Some individuals who speak badly of pesticides or any marketable poison, are acquainted with such hazards–even researchers.
The companies I sued upon the recommendation of an EPA investigator, are well insured so have no reason to wish me harm. I have never asserted that any individual connected with my suit is actually planned to intentionally inflict harm. However, the very existence of lawsuits against any branch of the chemical industry or agribusiness (pesticides) is a threat to profits garnered from putting farm chemicals inside our homes, schools and businesses. As with all cautionary tales regarding environmental protection from toxic products, there is the assumptions that jobs would be lost if we suggest that industry diversify and modify their products based upon concerns for human health.

It is unfortunate that there is no manufacturer of chemicals dedicated solely for use in the area of indoor pest control. It would be hugely profitable as the evidence for harm to non-targeted life forms from residentially used pesticides includes you and your family pet. The reduction in health care costs from such industry advances could well rival or exceed figures cited in savings attained through tobacco regulation. Farm chemicals have never been tested for their unexpected effects when enclosed by walls and floors/ceilings. Their persistence can range from months to years and certain banned pesticides have yet to break down in the environment decades after their applications. The financial stakes are great.

My lawyer did tell me that few pesticide cases actually made it to court in the US, most being dismissed for lack of evidence. He accepted my case based upon the heavily documented circumstances of their use, including my identification of such chemicals as present in the building through testing and documentation of my ‘sudden onset’ injuries corresponding with their appearance. That made it all the more puzzling for me when my case survived more than one motion to dismiss yet progress in the discovery progress ground to a halt in 2007.

In 2009, I became aware that I was experiencing the crime of chemical battery following my increased activity towards completing the preparations required to bring the court case to completion. However, a crime as sophisticated as chemical battery requires a great deal of investigative effort. A crime without evidence cannot be prosecuted and law enforcement agencies in the US today will rarely collect forensic samples in order to test for even a small range of possible substances. In numerous reports of cases where visible residues were present on my car from noxious substances applied from passing cars/trucks, officers declined to collect it for the following reasons:

1. They don’t know how to collect samples.

2. It costs their departments too much money to conduct such testing.

3. The victim doesn’t know the precise chemical used in order to narrow down the range of needed testing.

4. The officer can’t ‘smell’ anything and decides to attribute visible residues by unknown substances on your property or your car to naturally occuring substances. These might be attributed to accumulated moisture from rain, solids resembling bird droppings or residues of decomposing trash discarded by careless individuals tossing it into the streets.

5. Labs don’t have the necessary equipment for testing particular chemicals. This is the case with current use pesticides purchased in any grocery store and a significant problem hampering the medical profession in diagnosing environmentally induced illnesses. Without such testing, doctors can never have complete exposure histories on their patients and assess the degree to which pesticides contribute to common illnesses (e.g. Parkinson’s, cancer, asthma). We already know they cause a huge range of health problems but, as a society, often fail to class the purposeful infliction of harm upon others with these easily obtained products, as a crime to be prosecuted.

Today my car was sprayed with a substance by a passing motorist. The car rapidly filled with acrid fumes, forcing me to pull off the road and get out of the car. I watched the liquid drops on my window dry to a gelatinous consistency before my eyes while waiting for an officer to arrive at the scene. When he did arrive, we began to discuss the above mentioned problems in collecting the evidence. Reason number ’4′ prevailed. The officer grasped some of the material and peeled it off the window. He then declared it was ‘tape’ and dropped the evidence in the street, which rendered the material unsuitable for lab testing. My complaint then became non-existent in the annals of crime analysis. Given the absence of evidence, no perpetrator needed to fear any accusations.

Evidence is needed to support criminal charges placed by individuals. However, the absence of evidence does not invalidate the possibility that a crime was committed. In the United States, every child can speak the jargon of shows like “NCIS”. We adults may also enjoy scenes of oddball scientists conducting forensic testing for obscure substances which makes it seem as if it were routine in law enforcement.

Well, that’s fiction.

Local authorities do not have such laboratory facilities readily available to them, nor do they typically seek the assistance of federal agents to conduct such investigations. I realized even before dialing 911 on that afternoon, that nothing would be done in my case. However, like my lawsuit which will never see trial, readers of this blog can learn from such injustices and perhaps feel justified in reporting such instances for the ‘record’ under similar circumstances.

