unnerving, but I also knowit’s inevitable. Mice are attracted to placesthat provide hiding places andeasy-to-access food. You aregoing to find them any-where humans live, andmice have been foundeverywhere from pent-house apartments andupscale restaurants, tolow-income neighbor-hoods and fast-foodjoints. Now, combinethis food and shelter withthe onset of cold weather,and suddenly you havemore roommates than youever thought possible.They’re warm blooded, andthey don’t have a fireplace intheir den. (Unless, of course, your den has become theirden.) They are going to want in, and they’re incredibly re-sourceful in their pursuit of a warm, cozy home – yours.

Can l see some lD?Can l see some lD?Can l see some lD?Can l see some lD?Can l see some lD?The house mouse’s body is brown to gray, about 3 to 4 incheslong, and weighs only about 1/2 ounce. It has a semi-naked,dark tail about the length of its head and body combined,large ears and eyes in proportion to its head, and a pointedsnout. Its upper incisors are flat and notched, and its fecesis rod shaped, pointed at the ends, and about 1/4 inch long.

They’re multiplying!They’re multiplying!They’re multiplying!They’re multiplying!They’re multiplying!One pair of house mice can, in theory, produce 87 young peryear. The female becomes sexually mature at two- to three-monthsold, and is sexually receptive and fertile (estrus) every four daysthroughout the year, but will mate at any time. Her gestationperiod is 20 days, and her average-sized litter is 6.7 cute, cuddly,little newborns. She can produce, depending on the availabilityof food, up to 10 litters per year. Mouse populations will grow as

large as their food, shelter, and other competing species will al-low. No matter what method of control you choose, the onlyway to permanently rid yourself of a mouse problem is to re-move their access to the food and shelter that you are providing.

Keeping them out.The first defense and offense should always be prevention.A full-grown mouse can enter your house through a hole

the size of a dime. They are talented climb-ers and able to swim, but do not need

water to survive. (They get waterfrom their food.) To minimize your

house mouse magnetism:

OutsideE Stuff holes in and aroundthe house with steel woolor copper mesh, or fillthem with caulk or plas-ter and cover with sheetmetal. Pay particular at-tention to the foundationand holes between the

house and garage;

E Seal gaps around the doorsby replacing worn thresholds and

weatherstripping, and installing door sweeps;

E Raise woodpiles at least 12 inches from the ground (and petcages, if mice find them interesting), and wrap the legs in gal-vanized sheet metal to prevent the mice from climbing them;

E Cut tall grass, weeds, and brush from around the founda-tion and dispose of the clippings;

E Discard or recycle unused clutter around the house thatmay be providing a home for mice;

E Pick up fallen fruit and rotting vegetables from the garden,and don’t place food scraps at the top of the compost pile;

E Store birdseed in a sealed container, use a birdfeeder witha catch tray, and clean up around it regularly; and,

E Store trash in a metal container with a tight cover or fas-tener for the lid.

lnsideE Don’t leave food on counters or dirty dishes in the sink

overnight;

Minimizing Mouse MadnessA Guide to House Mouse Controlby Becky Crouse


E Keep the stovetop, oven, broiler, and kitchen floor clean(especially under the stove and refrigerator);

E Keep the garbage in a plastic container with tight lid;

E Store grains, cereals, nuts, and pet foods in sealed plastic,metal or glass containers, or keep them in the refrigerator;

E Pick up any uneaten pet food before going to bed;

E Caulk openings around water pipes, electric wires, cables,and vents; and,

E Use hardware cloth to screen vents, floor drains, and anyother openings.

How will l know?A mouse scurries across the linoleumwhile you’re contemplating your mid-night snack, you find droppings onthe counter or find a bag of barleywith holes on both ends and a tun-nel running between – it may be thiseasy to determine that you have amouse problem. If you aren’t certainthat Mickey’s cousins have movedin, sprinkle the surface that you sus-pect that they are frequenting witha light coating of flour. If correct,you’ll find footprints in the flourand tracks from the flour, hopefully,to their point of entrance.

Be more aware of possible mouseactivity in the fall, when the coldweather hits, paying particular atten-tion to areas where food is stored.Watch for mouse activity outdoors,in areas adjacent to houses, which maybe the first sign of an impending onslaught.

They’re here!There are a couple of tactics that you can employ to rid your-self of your uninvited guests:

Physical controls:HAVE-A-HEART TRAPS. These “live” traps are meant tocapture the mice so that you canrelease them instead of killingthem. They are usually metalmesh with doors at either end.You can find this type of trap atyour local hardware store, or con-tact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMPfor a list of resources. Just be sureto release your little live friend farenough away from your housethat he won’t return, and remember to block off his point of

entry to prevent any of his friends from taking up residencein his absence.

SNAP TRAPS. If you use snap traps, purchase traps thathave expanded triggers that snap when a mouse runs overthem, even when unbaited, and a clothespin-like closingmechanism, which is thin enough to allow the bait pan to bebent by hand, allowing for the regulation of trigger sensitiv-ity. Your chances of catching your mouse are greater with amore sensitive trigger.

Set baited traps out for a few days without setting the trig-gers, as mice are wary of new objects in their environment.You will also have a chance to see if your bait is disappearing,

indicating that you have chosen a good location for yourtraps and bait that your mice enjoy. If there is no

sign that your bait has been eaten, move yourtraps to a new location. If that doesn’t work,then change your bait.

Mice tend to scurry along the walls, oftenreferred to as runways. Traps should be po-sitioned at a right angle to the wall, withthe bait end towards the wall. Place five toten traps near mouse holes, one to twofeet apart. If you are the lucky host to amultitude of mice, it is more likely thatthey will approach from more than twodirections. Try setting the traps in pairsparallel to the wall, with bait pans fac-ing outwards. Traps should always behandled with gloves, as mice are sen-sitive to the odor of humans. Coatingthe trap with bacon grease will alsohelp to mask your scent.

Bait should be sticky so that themouse will disturb the trigger mecha-nism even if it only touches the baitlightly. Good choices include peanut

butter mixed with rolled oats, raisins,gum drops, or even a small piece of cotton that your littlefriends will attempt to acquire for nesting material. Variousbaked breads have also had great success rates, with trap shy-ness minimized by alternating the type of bread used.

GLUE TRAPS. Many people take issue with glue trapsbecause they don’t kill the mouse immediately and may trapnontarget species. They also get really stinky with that deadrodent odor if not checked daily. Glue traps do, however,catch both large adults and smaller mice, which frequently

escape snap traps. They also aregood for those hard-to-reachplaces or where it is difficult togain access to mouse runways.Glue traps come as either flatboards, or in box or tube types.While the box or tube glue trapwill protect against moisture ordust, mice are more reluctant toenter an unfamiliar enclosed ob-

ject than to tread upon a flat, open object.

Mouse populations will grow as

large as their food, shelter, and other

competing species will allow.


Glue traps should be in place for at least five days toallow enough time for the mice to become accustomed tothem before you decide they are unsuccessful. They can bebaited, with the bait placed in the center of the trap toensure that the mouse establishes full contact. Easiest cleanup is often simply sweeping the successful trap into a gar-bage can, taking care not to touch it with your bare hands.Live animals trapped in the glue can be submerged in soapywater until dead.

With any method of trapping, be sure to block the area offwhere you have set your traps to prevent your children, pets orany other nontarget species from getting hurt or exposed to nastypathogens from the dead and live mice.

REPELLENT SOUND DEVICES. Certain devices dis-rupt the sound communication between mice and repel ro-dents by generating a sound that annoys them, but at a fre-quency that is not heard by humans. There is little scientificproof that this is an effective method of control, though therehave been reports of success using these devices. One ex-ample is a solid-state electronicunit that uses a patented methodof directing variable pulsating fre-quencies onto a carrier, usuallyeither the electrical wiring of abuilding or home, the metalgridwork within a building or theearth around the building, de-pending on where the unit isused. In your home, it would plug into a three-pronged elec-trical outlet and use the building’s existing wiring to carry avariable, pulsating frequency that would distress your mousevisitors, causing them to leave. This system is designed toaffect mice no matter where they are, between walls, in ceil-ings, and below floors. It is best used with another methodof control for the first few months during the “flushing out”period, and when accompanied by habitat modification.

