Pesticide use in or near U.S. schools sickened more than 2,500
children and school employees over a five-year period. And though
most illnesses were mild, their numbers have increased, a
nationwide report found.
Hollister – Pesticide use in or near U.S. schools sickened more than 2,500 children and school employees over a five-year period. And though most illnesses were mild, their numbers have increased, a nationwide report found.
The good news is that local school officials and agricultural researchers don’t think pesticides have caused problems in San Benito County schools.
Sources of illness have included herbicides and insecticides used on school grounds, disinfectants, and farming pesticides that drift over nearby schools, according to the report by researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Farm Advisor Bill Coates, a researcher at the University of California Agriculture Extension Office in Hollister, said the pesticide industry is heavily regulated and most farmers are extremely cautious about spraying pesticides near schools. For one thing, pesticides are expensive and farmers are loathe to waste them.
“If it’s windy or there is a drift, then they don’t spray,” Coates said.
Many farmers prefer pesticides that have short re-entry periods, which is defined as the amount of time required before people can return to a sprayed field. Such pesticides have less risk of drift.
Re-entry periods can vary from as short as four hours to up to seven days. Most pesticide spraying is done during the summer, when fewer students are in school.
Coates said farmers with land near schools often work closely with school officials to prevent pesticide drift and other problems. Most farmers are following the rules and obeying state laws, Coates said, adding that the worst abusers of pesticides are home gardeners.
Unlike farmers, some weekend gardeners unfamiliar with pesticides inadvertently overuse harmful products.
Southside School District Superintendent Eric Johnson has long been aware of pesticide problems, but he said no incidents have been reported at Southside for 15 years. The school, which is located near farmland, has its well water tested monthly for signs of pesticides and other chemicals, Johnson said.
“This may not be a problem, but it is something we address every year,” Johnson said.
Southside School District, which serves about 235 elementary and middle school students, does not use pesticides on school property. Students are healthier, but the district has a gopher problem and a “very frustrated gardener,” Johnson said.
Bob Shingai, an environmental health specialist for the San Benito County Environmental Health Office, said the county has not received any complaints about pesticide poisonings.
“We haven’t had any complaints for years,” Shingai said.
Dr. Walter Alarcon, the lead author of the study National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said one of the largest recent incidents occurred in May when about 600 students and staff members were evacuated from an Edinburg, Texas, elementary school after pesticides sprayed on a cotton field drifted into the school’s air conditioning system.
Some 30 students and nine staffers developed mild symptoms, including nausea and headaches.
The study, which appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, covered events from 1998 to 2002. None was as big as the Texas incident, Alarcon said.
Activists seeking to reduce pesticide use contend many commonly used pesticides, including some involved in the study incidents, can increase risks for cancer, birth defects and nerve damage.
“The chronic long-term impacts of pesticide exposures have not been comprehensively evaluated; therefore, the potential for chronic health effects from pesticide exposures at schools should not be dismissed,” the authors wrote.
Still, the overall rate of pesticide illnesses in schools is small: 7.4 cases per million children and 27.3 cases per million school employees, the authors said.
Jay Vroom, president of CropLife America, which represents suppliers of farming pesticides, said the report is alarmist and that pesticide use around schools “is well-regulated and can be managed to a level that does not present an unreasonable health risk.”
Allen James, president of Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE), a trade group for makers of pesticides used in schools, faulted the study for relying on unverified reports and said the numbers nonetheless suggest that incidents are “extremely rare.”
The authors tallied reports from three pesticide surveillance systems, including a national database of calls to poison control centers, and found that 2,593 students and school employees developed pesticide-related illnesses in the five years studied. Only three illnesses were considered severe.
The number of children affected each year climbed from 59 to 104 among preschoolers and from 225 to 333 among children aged 6 to 17.
“I don’t think we want to overwhelm people, but the study does provide evidence that using pesticides at schools is not innocuous and that there are better ways to use pesticides,” said study co-author Dr. Geoffrey Calvert.
Claire Barnett of the Healthy Schools Network advocacy group said the total is likely a “deep undercount” because there are about 54 million U.S. schoolchildren and yet no comprehensive national tracking system.
The authors said the study underscores the need to reduce pesticide use through pest management programs that typically require schools to use pesticides as a last resort and to implement advance written notification when the chemicals are used. The guidelines also often recommend that spraying in schools or in nearby fields should occur only when students and staffers are not present.
Laws in 17 states recommend or require schools to have such programs, according to Jay Feldman, executive director of the Beyond Pesticides advocacy group.
Associated Press Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner contributed to this article.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or
br******@fr***********.com
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