EU commissioners, Capitol Hill and international agencies are finally taking notice to mass bee deaths around the world. A few months after the groundbreaking decision to suspend the use of threeneonicotinoids shown to be highly toxic to bees, the European Commission is moving forward again with a proposal to restrict the use of the insecticide fipronil, which has also been identified as posing an acute risk to honey bees. America’s imperiled pollinators will also soon receive long overdue protection after a new bill passes aimed to suspend neonicotinoids, a class of systemic pesticides that are killing bees.
Simple, straightforward and commonsense protections have not been updated for more than 20 years. In February 2013, Beyond Pesticidesjoined with a coalition of environmental and farmworker organizations tosubmit a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), urging the agency implement these long overdue revisions to the Worker Protection Standard (WPS) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). An estimated 5.1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied to crops annually in the United States, and farmworkers face the greatest threat from these chemicals than any other sector of society, with thousands of farmworkers each year experiencing pesticide poisoning.
The federal government estimates that there are 10,000-20,000 acute pesticide poisonings among workers in the agricultural industry annually, a figure that likely understates the actual number of acute poisonings since many affected farmworkers may not seek care from a physician. As a result of cumulative long-term exposures, they and their children, who often times also work on the farm or live nearby, are at risk of developing serious chronic health problems such as cancer, neurological impairments and Parkinson’s disease. Children, according to a recentAmerican Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report, face even greater health risks compared to adults when exposed to pesticides...
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