Biological controls:CATS. Think you’re immune to mice because you have a

cat? Think again. Cats may be effective in knocking off theoccasional mouse, but it is unlikely that they will be ca-pable of suppressing an established mouse problem. If youdecide to get a cat, females are more predacious than males,especially if they have a new litter or have been trained by agood mouser. Only count on your cat to prevent initial mouseentry or to detect and remove new mouse colonizers, andremember that, in the small amount of time it lives in yourhouse, a mouse may have time to contaminate food, destroyfurnishings, or spread pathogens over clean dishes.

OTHER BIOLOGICAL CONTROLS. Outside, the mousehas many natural enemies, including native hawks, owls,snakes, mites, ticks, fleas, flies, nematodes, bacteria, and vi-ruses. Maintaining parks with wild areas within urban set-tings can encourage these beneficial organisms.

Specific strains of Typhtmurium-like salmonella bacteria areused to control outbreaks of small field rodents in Russia.This is not, however, a practical resource for consumers.

Chemical Controls:You have options in the world of chemical mouse control

— rodenticides (baits and tracking powders) and bait boxes.Mice nibble rather than eat large quantities at a time, so anyrodenticide that you consider will need to be used at highconcentrations, which means an increase in the hazards tonontarget species (like your pets and kids) who inadvert-ently happen upon your pile o’ poison. If you decide to usepoisons, be sure to block off the areas where you have placedthem to minimize the chance of an accident.

TRACKING POWDERS AND SINGLE-DOSE BAITS:Tracking powders are extremely hazardous and should re-ally be left to a professional pest control operator. Single-dose baits are high-concentration poisons. They are re-stricted materials that require a permit and can only beapplied by professionals.

ANTICOAGULANTS: The most commonly used house-hold rodenticides are multiple-dose anticoagulant baits.These chemicals are ingested in smaller doses over several

days, and essentially work bypreventing the mouse’s bloodfrom clotting, causing it to bleedto death internally. There is stillsome risk of poisoning nontar-get species, even with the lowerdoses of poison, and are also re-ports of mice becoming resistantto some of the most common of

the anticoagulants — warfarin, chlorophacinone,bridufaciynm and broma-diolone. (See our rodenticide factsheet on pages 13-14 for more information.)

BAIT BOXES: Bait boxes are plastic or metal boxes withthe anticoagulant bait placed inside. The bait is protectedfrom the elements, humans and pets are more protectedfrom unintentional exposure to the bait, and the amountof bait being taken by the mice can be more carefully moni-tored. Bait boxes may also help increase the amount of food(and, with the food, poison) taken in by the mouse. Con-tact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP for a list of resources forbait boxes.

It is extremely important to try and prevent a mouse prob-lem before it occurs. If you have gone through the steps ofprevention and still find yourself the host to mouse guests,begin utilizing your control method of choice as soon as yousee signs of mouse activity. It is possible to prevent an infes-tation from occurring, but remember, no method is going tobe a permanent fix unless you seal them out of your houseand remove their access to your food.

Contact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP for more informationabout house mouse control and a listing of physical control re-sources ($4 ppd).

Resource:Olkowski, Helga, Daar, Shiela, and Olkowski, William.1991. Common –Sense Pest Control. Newtown: The TauntonPress, Inc.

The first defense and offense

should always be prevention.

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hemicalWATCH FactsheetCA B E Y O N D P E S T I C I D E S / N C A M P F A C T S H E E T

RODENTICIDES

Rodenticides, pesticides specially designed to kill rodents, poseparticular risks for accidental poisoning for several reasons.

Since they have been designed to kill mammals, they are alsotoxic to humans. Because rodents usually share human environ-ments, use of rodenticides poses an inherent risk of exposure topeople, particularly children and their pets, as well as other non-target species. In addition, as rodents have developed resistanceto these chemicals, there continues to be a need to develop newand potentially more toxic rodenticides.1

What are Rodenticides?Rodenticides can be broken down into three categories, baits,tracking powders and fumigants. Both baits and tracking pow-ders are rodent poisons in the traditional sense, they must beeaten to kill the pest. Baits are designed to attract the rodent toa feeding station. Baits can be used both in the field and in andaround buildings. Tracking powders are placed along rodentrunways in and around buildings, picked up by the fur as theanimal passes by, and then ingested during grooming. Fumigantsare poisonous gasses, designed to kill rodents in their burrows.

Rodenticide baits and tracking powders are the type of rodenti-cides that are most often encountered by homeowners with a rodentproblem. There are two types of rodent poisons generally available –acute poisons (also known as single feed baits) and chronic poisons(multiple feed baits).2 Acute poisons are extremely dangerous to petsand children, as one encounter can make them very sick or kill them.3

Multiple feed baits are the most commonly used type of ro-dent poisons. Typically these poisons act as anti-coagulants, lit-erally causing the victim to bleed to death internally. The factthat these poisons must be made available to the pest animalover time makes them very hazardous as children, pets and othernon-target animals have an extended opportunity to get intothem. Current labels for rat and mouse baits used outdoors re-quire that baits be applied in protective, tamper proof bait sta-tions or placed in areas inaccessible to non-target wildlife.4

Classes of BaitsANTI-COAGULANTSThere are two classes of anti-coagulant type rodent poisons, thecourmarins and the indandiones. Courmarins include some verycommon rodent poisons such as warfarin, bromadiolone, andcourmafuryl. Indandiones include the rodent poisonsdiphacionone and chlorophacinone.5

Both of these classes of toxic materials work by blocking vita-min K-dependent synthesis of the blood clotting substance pro-thrombin. Animals suffering from exposure to anti-coagulant ro-denticides suffer from the following list of immediate toxic ef-fects: nosebleeds, bleeding gums, blood in urine and feces; bruisesdue to ruptured blood vessels; and skin damage.6

Exposure to these poisons also has long-term health effects.The courmarin, warfarin, for example, has been shown to causeparalysis due to cerebral hemorrhage7 and is teratogenic8 (causesbirth defects). Long-term exposure to the indandione,diphacinone causes nerve9 , heart, liver, and kidney damage aswell as damage to skeletal muscles.10

CHOLECALCIFEROLAlso known as vitamin D3, cholecalciferol has a unique mode ofaction. It is metabolized by the body into its active form, whichincreases the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from thegut, resulting in very high serum levels of calcium.11 The pro-longed hypercalcemia is delayed in onset and insidious in pro-gression, leading ultimately to the death of the victim.12

BROMETHALINBromethalin is a neurotoxin, unlike the other rodent poisons.The poison affects the body’s ability to control muscle contrac-tion through uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation. It can causeswelling of the brain, spinal column and nerves, leading to a lossof the myelin nerve sheath and ultimately to a reduction of nerveimpulses and death.13 Immediate effects of exposure tobromethalin include skin and eye irritation, weakness in legs,loss of tactile sensation, and death by respiratory arrest.14

ZINC PHOSPHIDEWhen zinc phosphide is ingested, it reacts with water and stom-ach juices to release phosphine gas, which can enter the bloodstream and affect the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart and central ner-vous system. It is easily absorbed through skin or inhaled fromfumes. With repeated exposure, it accumulates in the body todangerous levels.15

Signs and symptoms of mild zinc phosphide poisoning in-clude diarrhea and stomach pains. In more severe cases, nau-sea, vomiting, chest tightness, excitement, coldness, uncon-sciousness, coma and death can occur from pulmonary edemaand liver damage.

SUBSTANCE NO. OF AGE REASON TREATED BY DOC. OUTCOME

EXPOSURES <6 6-19 >19 Unintent Other Mod Maj Death

Anti-coagulants 17,724 15,854 561 1,146 17,029 654 5,882 72 28 1

Strychnine 186 35 20 113 97 78 99 15 5 3

Other/unknown 2,390 1,719 158 434 2,156 219 917 35 6 1

Totals 20,300 17,608 739 1,693 19,282 951 6,898 122 39 5

Table 1. Demographic Profile of Exposure Cases to Rodenticides in 1998

From: Litovit, T.L., et al. 1999. 1998 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposure Surveillance System. American Journal ofEmergency Medicine 17(5). <http://www.aapcc.org/1998.htm>


STRYCHNINEStrychnine causes vio-lent convulsions be-cause of its direct ac-tion on the central ner-vous system, chiefly thespinal cord. The onsetof symptoms beginsusually within 15 to 20minutes of ingestion. Alethal dose of this natu-ral toxin is as little as 15mg in children.16

Immediate effectsof exposure are irrita-tion to the upper res-piratory tract and skin, vomiting, convulsions, hyperthermia, anddeath due to respiratory or cardiovascular failure.17 Victims of strych-nine poisoning should be placed in a warm, dark room in order toreduce the stimuli that can trigger convulsions. Medical help shouldbe brought to the victim rather than transporting the victim to themedical center because movement will trigger convulsions.18

Classes of FumigantsFumigants are used to kill rodents in their burrows. As a result,homeowners are much less likely to encounter the use of thesechemicals but they are worthy of mention. The two most commonlyused gasses to kill rodents are phosphine gas and methyl bromide.

