Registration of a chemical does NOT imply that the chemical is safe. Pesticides are not tested in combination, although their synergistic effects may be amplified up to 1000 times. While pesticides produce acute and long-term health effects, toxicity experiments, conducted on healthy animals, measure and account for only the acute effects. The pesticides that are deemed acceptable for use as a result of these tests do not take into account the potential chronic effects. “Acceptable” tolerance levels are set for an average adult male, and do not take into account the different situations of women and children. Nearly 100,000 accidental pesticide exposures are reported to poison control centers each year. Many of these exposures involve children, providing clear evidence that current efforts to protect children are inadequate. Children are vulnerable because pound for pound of body weight, they consume significantly more pesticides than adults. They are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects because their metabolic systems do not process or excrete toxins the way adult's systems do. Children typically play in grass and dirt, and put toys and hands in their mouths, activities that significantly increase their exposure to pesticides. Children from homes where pesticides are used have been found to have four times the risk of soft tissue sarcomas (cancerous growths) and between six and seven times the rate of childhood leukaemia when compared to other children. The Quebec Poison Control Centre and the Quebec Ministry of Environment and Wildlife released statistics on pesticide poisoning in 1996. They reported a staggering 1,650 poisoning cases. 79.4% of the cases were in private homes, and 46.1% of the victims were children under age five. 31% of these cases were due to oral ingestion, and 34.9% resulted from pesticide applications...READ MORE