From: Robina Suwol
Date: 07 Jul 2004
Time: 21:18:08
Remote Name: 68.116.132.61
Elise Craig lives
in a garden apartment in Portland, Oregon, where children roll in the grass
and run barefoot across lawns in the summer light. A year ago, she realized
that whenever the landlord spread lawn-care chemicals on the grass, her
six-year-old son, Michael, lost bowel and bladder control for weeks
afterward.
"Michael's symptoms came back every time they treated the lawn," said Craig.
"They told us it was safe after a day, so I kept him off the grass for a
week or two. Michael still got sick. We were ultimately successful in
organizing our community to go organic, but we are about to move, and I may
face this battle in our new home with new neighbors."
Kids often play on lawns treated with toxic herbicides, pesticides, and
fungicides — and some of them get sick.
In Portland, where Craig organized teams of weed-pulling parents at her
son's school (with help from a principal who's an organic farmer), the city
has put up billboards that say, "Is Your Lawn Chemical-Free? Maybe It Should
Be."
Each year, Americans apply more than 80 million pounds of chemical
products — including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides — to their
lawns and gardens.
Risky Roulette
Homeowners often don't realize the myriad health hazards associated with
lawn-care pesticides sold under such innocuous names as Weed & Feed and
Bug-B-Gon. These products contain pesticides such as 2,4-D (linked to
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and MCPP (associated with soft-tissue cancers).
People think the government would warn them if these widely sold chemicals
were known to damage their nervous systems, harm fetuses, or give them
cancer. None of these long-term adverse health effects are required by law
to be listed on product labels.
"Forty years ago, in the enormously praised and fiercely criticized book
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson demonstrated the dangers of pesticides,"
said H. Patricia Hynes, director of the Urban Environmental Health
Initiative at Boston University and author of The Recurring Silent
Spring . "Lawn chemical usage has nearly doubled since 1964."
Pesticides used solely on lawns are not required to undergo the same
rigorous testing for long-term health effects as those used on food. No
federal studies have assessed the safety of lawn-care chemicals in
combination, as most are sold.
Because of industry lobbying, the identities of "inert ingredients" are
protected as trade secrets under federal law. Pesticides may contain up to
99 percent inert ingredients, some of which are suspected carcinogens, while
others are linked to nervous system disorders, liver and kidney damage, and
birth defects.
"More than 90 percent of pesticides and inert ingredients are never tested
for their effects on developing nervous systems," said John Wargo, director
of the Yale Center for Children's Environmental Health and author of "Risks
from Lawn-Care Pesticides," a report from Environment and Human Health.
"Children are more affected by exposure to such chemicals because they are
smaller and their organs are not mature."
Wargo added, "Streams and groundwater in the Midwest are contaminated with
atrazine, a widely used herbicide linked to sexual mutations in fish and
amphibians. Is this the price we pay for green lawns?"
The Natural Resources Defense Council is suing the Environmental Protection
Agency for failing to protect the public from environmental and health
threats posed by atrazine, which is banned by the European Union.
"Atrazine poses a serious cancer risk for millions of Americans," said Jay
Feldman, director of Beyond Pesticides. "Companies, federal and state
regulators downplay the hazards of commonly used pesticides."
Steps to Pesticide Freedom
Try natural alternatives. Chrysanthemum-derived pesticides, diatomaceous
earth, and boric acid are sold in garden centers. SharpShooter (citric acid)
is an effective insecticide. Or make your own solution of three to six
tablespoons of dishwashing soap (without degreaser) per gallon of water.