PHOSPHINE GASAvailable in a variety of forms including aluminum phosphideand magnesium phosphide, phosphine gas is extremely toxic.Accordingly, EPA has placed chemicals that produce phosphinegas in toxicity category I, the highest toxicity category.19

When aluminum phosphide is dropped into a rodent burrowit reacts with moisture to form phosphine gas. The signs andsymptoms of exposure to phosphine gas are described aboveunder zinc phosphide.

METHYL BROMIDEMethyl bromide has also been placed in EPA’s toxicity categoryI. EPA has expressed concern over methyl bromide’s potential

to destroy ozone.20 As a re-sult, methyl bromide isscheduled to be phasedout by 2005,21 althoughthere is political pressureto extend or reopen thephase out. Long-term ex-posure studies have foundthat methyl bromide is amutagen, and neurotoxinthat causes liver and kid-ney damage.22

RODENTICIDE RISK TOHUMANS AND PETSRodenticides rank second

in the number of human exposures each year compared withthe three other major categories of pesticides for which data iscollected by the American Association of Poison Control Cen-ters (AAPCC) (see table 1). According to AAPCC’s latest num-bers, 20,300 people were exposed to rodenticides in 1998. Asmentioned above, anti-coagulant poisonings make up the vastmajority of cases with 17,724 (87% of total) reported cases. Youngchildren are the most common victims of exposure to rodenti-cides, 17,608 cases of exposure (87%) were children under sixyears of age; that is over seven times higher than the other twoage groups combined. Tragically, five people died as a result oftheir exposure to rodenticides in 1998.

Pets and non-target wildlife also fall victim to exposure torodenticides. Exposure to these animals can occur as a resultof either feeding on the bait or eating rodents that have beenkilled by rodenticides. Toxicologists calculate the dose of poi-sons that will kill 50% of the animals that are exposed; thismeasurement is called an LD50. It takes as little as 0.16 ouncesof zinc phosphide to kill a 10 lb. dog (see table 2). Rodent poi-sons should be used only as a last resort. If poisons are used,homeowners need to practice extreme caution when choosingto control rodents in this way.

People dealing with a rodent problem need to consider all ofthe alternative, nontoxic approaches to rodent control. See pages10-12 or contact Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP to find out more about non-toxic approaches to rodent control.

1 Fishel, F. and P. Andre, 1999. “Pesticide Poisoning Symptoms and FirstAid.” University of Missouri Agricultural Engineering. <http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/agengin/g01915.htm>2 Simon, L. and W. Quarles, 1996. “Integrated Rat Management,” Common SensePest Control 12(1):5-15, citing Meehan, A.P. 1984. Rats and Mice: Their Biology andControl. Rentokil, East Grinstead, West Sussex, United Kingdom.3 Ibid.4 U.S. EPA. 1998. R.E.D. Facts: Rodenticide Cluster. EPA-738-F-98-004. p. 2.<http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/factsheets/2100fact.pdf>5 Rachel Carson Council. 1992. Basic Guide to Pesticides: Their Characteristicsand Hazards. Taylor & Francis, Washington, DC.6 Ibid.7 Ibid.8 Extension Toxicology Network (ETN). 1995. “Warfarin.” Pesticide Informa-tion Profiles. <http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/warfarin.htm>9 Rachel Carson Council. 1992.10 Extension Toxicology Network (ETN). 1995. “Diphacinone.” Pesticide In-formation Profiles. <http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/diphacin.htm>11 Craigmill, A. 1998. Veterinary Toxicology Notes: Hazards of New Rodenti-

Table 2. Ounces of Rodenticide Bait LD50s for Pets.RODENTICIDE DOG DOG DOG CAT

10 LBS. 22 LBS. 30 LBS. 4.4 LBS.

Warfarin 13 28 38 8

Bromadiolone 35 77 105 35

Diphacinone 3 6 8 7

Chlorophacinone 160 353 481 -

Cholecalciferol 19 42 57 -

Bromethalin 8 16 22 1

Zinc phosphide 0.16 0.35 0.48 0.06

From: 1998. Rodenticide Risk to Dogs and Cats. Techletter: For Pest Control Technicians 4(23).

RODENTICIDES chemicalWATCH Fact Sheet ReferencesC

cides to Pets. UC Davis Env. Tox. Newsletter 8(2). <http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/newsletters/n82_88.htm>12 Ibid.13 Rachel Carson Council. 1992.14 Ibid.15 Schulze, L.D., et al. 1997. “Signs and Symptoms of Pesticide Poisoning.”University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension EC97-2505-A. < http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/pesticides/ec2505.htm>16 Fishel, F. and P. Andre, 1999.17 Rachel Carson Council. 1992.18 Schulze, L.D., et al. 1997.19 Extension Toxicology Network (ETN). “Aluminum Phosphide.” Pesticide In-formation Profiles. <http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/alumphos.htm>20 Extension Toxicology Network (ETN). 1996. “Methyl bromide:Bromomethane.” Pesticide Information Profiles. < http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/methylbr.htm>21 U.S. EPA Methyl Bromide Phase Out Web Site. < http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/mbr/>22 Rachel Carson Council. 1992.


The pro-pesticide lobby has engaged in an all-out effortto convince local school districts that pesticides canbe used safely in schools and therefore fully integrated

into school pest management programs. One such group, Re-sponsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE), distributeda letter containing misleading and inaccurate information onschool pesticide use to 25,000+ school facility managers aroundthe country.

To halt the pro-pesticide lobby from continuing to un-dercut community activists’ efforts to reduce or eliminatepesticide use in favor of alternative strategies, Beyond Pes-ticides/NCAMP has developed this fact sheet as a guide tobetter understanding the issues. No-tification of pesticide applicationsand elimination of toxic pesticideuse where possible can be accom-plished in our schools. Invalidatethe pro-pesticide lobby’s top tenmyths with the facts.

MYTH #1Pesticides are a vital ingredient to anIntegrated Pest Management (IPM)program.

FACT #1:Those who argue that IntegratedPest Management (IPM) requires an ability to spray pesti-cides immediately after identifying a pest problem are notdescribing IPM. IPM is pest management that is sensitiveto the health of students, school staff and the environment.Pesticide use is unnecessary because safer alternatives cansuccessfully control pest problems. The goal of an IPM pro-gram is to minimize the use of pesticides and the associ-ated risk to human health and the environment while con-trolling a pest problem. IPM does this by utilizing a varietyof methods and techniques, including cultural, biologicaland structural strategies to control a multitude of pestproblems.(See box on page 16).

Essential to the control of a pest problem are solutionsbased on preventing pest outbreaks to occur in the firstplace. For example, improving a school’s sanitation caneliminate cockroaches and ants. Many techniques are rela-tively simple, such as mulching to prevent weeds or caulk-ing cracks and screening openings where insects and ro-dents can enter a building. Constant monitoring ensuresthat pest buildups are detected and suppressed before un-acceptable outbreaks occur.

Conventional pest control tends to ignore the causes of

pest infestations and instead rely on routine, scheduled pes-ticide applications. Pesticides are often temporary fixes, inef-fective over the long term. Most common pests are now resis-tant to many insecticides. For effective pest control, it is ab-solutely necessary to identify the source of the problem, de-termine why the pest is present and modify its habitat. Forexample, since weeds tend to like soils that are compacted,the solution is not the temporary control achieved by killingthem, but the adoption of practical strategies to make the soilless attractive to the weeds.