The reality is that US citizens are unlikely to be able to register a complaint of assault and battery via hazardous chemicals unless it happens within sight of a police officer or is recorded on film. These crimes continue to be reported by individuals in the industry, by activists and litigants like myself. They would be better known if people spoke out about them and law enforcement geared up for a modern age in which violence doesn’t require blunt-force trauma with a hammer. Yes, the act of speaking out about such issues may come with a heavy price but that is only for as long as such reports remain a rarity among affected persons.

The crimes of the ‘modern’ age require proper data collection. No law enforcement agency should be without the requisite equipment needed to conduct air testing for particulates and specific gasses. Homeland security requires it as the abuse of toxic substances is a form of domestic terrorism. Call your government representative and demand bills which mandate appropriate lab facilities be made available to local governments. Certainly, our representatives need to look at law enforcement’s quandary of how to prepare their agents to protect citizens from such harm. Our law enforcement personnel are happy to do whatever is possible so we need to make this form of investigation feasible and affordable.

Your safety does depend upon it. Your rights as a US citizen demand it.

I did my own language and occupational therapy primarily from a bed in a garage apartment using a Web-TV. Selling that article was an incredible achievement for me and the product of around a year of rehabilitation work. Having it published marked the successful return of a significant portion of my impaired literacy skills. Yes, it took an editor days to reduce my six page story submission to three, well organized and grammatical pages for her publication. It was true that I would never again produce a good composition completely independently or with any speed that would adequately serve the needs of an employer or client. However, the cause for celebration was that I could once again research and formulate answers to basic questions, such as how a developmental disabilities specialist could lose 24 IQ points, becoming ADD and mildly aphasic, from working in her own school. The answer is pesticides. That leads to the next question of why anyone actually thinks that putting neuro-toxic chemicals in a school represents sound science or good social policy. That question hasn’t received the consideration it is due despite a decade of ‘study’ regarding the School Environment Protection Act, buried deep in the bowels of some legislative committee.

I saw that article referenced on a website just yesterday. The internet address, commonly called a URL read:

http://pestcontrol.omgletsbbq.com/the-armchair-activist-%C2%BB-getting-the-bugs-out-pesticides-and-your/

In case you missed the abbreviated references, they read as, “pest control – oh my god let’s barbecue.com/the armchair activist”. Yes, that’s me. Well, any industry website that would refer so disparagingly to the author of an article lauding its most responsible members as mine does, just might not boast enough professionals to deserve the public’s trust.

Perhaps the EPA needs to rethink the supervision of any industry that allows poison to be sold on store shelves right next to food without the can being shrink wrapped. Cigarettes and liquor are poisons only sold to adults but any child can buy a can of pesticide along with a chocolate bar (and hope the can doesn’t leak as the items are placed in a bag together).

Perhaps the EPA needs to rethink the supervision of an industry that sprays occupied buildings with chemicals developed for use outdoors on farmland. Considering the fact that both the EPA and the CDC are unable to tell physicians how to test patients for pesticide exposures, supervision might need to come from a higher authority. I continue to hope that Administrator Jackson will personally intervene in this egregious violation of the FIFRA laws.

Perhaps the pesticide industry needs to adopt better policies for educating its membership. There certainly needs to be stricter policies developed for protecting vulnerable occupants of schools, hospitals and households from toxic chemicals. If they do this independently, Congress might have one less industry to regulate.

Barbara Rubin
The Armchair Activist

As the most recent legislator to introduce a bill on “Toxics”, I have sent your office copies of the following correspondence because you and your colleagues in Washington need to know that we, the people, are unable to safe-guard our own health from one of the most common hazards around today—modern pesticides. While these chemicals may be effective in increasing crop yields, they have still found their way into our homes, offices, hospitals, schools and every location where people gather. Current laws to assess the success or failure of moving farm chemicals into non-agricultural locations do not allow citizens and their physicians to find out if this experiment has succeeded or failed. We have no means of learning this because of restrictions keeping laboratories from developing testing panels to learn about how pesticides affect human biochemistry and influence health.

