harelb@cabot.dartmouth.edu (Harel Barzilai) (06/19/91)
"Scientists reported a sixfold increase in the risk of
non-Hodgkin's lymphomia among Kansas farmers using certain
herbicides 20 days or more per year. (Postel, 1987, p. 25)
=====================
S T A T I S T I C S
=====================
According to the World Health Organization, someone in the
underdeveloped countries is poisoned by pesticides every minute.
(Weir and Schapiro, 1981, p. 3)
The industry now produces four billion pounds of pesticides each
year - more than one pound for every person on earth. (Weir and
Schapiro, 1981, p. 6)
Each year, approximately 2.6 billion pounds of pesticides are used
in the United States. (Mott and Synder, 1988, p. 22)
Since 1945, pesticide use in the United States has increased
tenfold, and at the same time crop loss from insects has increased
twofold, from about 7% to 13%. (Mattes, 1989, p. 10)
With the increased aircraft application, most pesticides are
poorly targeted - only .1% of the chemicals applied reach their
target. (Mattes, 1989, p. 10)
The U.S. EPA has announced that at least 66 of the 300 pesticides
used on food are potentially carcinogenic, but has not announced
any action on restricting how these pesticides are used.
(Garland, 1989, p. 24)
The United States National Research Council (NRC) estimates that
no information on toxic effects is available for 79% of the more
than 48,500 chemicals (including pesticides) listed in the U.S.
EPA's inventory of toxic substances. Fewer than a fifth have been
tested for acute effects, and fewer than a tenth for chronic (ie.
cancer-causing), reproductive, or mutagenic effects. (Postel,
1987, p. 15)
Worldwide, pesticide imports have more than doubled (in real
terms) between 1972 and 1984, to $5.3 billion. Imports quadrupled
in the Soviet Union and more than tripled in Asia and North
America during this period. (Postel, 1987, p. 10)
At least 25% of United States pesticide exports are products that
are banned, heavily restricted, or have never been registered for
use in the United States. (Weir and Schapiro, 1981, p. 4)
Tens of thousands of pounds of DBCP, hiptachlor, chlordane, BHC,
lindane, 2,4,5-T and DDT are allowed to be exported each year from
the United States, even though they are considered too dangerous
for unrestricted domestic use. (Weir and Schapiro, 1981, p. 4)
The amount of pesticides exported from the United States has
almost doubled over the last 15 years. (Weir and Schapiro, 1981,
p. 5)
Ten percent of the food imported to the United States is
officially rated as contaminated. (Weir and Schapiro, 1981, p.
4)
Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to
protect citizens from such hazards, during one 15 month period,
the General Accounting Office discovered that half of all the
imported food identified by the FDA as pesticide-contaminated was
marketed without any warning to consumers, or penalty to
importers. (Weir and Schapiro, 1981, p. 4)
Between 400,000 and 2 million pesticide poisonings occur worldwide
each year, most of them among farmers in developing countries.
(Postel, 1987, p. 16)
The 10,000 - 40,0000 such poisonings that are thought to result in
death each year dwarf the 2,000 deaths caused by the toxic gas
leak at the pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India.
(Postel, 1987, p. 16)
A 1985 study survey in one county of the Brazilian state of Rio de
Janeiro found that 6 out of 10 farmers using pesticides had
suffered acute poisonings. (Postel, 1987, p. 19)
Samples of breast milk from Nicaraguan women have shown DDT levels
at an astounding 45 times greater than the World Health
Organization's tolerance limits. (Postel, 1987, p. 17)
The average child receives four times more exposure than an adult
to eight widely-used carcinogenic, or cancer-causing, pesticides
in food. Because of their exposure to these pesticides alone, as
many as 6,200 children may develop cancer sometime in their lives.
(Garland, 1989, p. 19)
Scientists reported a sixfold increase in the risk of
non-Hodgkin's lymphomia among Kansas farmers using certain
herbicides 20 days or more per year. (Postel, 1987, p. 25)
Iowa's surveillance efforts indicate that more than a quarter of
Iowans use drinking water contaminated with pesticides. (Postel,
1987, p. 18)
In the summer of 1985, nearly 1,000 people in several western
states and Canada were poisoned by residues of the pesticide Temik
in watermelons. (Mott and Synder, 1988, p. 20)
According to a USDA study, nearly 50 million United States
residents - most of them in rural areas - are potentially at risk
of exposure to pesticide-contaminated groundwater. More than 17
million people get their drinking water from private wells in
these high-risk regions. Very little of this private water is
treated or monitored. (Postel, 1987, p. 18)
Because of agricultural use, at least 46 pesticides - some of them
cancer-causing - have been detected in groundwater in 26 states.