Alternatives to conventional hazardous pesticides are be-ing implemented in over 100 school districts around the

country and, thus, prove that alter-natives work. Non-toxic and leasttoxic control products are a majorgrowth area and new materials anddevices are increasingly available inthe marketplace.

MYTH #2:Pesticides pose no risk to the healthof children.

FACT #2Student and staff poisoning atschools is not uncommon. Adversehealth effects, including nausea, diz-

ziness, respiratory problems, headaches, rashes, and mentaldisorientation, may appear even when a pesticide is appliedaccording to label directions. Low levels of pesticide expo-sure can adversely affect a child’s neurological, respiratory,immune and endocrine system. Of the 48 commonly usedpesticides in schools, 22 can cause cancer, 26 can adverselyaffect reproduction, 31 are nervous system poisons and 16can cause birth defects.1

The General Accounting Office (GAO) in 2000 docu-mented over 2,300 reported pesticide poisonings in schoolsbetween 1993 and 1996.2 Because most of the symptoms ofpesticide exposure, from respiratory distress to difficulty inconcentration, are common in school children and may beassumed to have other causes, it is suspected that pesticide-related illness is much more prevalent.

EPA and Dow AgroSciences agreed in June 2000 tophase-out Dursban (chlorpyrifos), one of the most com-monly used insecticides in schools, because of its high risksto children, even if used according to the label directions.The product has been marketed for the past 30 years withclaims that it could be used safely. Even though EPA andthe manufactures of Dursban agreed to phase-out its use

A BEYOND PESTICIDES/NCAMP FACTSHEET O A BEYOND PESTICIDES/NCAMP FACTSHEET O A BEYOND PESTICIDES/NCAMP FACTSHEET

Ten Myths Behind Pesticide-DependentPest Management in SchoolsDebunking opponents to school integrated pest management,pesticide bans and notification programs.


in many settings, including schools, it can continue to beused until existing stocks are used up. The EPA chlorpyrifosannouncement begins the process of getting high consumerand children exposure uses of Dursban off the market, butputs people at risk by not stopping its uses immediately.3

MYTH #3:Without pesticides, pests pose a serious health and safety riskto children.

FACT #3:The pro-pesticide lobby wants people to think that if we stopusing toxic pesticides, our schoolbuildings and lawns would be over-come by disease-carrying pests andweeds. However, this is not true.School pest problems can be effec-tively managed without toxic pes-ticides, as discussed in fact #1.Most insect and weed pests may bea nuisance, or raise aesthetic issues, but they do not pose athreat to children’s health. Children should never be exposedto potentially harmful pesticides for this reason.

Increasingly the public is calling into question the use ofpesticides for cosmetic results alone. The unleashing of these

toxic chemicals into our environment for aesthetic gain isresponsible for countless human suffering and untold envi-ronmental consequence. In the words of Rachel Carson, “Howcould intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted spe-cies by a method that contaminated the entire environmentand brought the threat of disease and death even to their ownkind? Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack ofprudent concern for the integrity of the natural world thatsupports all life.”

Toxic pesticides and certain pests do pose a health risk tochildren,4 which is why schools need to implement a com-prehensive school IPM program. A school IPM program isestablished to prevent and manage pest problems, not to letpests run rampant.

MYTH #4:School IPM programs are too costly for schools.

FACT #4:According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), “preliminary indications from IPM programs in schoolsystems suggest that long term costs of IPM may be less thana conventional pest control program.”5 Because IPM focuseson prevention of the pest problem, and properly monitoringto determine the extent of the pest problem, school IPM pro-grams can decrease the amount of money a school will spendon pest control in the long-term. Some economic investmentis usually required at the outset of an IPM program. Short-term costs may include IPM training, purchasing new equip-ment, hiring an IPM coordinator, or making preliminary re-pairs to a school’s buildings. Chemical-intensive methods onlyprove to be less expensive in the short-term. The long-termhealth of our children is not worth short-term economic sav-ings that just do not add up over time.

A well-known example of school IPM is the MontgomeryCounty, Maryland public schools. The IPM program in Mont-gomery County covers 200 sites and reduced pesticide usefrom 5,000 applications in 1985 to none four years later, sav-ing the school district $1800 per school and $30,000 at theCounty’s school food service warehouse.6

In Indiana, Monroe County Schools implemented an IPMprogram that decreased the school’s pest management costsby $6,000 in two years. Pesticide use has reportedly droppedby 90% with the IPM program, and all aerosol and liquid pes-

ticides have been discontinued.7

At Vista de las Cruces Schoolin Santa Barbara, California, pestmanagement was contracted outwith a pest control company for$1,740 per year for routine pesti-cide applications. After the schoolswitched to an IPM program, their

costs were reduced to a total of $270 over two years.Albert Greene, Ph.D., National IPM Coordinator for the

U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), has implementedIPM in 30 million square feet, approximately 7,000 federalbuildings, in the U.S. capital area without spraying toxic in-

lntegrated Pest Management (IPM) is a managedpest management system that: (a) eliminates or miti-gates economic and health damage caused by pests;(b) uses integrated methods, site or pest inspections,pest population monitoring, an evaluation of the needfor pest control and one or more pest control meth-ods, including sanitation, structural repairs, mechani-cal and biological controls, other non-chemical meth-ods, and, if nontoxic options are unreasonable or havebeen exhausted, least toxic pesticides.

Least toxic pesticides include: boric acid and di-sodium octobrate tetrahydrate, silica gels, diatoma-ceous earth, nonvolatile insect and rodent baits intamper resistant containers or for crack and crevicetreatment only, microbe-based insecticides, biological,living control agents, and materials for which the in-ert ingredients are nontoxic and disclosed. The term‘least toxic pesticides’ does not include a pesticide thatis determined by the EPA to be an acutely or moder-ately toxic pesticide, a probable, likely or known car-cinogen, mutagen, teratogen, reproductive toxin, de-velopmental neurotoxin, endocrine disrupter, or im-mune system toxin, and any application of the pesti-cide using a broadcast spray, dust, tenting, fogging, orbaseboard spray application.

EPA has stated that no pesticide

can be considered ‘safe.’



secticides. Dr. Greene states that IPM, “can be pragmatic, eco-nomical and effective on a massive scale.”8

MYTH #5:Pesticides are extensively tested and regulated. Before a pesti-cide product is approved for use, it must undergo over 120government-mandated tests.

FACT #5:Suggestions that pesticides in wide use have been subjectedto full and adequate health and safety testing belies thewidely acknowledged deficiencies in EPA’s pesticide regis-tration process. In addition, thesafety standard in pesticide lawallows elevated rates of diseaseunder a risk assessment-basedstandard. As a result, EPA hasstated that no pesticide can beconsidered ‘safe.’”9

Pesticides products containformulations of a number of dif-ferent materials, including ac-tive and inert ingredients, aswell as contaminants and impu-rities. Additionally, pesticides,when subject to various envi-ronmental conditions, breakdown to other materials, knownas metabolites, which are some-times more toxic than the par-ent material. So-called inert in-gredients can be as or more toxic than the active ingredi-ent – active ingredients in other pesticides, toxic chemi-cals, chemicals regulated under other legislation, or haz-ardous wastes, solvents, propellants, wetting agents, pet-rochemicals and synergists. Inerts, often petrochemicalslike toluene or xylene, are generally the largest percentageof ingredients of apesticide product.Despite this, inert in-gredients are treatedas trade secret infor-mation and not dis-closed on product la-bels. Contaminantsand impurities are of-ten a part of the pes-ticide product and re-sponsible for theproduct hazards. Di-oxin and DDT havebeen identified ascontaminants in pesticide products.

Existing pesticide use patterns and a deficient regula-tory process add up to inadequate regulation of pesticidesis not protection of public health. The vast majority of allpesticide products registered for use by EPA and state gov-

ernments have never been fully tested for the full range ofpotential human health effects, such as cancer, birth de-fects, genetic damage, reproductive effects and neurologi-cal disorders, and endocrine disruption. Indeed, pesticidescan be registered even when they have been shown to causeadverse health effects. Due to the numerous pesticide for-mulations on the market, the lack of disclosure require-ments, insufficient data requirements, and inadequate test-ing, it is impossible to accurately estimate the hazards ofpesticide products, much less lifetime exposure or risk.There is no way to predict the effects in children solelybased on toxicity testing in adult or even adolescent labo-

ratory animals, which is EPA’sprocedure for evaluating ad-verse effects.