In 2002, the CDC had researchers test the bodily fluids of 3000 Americans, confirming that 70% of them had been exposed to sufficient amounts of a class of pesticides called ‘pyrethroids’, to have those by-products (metabolites) identified in their urine. How much is too much? We don’t know because physicians are unable to order the same tests performed for CDC research. No labs exist for the medical monitoring of patients. When an individual demonstrates exposure related illness, it cannot be directly confirmed despite the existence of protocols to measure it as per the cited studies above. Veterinary laboratories can do this but not human laboratories. In humans, harm must be inferred through the temporal association of exposure, assuming one knows of it, with meeting descriptions of adverse effects cited directly on the pesticide labels. The EPA confirms the need for medical monitoring in their own publication, “The Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisoning.” Beginning as ‘flu-like’ symptoms, with respiratory symptoms, nausea, cramping, headache and so forth, intensifying into more frank signs of central nervous system effects. These can include the inability to sleep, nervousness, attention deficits, tremor and convulsions. Irreversible damage can result if sufficient numbers of nerve cells are damaged.

These chemicals target nerve cells (of insects and people) to stop working by hyper-activating them. Nerve cells fire excessively due to alterations of the sodium ion channels on the nerve axons. The resulting over-stimulation of the nervous system leads to paralysis and death in insects. Applied to the skins of animals for flea and tick control, pyrethroids and pyrethrins are known to kill small animals. Veterinary toxicologists don’t actually know the lethal dosages for these products on animals and therefore don’t recommend their use on cats. If the animals suffer sub-clinical signs of damage, it doesn’t appear to be monitored in terms of behavior and learning ability. Do we really want to measure safety only in terms of lethal effects?

What about people? When pyrethroids and pyrethrins are applied indoors, these products not only contain the active ingredients designed to disrupt nerve cell functions but also ‘other’ chemicals called synergists, which keep targeted and untargeted life forms from swiftly eliminating the poisons from the body. One such ingredient, piperonyl butoxide targets the liver to accomplish this goal. It is also known that these products also affect the endocrine system which regulates hormonal activity. They can contain ingredients which are suspected or confirmed carcinogens. The nature of pesticides, from their active ingredients to the petrochemicals solvents used to deliver them in liquid sprays, guarantees an array of problems will be brought indoors which were of less concern when their use was limited to large, open areas, away from concentrations of residential properties. Bio-monitoring in research has been an invaluable tool for observing unexpected effects such as the affect of farm chemicals on entire communities. Bio-monitoring has permitted conclusions to be reached about the effects of dietary exposures in children. Unless we are aware of these levels, we cannot identify the points at which we need to be clinically concerned and corrective action taken for the health of patients.

I was at my doctor’s office yesterday and we had an interesting discussion about this because he was helpless to find a resource to determine if I was being exposed to these chemicals. Someone has been spraying substances on my car which make me feel sick and are sometimes visible to the eye. A couple of highway patrol officers have been kind enough to even photograph the visible residues and one police officer took a sample of it last summer. Unfortunately, the police laboratory did nothing with it because they don’t have the forensic capacities to do such analysis according to detectives. The CHP was most apologetic that the best they could do was take those photographs and note the incidents. Interestingly, one of these increasingly common incidents took place last month as I was returning to a friend’s home after meeting with Congressman Waxman’s staff (about toxic chemicals) in Los Angeles. Nothing more could be done in the absence of lab testing and it isn’t possible to have that done, contrary to movie and television scripts leading us to believe that the use of forensic science is common in law enforcement.

And that is simply wrong in this day and age of information which enables us to monitor our intriguing technologies. Where is the guiding wisdom of science when it comes to ensuring our tools are safe for us to use in each new application found for those products? Whether it’s smart-meters for calculating our electricity usage or a can of pesticides someone buys at a local store, we have the ability to find out if it is working to our advantage or to our disadvantage. Since our government is minimally ‘invasive’ in regulating commerce unlike Europe where chemicals are supposed to be tested now for safety before they are marketed, it is up to consumers to develop the body of evidence via experience and sometimes through the courts. That takes access to all information about the circumstances surrounding their use. Unless, for some reason, it is deemed by industry more desirable not to tell us.

