Brief Summary
Most children spend
significant time in day care where pesticides are abundant.
Sixty-five
percent of California’s
children (ages 0 to 5) receive non-parental child care, the majority in
structured care settings. Eighty-three
percent of children of working parents regularly spend time in non-parental
care, averaging 35 hours per week.
In
a recent EPA study on pesticide exposure in day care settings:
• Levels of pesticides found in dust were
significantly higher in day care settings than in residential homes;
• Organophosphate and organochlorine pesticides were
found in nearly 100% of the indoor air samples, over 85% of the floor dust samples,
and 56% of surface wipe samples; and
• Pyrethroid pesticides were found in 100% of the
floor dust samples, 82% of dermal wipe samples, and over 69% of surface wipe
samples.
Children are
particularly sensitive to pesticides.
Children’s
exposure to pesticides during critical stages of development may have
permanent, irreversible effects. The
following factors make children more vulnerable to the toxic effects of
pesticides:
• Immature and developing body systems (including
respiratory, immune, and nervous systems)
• Rapid physical development
• Children’s
hand-to-mouth behavior
• Reduced
ability to detoxify toxic substances.
Pesticides are linked
to acute and chronic illnesses.
• A California study found that children exposed to any pesticide or herbicide in their
first year of life were more than twice as likely to suffer from persistent
asthma before the age of five.
• Another study found that the risk of childhood
leukemia increased more than six times when garden pesticides were used at
least once per month.
• Pesticides can interact with the endocrine
system and produce a range of adverse developmental effects such as altered
social skills, learning disabilities, developmental delays, and hyperactivity.
• Pesticides are known to cause acute symptoms,
such as nausea, headache, dizziness, asthma attacks, and respiratory
irritation, which are often diagnosed as flu-like symptoms.
• Pesticides also have been linked to chronic
effects, such as birth defects, nervous system disorders, reproductive
problems, immune deficiency, and several types of cancer.
What does the Healthy
Day Cares bill do?
The Healthy Day Cares bill amends the
term “schoolsite” in the Healthy Schools Act of 2000 to include private, licensed
day care centers. The extension of the Healthy
Schools Act to day care centers requires such facilities to notify parents about
pesticide applications and to post notices in areas treated with
pesticides. The bill also provides all day
care providers with information and trainings on least-toxic Integrated Pest
Management (IPM) techniques to help them create a safer environment in which to
care for our most vulnerable population.
Sources
• Lowengart
RA, Peters JM, Cicioni C, Buckley J, Bernstein L,
Preston-Martin S, Rappaport E, “Childhood Leukemia and
Parents’ Occupational and Home Exposures,” Journal
of the National Cancer Institute, July 1987, pp. 39-46.
• Margaret O’Brien-Strain, Laura Moyé, and Freya
Lund Sonenstein, Public Policy Institute of California, Arranging and Paying for Child Care, 2003.
• Schettler T, Stein J, Reich F, and Valenti M, Greater
Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, In Harm’s Way: Toxic threats to child development, 2001.
• Muhammad Towhid Salam, Yu-Fen Li, Bryan
Langholz, and Frank Davis Gilliland, “Early-Life Environmental Risk Factors for
Asthma: Findings from the Children’s Health Study,” Environmental Health Perspectives 112:760-765 (2004).
• U.S. EPA, “Pilot Study of Children’s Total
Exposure to Persistent Pesticides and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants
(CTEPP),” available at http://www.epa.gov/heasd/ctepp/index.htm,
2005.
• Bernard Weiss, Sherlita Amler, and Robert W.
Amler, “Pesticides,” Pediatrics, Vol.
113, No. 4, April 2004, pp. 1030-1036.