MYTH #6:Each school board should only beresponsible for maintaining a reg-istry of individuals interested inbeing notified and not be overlyburdened with providing univer-sal notification.

FACT #6:Parents are often kept in the darkabout pesticide use at schools.Without notification, parents areunable to make important deci-sions about whether they wanttheir children to go to school

when potentially hazardous pesticides have been applied.Universal notification is a good way to make sure that

all parents, guardians, children and staff are aware andwarned about pesticide applications. Providing prior noti-fication to all individuals attending or working at a schoolis less obtrusive to the school’s administrative staff. Uni-

versal notificationdoes not require aseparate database.Several school dis-tricts around thecountry, such as AnnArundal CountyPublic School sys-tem in Maryland,agree that it is muchless cumbersome toprovide universalnotification. Manyschools already sendhome notices and

school announcements about lice infestation, field trips,book fairs, and crime at school. Schools can simply senduniversal pesticide notices as they would other such an-nouncements or they can be attached to notices alreadybeing sent home.


By providing prior written notification to all parties

that would otherwise unknowingly be exposed to the

chemicals and posting notification signs, affected

parties can take the necessary precautions to avoid

the exposure and potential harm it may cause.


1 Beyond Pesticides/National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides.2000. Health Effects of 48 Commonly Used Pesticides in Schools: A BeyondPesticides/NCAMP fact sheet. Washington, DC.

2 U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). 1999. Use, Effects, and Alterna-tives to Pesticides in Schools. RCED-00-17. Washington, DC.

3 U.S. EPA. 2000. Chlorpyrifos Revised Risk Assessment and Agreement withRegistrants. Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. Wash-ington, DC.

4 Gurunathan, S., et al. 1998. “Accumulation of Chlorpyrifos on Residen-tial Surfaces and Toys Accessible to Children.” Environmental HealthPerspectives 106(1).

5 U.S. EPA. 1993. Pest Control in the School Environment: Adopting Inte-grated Pest Management. 735-F-93-012. Office of Pesticide Programs.Washington, DC.

Notification–based registries are a less effective means ofnotifying people and does not qualify as right-to-know be-cause of its limited scope. Requiring that individuals placethemselves on registries, affords only those who already knowabout toxic exposure the opportunity to be informed aboutpesticide use in the school. Registries are more costly andmore resource consuming for school districts to implement.It may even require an extra staff person to keep the registryup to date and coordinate the notification.

MYTH #7:Notification of pesticide applications are unnecessarily alarm-ing parents and is a scare tactic by environmentalists.

FACT #7:Parents and school staff have a basic right-to-know when pes-ticides are being used at school. By providing prior writtennotification to all parties that would otherwise unknow-ingly be exposed to the chemicals and posting no-tification signs, affected parties can take the nec-essary precautions to avoid the exposure andpotential harm it may cause. Pro-pesticide lob-byists may be concerned that if parents andschool staff know that a school is applyingan EPA classified probable carcinogen, neu-rotoxin or other type of hazardous pesticide,they may be activated to advocate for alter-native approaches that prohibit these chemi-cals. As discussed above, schools do not needto use toxic pesticides in the buildings or onthe grounds where children spend their timelearning and playing. IPM, if properly imple-mented, enables a safe learning environmentfor children, one that does not introduce unnec-essary and routine use of toxic pesticides.

MYTH #8:Parents and staff only need to be notified 24 hours prior to theuse of pesticides at schools.

FACT #8:Twenty-four hour prior notification of pesticide use does notprovide enough time react. Prior notification should be made

72 hours in advance to make sure the information has beenreceived by the student’s parents or guardians and by schoolstaff, allowing them to obtain further information regardingthe pesticide application, and, if necessary, to make arrange-ments to avoid the exposure.

MYTH#9:Schools should not have to notify parents and teachers priorto the use of baits, gels, pastes pesticide applications.

FACT#9:As long as the bait, gel or paste falls under the “least toxicpesticide” definition (see box on page 16), schools do notneed to provide prior notification. However, advance notifi-cation should occur for any formulation containing pesti-cide or other toxic ingredients that are volatile or toxic syn-

ergists. Just because a pesticide is applied in baits, gelsand/or pastes does not mean these products do not

contain a chemical that is a carcinogen, mutagen,teratogen, reproductive toxin, developmental

neurotoxin, endocrine disruptor, or an im-mune system toxin.

MYTH #10:As long as the pesticide is not applied whilethe area is occupied, once the students andteachers return to the area, the pesticide hasdried and will not affect their health.

FACT #10:Pesticides should never be applied when

students or staff are, or are likely to be, inthe area within 24 hours of the application.

Pesticides residues can linger for hours, daysand even months after an application is made. It all

depends on the type of chemical applied and the conditionsthat may apply to its degradation. For example, airborneconcentrations of seven insecticides were tested three daysfollowing their application in separate rooms. Six of the sevenpesticides left residues behind through the third day.10 A1998 study found that Dursban (chlorpyrifos) accumulatedon furniture, toys and other sorbant surfaces up to two weeksafter application.11

6 Schubert, J.D., et al. 1996. Voices for Pesticide Reform: The case for safepractices and sound policy. Beyond Pesticides/National Coalition Againstthe Misuse of Pesticides. Washington, DC.

7 Safer Pest Control Project. 1998. Cost of IPM in Schools: A fact sheet fromthe Safer Pest Control Project. Chicago, IL.

8 Greene, A. 1993. “Integrated Pest Management for Buildings.” Pesticidesand You 13(2-3). Washington, DC.

9 U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). 1990. Lawn Care Pesticides: RisksRemain Uncertain While Prohibited Safety Claims Continue. RCED-90-134. Washington, DC.

10 Wright, C., et al. 1981. “Insecticides in the Ambient Air of Rooms Fol-lowing Their Application for Control of Pests.” Bulletin of Environmen-tal Contamination & Toxicology 26.

11 Gurunathan, S., et al. 1998.


EDITOR’S NOTE: Global warming and wide fluctuations inweather patterns are projected to lead to increases in insect popu-lation and insect-borne diseases. This situation has already be-gun to materialize, with increasing pressure on public health of-ficials to respond with the use of highly toxic pesticides. Dr. Epsteincaptures an escalating problem that deserves our attention. [Re-printed with permission. Copyright © August 2000 by ScientificAmerican, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Today few scientists doubt the atmosphere is warming.Most also agree that the rate of heating is acceleratingand that the consequences of this temperature change

could become increasingly disruptive. Even high school stu-dents can reel off some projected outcomes: the oceans willwarm, and glaciers will melt, causing sea lev-els to rise and salt water to inundatesettlements along many low-lyingcoasts. Meanwhile the regions suit-able for farming will shift. Weatherpatterns should also become moreerratic and storms more severe.

Yet less familiar effects could beequally detrimental. Notably, com-puter models predict that globalwarming, and other climate alter-ations it induces, will expand the in-cidence and distribution of many se-rious medical disorders. Disturbingly,these forecasts seem to be coming true.

Heating of the atmosphere can influ-ence health through several routes. Mostdirectly, it can generate more, strongerand hotter heat waves, which will be-come especially treacherous if the eve-nings fail to bring cooling relief. Unfor-tunately, a lack of nighttime cooling seemsto be in the cards; the atmosphere is heat-ing unevenly and is showing the biggest risesat night, in winter and at latitudes higher than about 50 de-grees. In some places, the number of deaths related to heatwaves is projected to double by 2020. Prolonged heat can, more-over, enhance production of smog and the dispersal of aller-gens. Both effects have been linked to respiratory symptoms.

Global warming can also threaten human well-being pro-foundly, if somewhat less directly, by revising weather pat-terns—particularly by pumping up the frequency and inten-sity of floods and droughts and by causing rapid swings inthe weather. As the atmosphere has warmed over the pastcentury, droughts in arid areas have persisted longer, and mas-

ls Global Warming Harmful to Health?Computer models indicate that many diseases will surge as the earth’satmosphere heats up. Signs of the predicted troubles have begun to appear.

by Paul R. Epstein, M.D.

sive bursts of precipitation have become more common. Asidefrom causing death by drowning or starvation, these disas-ters promote by various means the emergence, resurgence andspread of infectious disease.