Over the past five years, I have been attempting to obtain missing ‘paper discovery’, i.e. my records of employment by YAI/National Institute for People With Disabilities and their sub-division, the New York League for Early Learning based in New York City. I was employed there between 1995 and 2000, at which point I retired on disability with a diagnosis of “Toxic Effects of Chemicals”. The EPA actually suggested I file this suit because they have little or no authority to regulate where various registered pesticides are used and depend upon citizens to exercise our own legal rights in these matters. Civil procedure requires all parties in a suit to exchange information. All of it.

Those attempts have been unsuccessful to this day and my attorney has been reluctant to dispense with the polite formalities and file a motion to compel. I have written about this litigation as an example of how law suits aren’t an evil instrument for profit, but a means for evolving legal safeguards about our use of technology as experience teaches us more about it.

The School Environment Protection Act was introduced (and twice passed in the Senate) which not only endorsed our right to know and consent to the use of pesticides in and around schools, but limited or prohibited the use of the particular types that damage the central nervous system. It cannot be written into law simply because the House of Representatives has never had the opportunity to consider voting on it. The Committee on Agriculture has been ‘studying’ it for a decade although it has no connection with agriculture. That is a lot of study and very little action, requiring us to ask the question of why the Senate was convinced this was a sound measure while our representatives in congress aren’t allowed to reach their own conclusions about it. Had they done so in 1999, I might not be writing this now and there certainly would not have been a need to file this law suit.

My lawsuit asserts that I was poisoned by the use of chemicals actually invented for outdoor use but which are likely to be found in the majority of schools in American today for lack of information about their use (advance notification) and selection of more benign (least toxic) forms of pest control. To the best of my knowledge, my employers were not responsible for the use of these chemicals as they didn’t own the building rented to house our school program, nor did they hire the pest control company which applied the chemicals. The missing records should corroborate the testimony I provided many years ago as they became aware of the changes in my health and ultimate need to retire. Indeed, they supported my application for disability based upon chemical exposures. When I filed suit, the defendants were the ones to sue my employers and assert they might hold some degree of responsibility.

I still have not been privileged to obtain those records and my suit is currently marked ‘disposed’ in the courts pending completion of discovery. Those documents are key yet remain unavailable to me after many years of waiting through the legal process which remains largely incomprehensible to me. In the absence of my ability to advance the legal questions surrounding product safety for certain current-use pesticides, we must return to the ability of citizens to assess health concerns which arise from their use.

Mr. Lautenberg, below is my latest correspondence with the EPA. That correspondence began with this blog post about pesticide regulation. I hope this letter will be the last needed to direct legislative efforts at the most basic level of safety monitoring. Just this morning, my reply from the EPA informs me that that agency has no interest or authority in ensuring their approved chemicals are actually safe for use by the public. Frankly, I can’t find a single agency which does so I imagine this is the type of situation our forefathers envisioned when they put a clause in the Constitution which allows Congress to legislate matters affecting commerce where they deem it necessary.

It is necessary. Just ask the American Association of Environmental Medicine about their frustration with regard to the limitations they face on assessing patient exposures. Review the testimony of an esteemed pediatric expert who testified before Congress on these matters, Dr. Phillip Landrigan. Let us have the ability to medically assess our exposures and correlate findings with symptoms. Forensic testing in the matter of ‘suspicious’ appearances of chemicals should not be limited to fiction seen on television shows, but a working reality. We are citizens first, and consumers second. Medical insurance isn’t useful to us if medical procedures to confirm the sources of our illnesses aren’t available to us.

Thank you for your attention.

Barbara Rubin

My recent correspondence with the EPA about laboratory testing for their approved chemicals received a reply recommending I contact other agencies:

Dear Ms. Rubin,

I contacted our EPA pesticide lab for assistance. They suggested that there are at least a few commercial laboratories that can test for pesticides in blood, urine and tissues. A quick Google search turned up
ABC Laboratories and Columbia Analytical Services as sources for those tests. However, the analytical testing would likely be expensive. In addition, your email said you were concerned about pyrethroid exposure.
They also pointed me to a listing of pesticides that have been found to be able to be tested for by clinical labs:

http://npic.orst.edu/mcapro/PesticidesTestingForExposure.pdf.

You might want to contact the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) if you have not spoken to them previously. They have a medical toxicologist available who might be able to advise your doctors. You
can reach them at 800-858-7378.

I hope this helps.