(Garland, 1989, p. 18)
A 1986 survey found wells contaminated with one of 60 different
pesticides in 30 states. (U.S. EPA, 1988, p. 129)
In the United States routine agricultural practices have
contaminated groundwater with 17 different pesticides in at least
23 states. The nation's two most widely used herbicides -
alachlor and atrazine - were among the pesticides most frequently
detected. Tests have shown alachlor to cause cancer in laboratory
animals, making it a probable human carcinogen. (Postel, 1987, p.
17)
In the United States, pesticide use in agriculture nearly tripled
between 1965 and 1985. (Postel, 1987, p. 9)
Farmers applied 390,000 tons of pesticides to the nation's
agricultural land in 1985, an average of about 2.8 kilograms (6.2
pounds) per hectare planted. (Postel, 1987, p. 9)
In the United States, roughly 70% of all cropland (not counting
land in alfalfa or other hay, pasture, or rangeland) receives some
dosage of pesticides, including 95% of the area devoted to corn,
cotton and soybeans. (Postel, 1987. pp. 9-10)
Insects and weeds now reduce crop production by about 30 percent,
apparently no less than before the chemical age dawned. (Postel,
1987, p. 19)
In 1938, scientists knew of just seven insect and mite species
that had acquired resistance to pesticides. By 1984, that figure
had climbed to 447, and included most of the world's major pests.
(Postel, 1987, p. 19)
Resistance in weeds was virtually nonexistent before 1970. But
since then, with the growth of herbicide use, at least 48 weed
species have gained resistance to chemicals. (Postel, 1987, p.
19)
By implementing Integrated Pest Management, Brazil decreased its
pesticide use 80-90% on their soybean crops over 7 years.
(Postel, 1987, p. 27)
Based on survey results on nine commodities from 15 different
states, and considering practices on only one crop per state,
farmers using Integrated Pest Management collectively earned $579
million more in profits than they would have otherwise. Texas
cotton farmers using IPM had net returns per hectare averaging
$282 higher than other cotton farmers. (Postel, 1987, p. 29)
Because of stricter regulatory requirements and the greater
complexity of modern chemicals, industry now spends 20 - 45
million bringing a new pesticide to market, compared with about
1.2 millionin 1956. (Postel, 1987, p. 19)
Waste streams from the organic chemical industry alone amounted to
47 million tons, 18% of the hazardous waste produced by chemicals
and allied products, making it the largest single generator.
(Postel, 1987, p. 12)
The U.S. EPA ranks 80% of the organic chemical industry's waste
streams as 9 or 10 on an increasing, relative toxicity scale of 1
to 10. Therefore, not only does this industry produce the
greatest quantity of hazardous waste, but its waste is among the
most highly toxic of all. (Postel, 1987, p. 12)
DDT has been found in animals in the Antarctic and other areas
where the pesticide was never sprayed. (Garland, 1989, p. 43)
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R E F E R E N C E S :
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Concern, Inc. PESTICIDES, A COMMUNITY ACTION GUIDE. Washington,
DC: Concern, Inc. May 1985.
Garland, Anne Witte. FOR OUR KIDS' SAKE. Foreword by T. Berry
Brazelton, M.D. New York, NY: Mothers and Others for
Pesticide Limits, a project of the Natural Resources Defense
Council, 1989.
Mattes, Kitty. "Kicking the Pesticide Habit." THE AMICUS
JOURNAL, Fall 1989, pp. 10 - 17.
Mott, Lawrie and Karen Snyder. "Pesticide Alert." THE AMICUS
JOURNAL, Spring 1988, pp. 20 - 29.
Postel, Sandra. "Defusing the Toxics Threat: Controlling
Pesticides and Industrial Waste." WORLDWATCH PAPER 79, September
1987. Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute.
Sierra Club. "Action on Pesticides," brochure. San Francisco,
CA: Sierra Club, May 1984.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Policy
Planning and Evaluation. ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES:
EPA'S UPDATE. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, August 1988.
Weir, David and Mark Schapiro. CIRCLE OF POISON: PESTICIDES AND
PEOPLE IN A HUNGRY WORLD. San Francisco, CA: Institute for Food
and Development Policy, 1981.
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