That prospect is deeply troubling, because infectious ill-ness is a genie that can be very hard to put back into its bottle.It may kill fewer people in one fell swoop than a raging floodor an extended drought, but once it takes root in a commu-nity, it often defies eradication and can invade other areas.

The control issue looms largest in the developing world,where resources for prevention and treatment can be scarce.But the technologically advanced nations, too, can fall victimto surprise attacks—as happened last year when the West Nilevirus broke out for the first time in North America, killing sevenNew Yorkers. In these days of international commerce and

travel, an infectious disorder that appears in one part of theworld can quickly become a problem continents away if

the disease-causing agent, or pathogen, finds itself ina hospitable environment.

Floods and droughts associated with globalclimate change could undermine health in

other ways as well. They could damage cropsand make them vulnerable to infection and

infestations by pests and choking weeds,thereby reducing food supplies and po-

tentially contributing to malnutrition.And they could permanently or

semipermanently displace entirepopulations in developing coun-

tries, leading to overcrowdingand the diseases connectedwith it, such as tuberculosis.

Weather becomes moreextreme and variable with at-mospheric heating in part

because the warming acceler-ates the water cycle: the process

in which water vapor, mainly fromthe oceans, rises into the atmosphere before condensing out asprecipitation. A warmed atmosphere heats the oceans (leadingto faster evaporation), and it holds more moisture than a coolone. When the extra water condenses, it more frequently dropsfrom the sky as larger downpours. While the oceans are beingheated, so is the land, which can become highly parched in dryareas. Parching enlarges the pressure gradients that cause windsto develop, leading to turbulent winds, tornadoes and other pow-erful storms. In addition, the altered pressure and temperaturegradients that accompany global warming can shift the distribu-tion of when and where storms, floods and droughts occur.


I will address the worrisome health effects of global warm-ing and disrupted climate patterns in greater detail, but I shouldnote that the consequences may not all be bad. Very high tem-peratures in hot regions may reduce snail populations, whichhave a role in transmitting schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease.High winds may at times disperse pollution. Hotter winters innormally chilly areas may reduce cold-related heart attacks andrespiratory ailments. Yet overall, the undesirable effects of morevariable weather are likely to include new stresses and nastysurprises that will overshadow any benefits.

Mosquitoes Rule in the HeatDiseases relayed by mosquitoes—such as malaria, dengue fe-ver, yellow fever and several kinds of encephalitis—are amongthose eliciting the greatest concern as the world warms.Mosquitoes acquire disease-causing microor-ganisms when they take a blood meal froman infected animal or person. Then thepathogen reproduces inside the insects,which may deliver disease-causingdoses to the next individuals they bite.

Mosquito-borne disorders are pro-jected to become increasingly preva-lent because their insect carriers, or“vectors,” are very sensitive to meteo-rological conditions. Cold can be afriend to humans, because it limitsmosquitoes to seasons and regionswhere temperatures stay above certainminimums. Winter freezing kills manyeggs, larvae and adults outright. Anoph-eles mosquitoes, which transmit malariaparasites (such as Plasmodium falciparum),cause sustained outbreaks of malaria onlywhere temperatures routinely exceed 60 de-grees Fahrenheit. Similarly, Aedes aegypti mosqui-toes, responsible for yellow fever and dengue fever, conveyvirus only where temperatures rarely fall below 50 degrees F.

Excessive heat kills insects as effectively as cold does. Never-theless, within their survivable range of temperatures, mosqui-toes proliferate faster and bitemore as the air becomeswarmer. At the same time,greater heat speeds the rate atwhich pathogens inside themreproduce and mature. At 68degrees F, the immature P.falciparum parasite takes 26days to develop fully, but at 77degrees F, it takes only 13days. The Anopheles mosqui-toes that spread this malariaparasite live only several weeks; warmer temperatures raise theodds that the parasites will mature in time for the mosquitoes totransfer the infection. As whole areas heat up, then, mosquitoescould expand into formerly forbidden territories, bringing ill-

ness with them. Further, warmer nighttime and winter tempera-tures may enable them to cause more disease for longer periodsin the areas they already inhabit.

The extra heat is not alone in encouraging a rise in mosquito-borne infections. Intensifying floods and droughts resulting fromglobal warming can each help trigger outbreaks by creating breed-ing grounds for insects whose desiccated eggs remain viable andhatch in still water. As floods recede, they leave puddles. In timesof drought, streams can become stagnant pools, and people mayput out containers to catch water; these pools and pots, too, canbecome incubators for new mosquitoes. And the insects can gainanother boost if climate change or other processes (such as al-terations of habitats by humans) reduce the populations of preda-tors that normally keep mosquitoes in check.

Mosquitoes on theMarchMalaria and dengue fever are two of themosquito-borne diseases most likely tospread dramatically as global tempera-tures head upward. Malaria (markedby chills, fever, aches and anemia) al-ready kills 3,000 people, mostly chil-dren, every day. Some models projectthat by the end of the 21st century,ongoing warming will have enlargedthe zone of potential malaria trans-

mission from an area containing 45percent of the world’s population to

an area containing about 60 percent.That news is bad indeed, considering

that no vaccine is available and that thecausative parasites are becoming resistant

to standard drugs.True to the models, malaria is reappearing north

and south of the tropics. The U.S. has long been home toAnopheles mosquitoes, and malaria circulated here decadesago. By the 1980s mosquito-control programs and other pub-lic health measures had restricted the disorder to Califor-

nia. Since 1990, however,when the hottest decade onrecord began, outbreaks oflocally transmitted malariahave occurred during hotspells in Texas, Florida,Georgia, Michigan, New Jer-sey and New York (as wellas in Toronto). These epi-sodes undoubtedly startedwith a traveler or stowawaymosquito carrying malaria

parasites. But the parasites clearly found friendly conditionsin the U.S.—enough warmth and humidity, and plenty ofmosquitoes able to transport them to victims who had nottraveled. Malaria has returned to the Korean peninsula, parts

Mosquito-borne disorders are projected to

become increasingly prevalent because their

insect carriers, or “vectors,” are very

sensitive to meteorological conditions.


of southern Europe and the former Soviet Union and to thecoast of South Africa along the Indian Ocean.

Dengue, or “breakbone,” fever (a severe flulike viral ill-ness that sometimes causes fatal internal bleeding) is spread-ing as well. Today it afflicts an estimated 50 million to 100million in the tropics and subtropics (mainly in urban areasand their surroundings). It has broadened its range in theAmericas over the past 10 years and had reached down toBuenos Aires by the end of the 1990s. It has also found itsway to northern Australia. Neither a vaccine nor a specificdrug treatment is yet available.

Although these expansions of malaria anddengue fever certainly fit the predictions,the cause of that growth cannot betraced conclusively to globalwarming. Other factorscould have been involved aswell—for instance, disrup-tion of the environment inways that favor mosquitoproliferation, declines inmosquito-control and otherpublic health programs, andrises in drug and pesticideresistance. The case for a cli-matic contribution becomesstronger, however, when other projected consequences of glo-bal warming appear in concert with disease outbreaks.

Such is the case in highlands around the world. There, asanticipated, warmth is climbing up many mountains, along withplants and butterflies, and summit glaciers are melting. Since1970 the elevation at which temperatures are always below freez-ing has ascended almost 500feet in the tropics. Marching up-ward, too, are mosquitoes andmosquito-borne diseases.

In the 19th century, Euro-pean colonists in Africa settledin the cooler mountains to es-cape the dangerous swamp air(“mal aria”) that fostered diseasein the lowlands. Today many ofthose havens are compromised.Insects and insect-borne infec-tions are being reported at highelevations in South and CentralAmerica, Asia, and east and cen-tral Africa. Since 1980 Ae. aegypti mosquitoes, once limited bytemperature thresholds to low altitudes, have been found aboveone mile in the highlands of northern India and at 1.3 miles inthe Colombian Andes. Their presence magnifies the risk thatdengue and yellow fever may follow. Dengue fever itself has struckat the mile mark in Taxco, Mexico.

Patterns of insect migration change faster in the moun-tains than they do at sea level. Those alterations can thusserve as indicators of climate change and of diseases likely toexpand their range.