Claire Gesalman
Chief, Communication Services Branch
Office of Pesticide Programs
www.epa.gov/pesticides
Ask a question: http://pesticides.supportportal.com/

=========================

My reply to that detailed my prior contacts with those laboratories and pesticide information facilities:

Dear Ms. Gesalman,

Thank you for your note but I have spoken with the NPIC extensively and their list of labs is simply that – a list of labs who all tell me they are not equipped to do this kind of testing because there is no profit to be found in it. The listing in the file you provided doesn’t even name the current-use pesticides in the class I mention. I have spoken with the CDC and EPA criminal divisions and all I hear is that there are no known labs which do medical assessments outside of research. Even law enforcement can’t test for such chemicals in a tremendous breach of concern for homeland security. Indeed, conversations with FEMA and the office of Homeland Security indicated that they hadn’t even considered this question.

In the article posted at my blog addressing Administrator Jackson, I described the lack of facilities for bio-monitoring in the US and Canada for these ubiquitous chemicals. I called the researcher whose name appeared in a CDC study from 2002 in which 70% of Americans (sample size of 3,000) showed metabolites of these chemicals in urine. She confirmed the fact that she cannot carry out medical testing nor are there other facilities known to her. Without physician access to testing, there is no possible way for Americans to find out if these chemicals, known neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors, are present in large enough concentrations to be responsible for particular symptom constellations or rising rates in known diseases like Diabetes etc. Right now, the presumption is ‘no harm’ because there is no monitoring to indicate otherwise. An absence of data is not proof of safety and is a direct violation of the FIFRA laws, requiring some means of assessment.

Dursban was only banned because physicians were able to look at the enzyme suppression it caused in all exposed victims, many of whom suffered egregious and permanent damage. In fact, many labs have expressed an interest in running the necessary tests as these chemicals are widely used to fog entire neighborhoods in vector control operations. I’ve been told by at least one lab that their state demanded such exorbitant fees for the permit required to conduct such testing, that the lab would never be able to recoup their investment in that market. Such a fee structure would indicate that it is no accident that labs have never acquired the equipment needed for these panels.

If labs are competent, why are they paying any fees to be able to monitor chemicals approved for use by the EPA? Some exposures are by consumer choice but, like second hand smoke, even more individuals are affected merely being in the vicinity of treated locations. These are farm chemicals displaced for sale and use within indoor settings. Obviously, they behave differently outdoors, and humans have longer exposure times indoors with the slower rates of degradation and absorption by permeable materials.

This isn’t merely a disregard for the health of citizens but it is a detriment to the marketplace itself. Failure to monitor the performance of farm chemicals in this manner is inhibiting product R&D designed for indoor locations. People are not crops and the EPA, which is doing it’s best to tell consumers not to use these products (indirectly of course), are allowing ignorance to govern the marketplace for pesticides even as statistics record ever-increasing rates of illness in Americans.

At this time, I am in need of assessment for exposures to these chemicals and have wasted months in searching for facilities that even the government can’t locate. Can a research lab be given permission to do this testing? As for expense, my exposures to organophosphates were assessed under my Medicare plan. If I am forced to live in a society which uses pyrethroids without any restraint or notice to me, my insurance ought to cover such things. Medical costs actually drive reform in product safety. We legislated against the use of tobacco indoors because of the costs to society in medical care and discovered Avandia was a hazardous drug by looking at Medicare and Medicaid expenses for cardiac problems among Avandia users.

Let the system work for pesticides as well. And we shouldn’t be naïve about these chemicals harming our armed forces and numerous injuries to civilians in their homes and on the job. We know about the potential for damage. Only through medical monitoring can we learn about the parameters guiding safe use of these products. Can you help me get tested when I am next exposed?

Barbara Rubin

cc: Congressman Waxman
Senator Lautenberg
Senator Boxer
Senator Feinstein
Administrator Jackson

===============================

And my final response from EPA was received this morning, entirely dispensing with their role in safety monitoring of approved pesticides:

RE: Your email to EPA
Sent: Thu 12/09/10 9:16 AM

Dear Ms. Rubin,

Have you contacted commercial labs such as the ones listed in the email I sent you yesterday? Our lab thought labs such as those should be able to test for pyrethroids. We don’t have anything to do with fees for testing. That is not something EPA requires or would be involved with. You would have to contact the state that sets such fees to find out why they charge fees for labs to conduct testing. In terms of whether
medical testing is available, again, that is not in EPA’s purview. The agencies that set standards for medical monitoring, etc. would be part of Health and Human Services, I would think. You mention research
laboratories. EPA cannot “give permission” to labs related to doing studies, due to strict rules about research on human subjects. Other agencies also have to abide by similar rules. But again, there are no
restrictions on commercial labs, if you can find one that has the capability to do the testing you desire.

