Blog #18: Pesticides

News Flash! EWG just ranked Kale as the third dirtiest vegetable you can eat! Choose organic Kale-Krazy people!

The truth about pesticides is overwhelming. From the indiscriminate use near schools, homes and illegal dumping of pesticide laden industrial waste into public water sources...to the lack of protection for workers who are not informed of their risk or even cared for when they fall ill. We have permitted this dirty industry to call all the shots. In 2015, the EPA even reversed protections and banned pesticides made by the Obama era. We live in a country that protects it's economy before it's people.

I almost cannot believe anything I read on the EPA website.  It is a lovely list of sources and medical conditions associated with certain pesticides..but why post the information if we are not truly regulating them? After watching the films from the module and seeing the horrors of pesticide exposure to cotton farmers in India, I think of how much injustice there is in pesticide use and distribution. We have research that supports the risk to pregnant women, children and really all humans- yet we select which "people" can use certain chemicals based on their "Value" to society.

From Cancer, reproductive harm and neurological and behavioral issues in children- we need policies that stand up to the companies who manufacture and distribute these deadly poisons. We not only have to take a stand as informed consumers, but as clinicians. We can start pointing to the cost of care burden created when people become ill from exposures to known health hazards. The same companies who develop and sell cancer drugs, antibiotics, seizure medications, etc.. are the same ones poisoning us with pesticides! The burden of cost needs to be on those companies. If they are responsible for poisoning unborn children- then the lifetime cost of care is on them to pay. 

Clinicians need to understand the risks and begin to raise our voices.