Opportunists LikeSequential ExtremesThe increased climate variability accompanying warming willprobably be more important than the rising heat itself infueling unwelcome outbreaks of certain vector-borne ill-nesses. For instance, warm winters followed by hot, dry sum-mers (a pattern that could become all too familiar as the

atmosphere heats up) favor the trans-mission of St. Louis encephalitis

and other infections that cycleamong birds, urban mosqui-

toes and humans.This sequence seems to

have abetted the surpriseemergence of the West Nilevirus in New York City lastyear. No one knows howthis virus found its wayinto the U.S. But one rea-sonable explanation for itspersistence and amplifica-tion here centers on theweather’s effects on Culexpipiens mosquitoes, which

accounted for the bulk of the transmission. These urbandwellers typically lay their eggs in damp basements, gut-ters, sewers and polluted pools of water.

The interaction between the weather, the mosquitoesand the virus probably went something like this: The mildwinter of 1998–99 enabled many of the mosquitoes to sur-

vive into the spring, whicharrived early. Drought inspring and summer concen-trated nourishing organicmatter in their breeding ar-eas and simultaneouslykilled off mosquito preda-tors, such as lacewings andladybugs, that would other-wise have helped limit mos-quito populations. Droughtwould also have led birds tocongregate more, as theyshared fewer and smaller wa-tering holes, many of which

were frequented, naturally, by mosquitoes.Once mosquitoes acquired the virus, the heat wave that

accompanied the drought would speed up viral maturationinside the insects. Consequently, as infected mosquitoessought blood meals, they could spread the virus to birds at arapid clip. As bird after bird became infected, so did moremosquitoes, which ultimately fanned out to infect humanbeings. Torrential rains toward the end of August providednew puddles for the breeding of C. pipiens and other mos-quitoes, unleashing an added crop of potential virus carriers.

Dengue, or “breakbone,” fever (a severe

flulike viral illness that sometimes causes

fatal internal bleeding) is spreading as

well... Neither a vaccine nor a specific drug

treatment is yet available.


Like mosquitoes, other disease-conveying vectors tend tobe “pests”—opportunists that reproduce quickly and thriveunder disturbed conditions unfavorable to species with morespecialized needs. In the 1990s climate variability contrib-uted to the appearance in humans of a new rodent-borne ail-ment: the hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a highly lethalinfection of the lungs. This infection can jump from animalsto humans when people inhale viral particles hiding in thesecretions and excretions of rodents. The sequential weatherextremes that set the stage for the first human eruption, inthe U.S. Southwest in 1993, were long-lasting drought inter-rupted by intense rains.

First, a regional drought helped to reduce the pool of ani-mals that prey on ro-dents—raptors (owls,eagles, prairie falcons,red-tailed hawks andkestrels), coyotes andsnakes. Then, asdrought yielded to un-usually heavy rainsearly in 1993, the ro-dents found a bountyof food, in the form ofgrasshoppers andpiñon nuts. The re-sulting population explosion enabled a virus that had beeneither inactive or isolated in a small group to take hold inmany rodents. When drought returned in summer, the ani-mals sought food in human dwellings and brought the dis-ease to people. By fall 1993, rodent numbers had fallen, andthe outbreak abated.

Subsequent episodes of hantavirus pulmonary syndromein the U.S. have been limited, in part because early-warn-ing systems now indicate when rodent-control efforts haveto be stepped up and because people have learned to bemore careful about avoiding the animals’ droppings. Butthe disease has appeared in Latin America, where some omi-nous evidence suggests that itmay be passed from one personto another.

As the natural ending of thefirst hantavirus episode demon-strates, ecosystems can usuallysurvive occasional extremes.They are even strengthened byseasonal changes in weather con-ditions, because the species thatlive in changeable climates have to evolve an ability to copewith a broad range of conditions. But long-lasting extremesand very wide fluctuations in weather can overwhelm eco-system resilience. (Persistent ocean heating, for instance, ismenacing coral reef systems, and drought-driven forest firesare threatening forest habitats.) And ecosystem upheaval isone of the most profound ways in which climate change canaffect human health. Pest control is one of nature’sunderappreciated services to people; well-functioning ecosys-

tems that include diverse species help to keep nuisance or-ganisms in check. If increased warming and weather extremesresult in more ecosystem disturbance, that disruption mayfoster the growth of opportunist populations and enhance thespread of disease.

Unhealthy WaterBeyond exacerbating the vector-borne illnesses mentioned above,global warming will probably elevate the incidence of waterbornediseases, including cholera (a cause of severe diarrhea). Warm-ing itself can contribute to the change, as can a heightened fre-quency and extent of droughts and floods. It may seem strange

that droughts would fa-vor waterborne disease,but they can wipe outsupplies of safe drink-ing water and concen-trate contaminants thatmight otherwise remaindilute. Further, the lackof clean water during adrought interferes withgood hygiene and saferehydration of thosewho have lost large

amounts of water because of diarrhea or fever.Floods favor waterborne ills in different ways. They wash

sewage and other sources of pathogens (such asCryptosporidium) into supplies of drinking water. They alsoflush fertilizer into water supplies. Fertilizer and sewage caneach combine with warmed water to trigger expansiveblooms of harmful algae. Some of these blooms are directlytoxic to humans who inhale their vapors; others contami-nate fish and shellfish, which, when eaten, sicken the con-sumers. Recent discoveries have revealed that algal bloomscan threaten human health in yet another way. As they growbigger, they support the proliferation of various pathogens,

among them Vibrio cholerae,the causative agent of cholera.

Drenching rains brought bya warmed Indian Ocean to theHorn of Africa in 1997 and 1998offer an example of how peoplewill be affected as global warm-ing spawns added flooding. Thedownpours set off epidemics ofcholera as well as two mosquito-

borne infections: malaria and Rift Valley fever (a flulike dis-ease that can be lethal to livestock and people alike).

To the west, Hurricane Mitch stalled over Central Americain October 1998 for three days. Fueled by a heated Carib-bean, the storm unleashed torrents that killed at least 11,000people. But that was only the beginning of its havoc. In theaftermath, Honduras reported thousands of cases of cholera,malaria and dengue fever. Beginning in February of this year,unprecedented rains and a series of cyclones inundated large

And ecosystem upheaval is one of the

most profound ways in which climate

change can affect human health.


parts of southern Africa. Floods in Mozambique and Mada-gascar killed hundreds, displaced thousands and spread bothcholera and malaria. Such events can also greatly retard eco-nomic development, and its accompanying public health ben-efits, in affected areas for years.

SolutionsThe health toll taken by global warming will depend to a largeextent on the steps taken to prepare for the dangers. The idealdefensive strategy would have multiple components.

One would include improved surveillance systems thatwould promptly spot the emergence or resurgence of infec-tious diseases or the vectors that carry them. Discovery couldquickly trigger measures to control vec-tor proliferation without harming theenvironment, to advise the publicabout self-protection, to providevaccines (when available) for at-risk populations and to deliverprompt treatments.

This past spring, efforts tolimit the West Nile virus inthe northeastern U.S. fol-lowed this model. On seeingthat the virus had survivedthe winter, public health of-ficials warned people to clear their yards of receptacles thatcan hold stagnant water favorable to mosquito breeding.They also introduced fish that eat mosquito larvae intocatch basins and put insecticide pellets into sewers.

Sadly, however, comprehen-sive surveillance plans are notyet realistic in much of theworld. And even when vaccinesor effective treatments exist,many regions have no means ofobtaining and distributingthem. Providing these preven-tive measures and treatmentsshould be a global priority.

A second component wouldfocus on predicting when climatological and other environ-mental conditions could become conducive to disease out-breaks, so that the risks could be minimized. If climate modelsindicate that floods are likely in a given region, officials mightstock shelters with extra supplies. Or if satellite images andsampling of coastal waters indicate that algal blooms related tocholera outbreaks are beginning, officials could warn peopleto filter contaminated water and could advise medical facilitiesto arrange for additional staff, beds and treatment supplies.