Perhaps your best bet the next time you believe you have been exposed to a pesticide would be to call the Poison Control Center at 800-222-1222 and ask their advice.

Sincerely,

Claire Gesalman
Chief, Communication Services Branch
Office of Pesticide Programs
www.epa.gov/pesticides
Ask a question: http://pesticides.supportportal.com/

============================
Final Note:

Legislators and Administrator Jackson – Bio-monitoring is not about using humans for research purposes. It is straightforward medical practice. Poison control has no recommendation to make other than to see your physician. We already know how that approach turns out.

Congress has the power to intervene in matters of commerce when the commercial sector fails to meet the need citizens believe meets our basic right to know or need for assurances of safety. This is a matter pertaining to the medical, as well as the chemical, industries When knowledgeable individuals like myself can’t obtain basic information regarding our health and safety or pursue legal recourse in a timely manner, what is the average citizen to do who is largely unaware of exposures, along with their physicians?

Will this take an executive order? Must I go to the President of the United States with this conundrum?

Yes, that is a recurring theme on this blog because, as even the CDC has remarked, pesticides are ubiquitous in our environment. There is no escaping exposures to these toxic chemicals despite the body of laws contained in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act ( FIFRA), supposedly governing their use. No one can take that act seriously, if you look at the history of our modern veterans, terribly damaged from pesticides and herbicides.

The full truth of that damage continues to be denied while we supposedly ‘honor’ our heroes of wars past and present, all exposed to intensive amounts and combinations of these dangerous poisons. Who doesn’t know of ‘Agent Orange’? That era prompted decades of denial by the US government regarding the extent to which herbicides destroyed the health of so many Vietnam soldiers and the Vietnamese themselves. The Department of Veteran’s Affairs has only just gotten around to recognizing several more diseases stemming from such exposures, in addition to those recognized earlier. The term “earlier” is relative. It wasn’t until the 1990s that claims of injury from decades of use for this defoliant, in jungles and on crops, began to be compensated.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) chided the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2004 for its inadequate review of the science pertaining to the enormous number of veterans sickened during this brief (1990 -1991) action in the Persian Gulf. With around 175,000 of those soldiers reporting illnesses related to their service, Veterans Affairs head Eric Shineski recently released new guidelines for ‘presumptive’ approval of requests for assistance with the resulting disabilities. Finally recognizing the need to acknowledge many impressive studies from diverse sources, the Institute of Medicine reviewed those which had been published since 2005. Interestingly, their summary specifically cited adverse effects of cholinesterase suppressing chemicals (as in a now-banned group of pesticides) as being implicated in the ‘multi-system’ illness typical of many veterans. The report leaves the door to future findings wide open, as scientists continue to scrutinize the many systemic changes chemicals can induce. Of course, pyrethroid pesticides were heavily used in the Gulf War. Uniforms were soaked in those pesticides and central nervous system damage has been documented when these are combined with exposures to chemicals inducing other biochemical changes. We have yet to see any governmental policies demonstrating that we’ve learned from studies of human exposures being used by governmental institutions in granting veterans benefits. Indeed, the EPA is out of compliance with FIFRA laws pertaining to the bio-monitoring of our use for these chemicals throughout the United States. Nearly every American is exposed, with pyrethroids now a staple of the pesticide industry.

If only pesticides were scrutinized before marketing and vendors were forbidden to tout the safety of their products to users.

Of course, service related disabilities have provided a new crop of clients for lawyers to reap since a 2006 ruling allowed those denied benefits to obtain counsel for appeals. A 2007 article in the ABA Journal (Law News) notes that there were lawyers who’d taken up to a thousand clients in pursuit of veterans benefits were ‘well-intentioned’ but inadequate to such a task.

No kidding.

