Pesticides are chemical poisons, designed to kill plants and animals such as insects (insecticides), weeds (herbicides), rodents (rodenticides), and mold or fungus (fungicides). They include active ingredients (those intended to kill the target) and inert ingredients, which are often not "inert" at all. 
 

Pesticides can be absorbed through the skin, swallowed or inhaled.  Pesticides often stray from their point of application to settle on neighbors' properties, clothes lines, pools, toys and furniture.  Children and pets often track pesticide residues into the house.  Studies show that only 5% of pesticides reach target weeds. The rest runs off into water or dissipates in the air. Drift from landscaping can range from 12 feet to 14.5 miles.  More serious effects appear to be produced by direct inhalation of pesticide sprays than by absorption or ingestion of toxins. Wisconsin studies have found pesticides in several underground aquifers, leading to drinking water contamination (see links below).

Many people are falsely reassured by government "registrations" of pesticides; however, many of the safety tests used to test these products are inadequate:  they test for short-term effects of chemicals  on healthy (not sick, elderly, or immuno-suppressed, etc.) adult (not young) animals (not humans).  They test one chemical at a time, when we're all exposed to many chemicals at once as part of our modern chemical lifestyles.  Some of the companies testing pesticides have been charged and convicted of falsifying residue and environmental studies that were used to support pesticide registration in the US and Canada.  Research shows that several pesticides become even more toxic as they break down.  Because safety testing has not been adequate, current pesticide applications are essentially a giant experiment using the general public.  We're guinea pigs for the chemical industry.

In the US it is a violation of federal law to state that the use of pesticides is safe, because pesticides are toxic by definition.

Pesticide  Health Effects

Approximately, 16 million Americans are sensitive to pesticides, because their immune systems have been damaged as a result of prior pesticide exposure.   In addition, pesticides have been linked to a wide range of serious and often fatal conditions: cancer, leukemia, miscarriages, genetic damage, decreased fertility, liver damage, thyroid disorders, diabetes, neuropathy, still births, decreased sperm counts, asthma, and other auto-immune disorders (lupus, etc.)   Children face all these effects, plus birth defects, learning disabilities, and behavioral problems.  Children whose homes and gardens are treated with pesticides have 6.5 times greater risk of leukemia than children living in untreated environments.  Household pets are also at risk.  Wild birds often die after eating granular pesticides. At lower doses, birds and other wildlife may develop many of the same conditions listed for humans

Example:  The pesticide 2,4-D is the most common herbicide used by lawn companies and is found in stores under names that sound safe like "Weed 'n Feed."   But this pesticide was a component of the infamous Agent Orange defoliant used during the Vietnam war and it frequently is contaminated with traces of dioxin.  Dioxin is one of the most toxic manmade substances known, with effects very similar to PCBs.  2,4,-D is under special review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because of concerns about chronic health and environmental effects, but it is still being used in the meantime.

Inert Ingredients

A little-known secret of the chemical industry is that the "inert" ingredients, which are the carriers or bulking agents for pesticides, are often as toxic, or more toxic, than the "active" ingredients, yet this information is not required on the labels.  The public purchaser and even professional applicators usually have no idea as to these chemical contaminants.  Approximately 3700 chemicals can legally be concealed in pesticides and comprise up to 97% of products like weed killers.  It appears that some corporations may be using this avenue as a cheap form of hazardous waste disposal.

A Green Bay example of this problem is Grantek Inc., at the corner of Liberty and Ashland on the city's west side.  This company takes contaminated sludges from Georgia-Pacific Corporation's nearby paper mill.  They dry the sludge, pellitize it, and send the pellets to a chemical company in Illinois, where it is used as the carrier "inert ingredient" for mosquito insecticides.  Ironically, the original sludge was created as part of a water pollution control process, to prevent waste chemicals from entering an aquatic environment (the Fox River) - but the Grantek pellets are being spread back into wetlands and other aquatic environments in an effort to kill mosquitos. It's a complete circle.  The paper company sludge is contaminated with PCBs, dioxins, toxic metals, and a host of other toxic substances, but people who buy and use the mosquito insecticide will never know this.  (Grantek pellets are also used for kitty litter and as a carrier for livestock pharmeceuticals.  Those customers are also uninformed.)

The Pesticide Myth

For 50 years, the public and farmers have been told that chemical pesticides are essential for modern farming and to feed the world's population, when this isn't true.  Pesticides weaken the ecosystem which had sustained human agriculture for thousands of years, damaging soil microbes and eliminating beneficial insects and predators.  In addition, pests continually mutate to become pesticide resistant.  Despite a 10-fold increase in insecticide use in recent years, studies have shown a proliferation in types of pests from fewer than 10 to more than 300. Of the 25 most serious insect pests in California in 1970, 24 were secondary pests (produced because of insecticides) and 73% are resistant to one or more insecticides.

Gardeners, farmers, and foresters need to return to tried and true pest control methods such as crop rotation, companion planting, and biological controls.  Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which uses less toxic chemicals, only infrequently, is the true pest control of the future.  Ecological methods of pest control must replace the over-dependence on chemicals that now threatens us all.  Numerous studies show that IPM can save significant amounts of money for farmers, at the same time they're protecting their health and environment.

Pesticide Profits

Unfortunately, the chemical corporations have powerful incentives for promoting pesticides despite the harm they create.  The pesticide markets are extremely profitable.  In 1996, world pesticide sales for the top 10 corporations were  Novartis $4.2 billion, Monsanto $3.1 billion, Zeneca $2.7 billion, DuPont $2.5 billion, AgrEvo $2.4 billion, Bayer $2.2 billion, Rhone Poulenc $2.2 billion, Cyanamid $2.1 billion, Dow Agro-Sciences $2 billion, and BASF $1.9 billion. 

Wisconsin Efforts to Reduce Pesticides

• Pesticide Use Reporting and Reduction Project - Wisconsin

http://www.wsn.org/pesticides/
 
• Greater Madison Healthy Lawn Team, Inc.

http://www.healthylawnteam.org/home.htm
 
• Pesticide Use in Wisconsin

http://www.wienvdecade.org/campaigns/pesticides.html
 
• Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

http://www.wisc.edu/cias/
 
• Real Wisconsin Stories - Your Right to Know About Pesticide Use

http://www.cbemw.org/wisc/realstories.html
 
• Finding Alernatives: Wisconsin Potato Growers

http://www.worldwildlife.org/toxics/progareas/ap/alternatives.htm

• Studies of Pesticides Leaching into Groundwater - UW Water Resources Institute

http://wri.wisc.edu/wgrmp/ptc.htm

Beyond Pesticides - The National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/main.html
 

NCAP - Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides

http://www.pesticide.org/
 

Pesticide Action Network, North America

http://www.panna.org/
 

Pesticide Information

http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Index.html
 

Integrated Pest Management Yields Profits

http://northeastipm.org/reports/neipm/nerpt95/profits.html

• Insect Control - Wisconsin Dept. of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection - (pro-pesticides)

http://datcp.state.wi.us/core/environment/insects/

• Pesticides - Wisconsin Dept. of Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection

http://www.datcp.state.wi.us/arm/agriculture/pest-fert/pesticides/
 
• Pesticides in Drinking Water - Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources

http://www.slh.wisc.edu/ehd/pamphlets/pesticide.html
 
• Pesticides - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/
 
• Pesticides - National Institute of Health

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/pesticides.html