Research reported in 1999 illustrates the benefits of satel-lite monitoring. It showed that satellite images detectingheated water in two specific ocean regions and lush vegeta-tion in the Horn of Africa can predict outbreaks of Rift Valleyfever in the Horn five months in advance. If such assess-ments led to vaccination campaigns in animals, they could

potentially forestall epidemics in both livestock and people.A third component of the strategy would attack global warm-

ing itself. Human activities that contribute to the heating orthat exacerbate its effects must be limited. Littledoubt remainsthat burning fossil fuels for energy is playing a significant rolein global warming, by spewing carbon dioxide and other heat-absorbing, or “greenhouse,” gases into the air. Cleaner energysources must be put to use quickly and broadly, both in theenergy-guzzling industrial world and in developing nations,which cannot be expected to cut back on their energy use. (Pro-viding sanitation, housing, food, refrigeration and indoor firesfor cooking takes energy, as do the pumping and purificationof water and the desalination of seawater for irrigation.) In par-allel, forests and wetlands need to be restored, to absorb car-

bon dioxide and floodwaters and tofilter contaminants before they

reach water supplies.The world’s leaders, if they are

wise, will make it their businessto find a way to pay for these so-lutions. Climate, ecological sys-tems and society can all recoupafter stress, but only if they arenot exposed to prolonged chal-lenge or to one disruption afteranother. The IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change, estab-

lished by the United Nations, calculates that halting the ongoingrise in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will re-quire a whopping 60 to 70 percent reduction in emissions.

I worry that effective corrective measures will not be insti-tuted soon enough. Climatedoes not necessarily changegradually. The multiple factorsthat are now destabilizing theglobal climate system couldcause it to jump abruptly outof its current state. At anytime, the world could sud-denly become much hotter oreven much colder. Such a sud-den, catastrophic change is the

ultimate health risk—one that must be avoided at all costs.

The AuthorPAUL R. EPSTEIN, an M.D. trained in tropical public health,is associate director of the Center for Health and the GlobalEnvironment at Harvard Medical School. He has served inmedical, teaching and research capacities in Africa, Asia andLatin America and has worked with the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmo-spheric Administration, and the National Aeronautics andSpace Administration to assess the health effects of climatechange and to develop health applications for climate fore-casting and remote-sensing technologies.

Climate, ecological systems and society

can all recoup after stress, but only if they

are not exposed to prolonged challenge or

to one disruption after another.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Resource


A Review of Making Better Environmental DecisionsMary O’Brien (MlT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000)

by Terry Shistar, Ph.D.

For five years, I have taught a seminar on risk assessment at the University of Kansas without a textbook.None of the available options met my

needs—until now, with the publication of MaryO’Brien’s Making Better Environmental Deci-sions—An Alternative to Risk Assessment.

Making Better Environmental Decisions isto environmental policy what Getting to Yesis to negotiation. That is, it teaches not onlythe flaws of risk assessment, but also—moreimportantly—how to turn the risk assessmentsetting into an opportunity to push for some-thing better, alternatives assessment.

Since risk assessment sometimes masquer-ades as a consideration of alternatives, it is agood idea to have some general rules for deter-mining which is which. Here are three:

J A risk assessment estimates the risks as-sociated with a single course of action, ora tightly constrained selection of options, while an alter-natives assessment compares a wide range of different al-ternatives for achieving a desired end.

J In a risk assessment, if you can’t estimate a certain kind ofrisk, it is assumed to be zero. In an alternatives assessment,a choice with a risk of unknown proportions is considereddangerous compared to alternatives without that risk.

J The question a risk assessment seeks to answer is, “How muchis safe (or, at least, acceptable)?” This question is unanswer-able since we can never measure all the risks. An alternativesassessment doesn’t try to find a safe amount of exposure to adanger. Instead, it provides information that allows us tochoose among alternatives based on the hazards they pose aswell as their relative benefits.

I don’t want to give the impression that the value of MakingBetter Environmental Decisions is only (or even mostly) as atextbook. This is a book I would like to see in the hands ofevery activist who has ever faced a pesticide risk assessment,a water quality standards guidance document, or an environ-mental impact statement. When faced with a flood of dataand formulas, our immediate reaction is often to plunge inand find hidden assumptions, missing data, and ignored risks.Guess what? As soon as we do that, we’re giving up on ourgame and agreeing to play their game.

As long as unknown risks are counted as zero, we’re look-ing for “safe” exposure levels, and we’ve quit demanding that

non-toxic alternatives be considered, we lose. We know thatalternatives work. We need to change the game by demand-

ing that they be considered. This, by the way,is what Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP has beendoing for years, and Making Better Environ-mental Decisions can help us do it better.

My favorite chapter is titled “We Know Howto Push for Alternatives Assessments.” Thischapter gives several examples of how citizenshave been able to turn situations in which riskassessments were being used to justify environ-mental damage into opportunities to force con-sideration of alternatives. For example, the bookcites some victories of Greenpeace:

Greenpeace has followed through on itscommitments to clean production and theprecautionary principle in its various cam-paigns, thereby changing the nature of eachdebate. For instance, Greenpeace has:

J helped develop the precautionary principle-based UN reso-lution to ban drift-net fishing on the high seas …

J worked with African governments to produce the BamakoConvention, which prohibits imports of banned or unregis-tered pesticids from outside of Africa and greatly restrictsimports of hazardous wastes into Africa…

J worked with the International Joint Commission on GreatLakes Water Quality to call for the phaseout of industrialuses of chlorine…

J worked with German and British refrigeration engineers todevelop butane- and propane-based refrigerators that avoidthe use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons,which are ozone-depleting substitutes for the more potentozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons…

Greenpeace opposes risk assessment of dangerous options, andworks to bring alternatives to the table.

Making Better Environmental Decisions is available at book-stores in hardback ($55.00) and paperback ($22.95) editions.Get yourself a copy and give one to a friend. This book is alsoavailable through the Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP website(www.beyondpesticides.org) where, for no additional cost, yourpurchase triggers a donation to our organization.

Terry Shistar, Ph.D., teaches a class on risk assessment at theUniversity of Kansas in Lawrence, KS and is Secretary of theBoard of Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP.

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❏ YES, I’d like to receive Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP’s monthly Technical Report. $20 with membership or subscription.If outside the United States, please add $10.00 each for memberships and subscriptions.

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natural organic cotton. $15 each; two for $25.❏ Tell the world that FREEDOM FROM PESTICIDES IS EVERY BODY’S RIGHT in teal,

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Stickers $2.00 each ($1.00 each when ordering 100+)Books❏ A Failure to Protect. Landmark study of federal government pesticide use and pest

management practices. $23.00. Summary and Overview $5.00.❏ The Chemical-Free Lawn: The newest varieties and techniques to grow lush, hardy

grass with no pesticides no herbicides, no chemical fertilizers. By Warren Schultz.Published by Rodale Press. $17.95 (14.95 + $3.00 shipping).

❏ Unnecessary Risks: The Benefit Side of the Risk-Benefit Equation.Understand how the EPA’s Risk-Benefit Analyses falsely assume the need for high-risk pesticides. Explains how “benefits” are inflated, how alternatives might beassessed, and the public’s right to ask more from its regulators. $10.00.

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❏ Poison Poles: Their Toxic Trail and the Safer Alternatives. New study on largestgroup of pesticides, wood preservatives, and contamination associated withtreated wood utility poles, and the availability of alternatives. $22.00

❏ Toxic Deception. By Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle and Center for Public Integrity.Published by Common Courage Press. $21.00

Back Issues❏ Back issues of Pesticides and You $2.00 each❏ Back issues of Technical Reports $1.00 eachBrochures ($2.00 each; bulk discounts available)

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Forum Speaker Helen Caldicott, MD:WRITER O PEDIATRICIAN O ACTIVIST

The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the environ-mental and nuclear crises, Dr. Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years to an interna-tional campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and thenecessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. At the Forum, shewill address strategy and tactics for the pesticide reform movement.

While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she founded the Physicians for SocialResponsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors with a strong record of working to pre-vent environmental illness. On trips abroad, she helped start similar organizations in manyother countries. The international umbrella group, International Physicians for the Preven-tion of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women’s

Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the U.S. in 1980.

Dr. Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, including 17 honorary degrees, and was personally nomi-nated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling—himself a Nobel Laureate. She has written for numerous publications andhas authored several books, Nuclear Madness (1979), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992) and A DesperatePassion: An Autobiography (1996). She also has been the subject of several films, Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated for anAcademy Award in 1982, and If You Love This Planet, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1983.

19th National Pesticide ForumHealthy Ecosystems, Healthy Children

University of Colorado, Boulder, COMay 18 - 20, 2001

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