The blind eye turned towards the misuse of pesticides is a war on our population. Only the multi-national corporations bent upon expanding the sale of farm chemicals to urban populations can benefit. There should be an entirely new industry devoted to the science of safe indoor pest control which has nothing to do with protecting crops and weed control. A new study just demonstrated how populations of malaria-carrying mosquitoes can be safely reduced without harmful insecticides. We should certainly be capable of managing our households from lesser hazards. The Department of Agriculture has responsibility for the investigation and enforcement of pesticide regulations outside of agricultural settings where regulations don’t respect the difference between indoor and outdoor settings in the degradation of chemicals or the degree to which airborne residues linger inside closed spaces. The incredible toll taken on our health care system alone in acute and chronic illnesses resulting from these differences is something we should learn from our Veterans. They have so much to teach us about common sense and prioritizing the importance of people over the tragic consequences of going to war for financial gain as in ‘oil’ or for reconstruction contracts for industries.

We can at least honor their sacrifices by progressing in our use of these wartime technologies. Let’s not forget that pesticides were invented for use as chemical warfare agents. That fact alone, should make it all the more apparent that we need to reconsider their use in our lives. Technology is merely a tool and therefore requires scientific wisdom to utilize it in all its forms.

I’ve run into those conflicts of interest time and time again as I have evaluated different residential environments, all contaminated with agricultural pesticides known to be harmful to humans and their pets. Testing such places revealed an amazing array of pollutants which cannot be reconciled with the sanctity of ‘hearth and home’. In the USA, our homes are damaging our health as we seal them for energy efficiency, exterminate them, decorate them and attempt effective climate control within them. In some cases where the harm was destined to affect many individuals in the future, I contacted the EPA. In each case I was told nothing could be done or referred to another agency such as the Department of Health or the Department of Agriculture for that particular jurisidiction. In turn, those agencies would tell me that nothing could be done. No one denied the contamination of the areas. They merely pointed out that it was of no concern—to anyone, apparently.

After learning of extensive chlordane contamination in one New England residence, I showed the laboratory evidence to the owner who then admitted his wife had become very ill while living in that house. They moved and began renting it out. It is entirely possible that they continue to do so even knowing of the contamination lurking therein. Perhaps you are living in that home today. Some 70 million Americans are affected by chlordane contamination despite it having been banned back in 1988. People test residences for radon these days but no one considers chlordane, still affecting millions of buildings and wells to this day.

New approaches are needed to fully utilize the body of laws called FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which serve to oversee the use of pesticide products. These remain a monopoly of agribusiness, when these poisons invented for use in chemical warfare during the 1930s turned out to be efficient tools in killing pests which threatened agriculture. Whether or not you are a fan of conventional agriculture or prefer organic produce, the typical pesticides sold today for use in your home were made for use on farm fields, open to the air and sunlight needed to degrade these chemicals. This is not an issue under consideration in the regulation of pesticide manufacture and use. In fact, chlordane was actually banned for use in farming in 1983 while its use in homes was permitted for another five years, until 1988. The illogic of that delay permitted millions of additional properties to become contaminated with full knowledge of the hazards by authorities. The EPA currently warns us to be careful of these chemicals when dealing with bed bugs since using pesticides intended for outdoor use can render our bedrooms and entire home uninhabitable. That is a high price to pay for failing to research the best and safest methods of relieving such problems.

The Department of Agriculture continues to be largely responsible for the implementation of FIFRA laws governing farm chemicals used in your home, school, office and hospital; your parks and libraries; your day care facilities and your hotel room. The question to ask is why a brand new industry devoted to the research and development of indoor pest control hasn’t risen to the fore. Pest control is a vital service and there is no reason why a divide shouldn’t exist between agribusiness and home health concerns involving pest control given the vast difference between the two types of environments. Our health may well depend upon our breaking up this strange monopoly of agribusiness in the manufacture of such chemicals. Certainly, we need the FIFRA laws to begin differentiating between their uses in outdoor as opposed to indoor settings. However, agribusiness has many ways in which it maintains its monopolies and even restricts research.

There are many things which can be done but for the obstructive nature of individuals committed to keeping the status quo. Having compiled a list of concrete needs for dealing with this aberrant and illegal state of affairs after a decade of study about these issues, I sought to deliver that list directly into Administrator Jackson’s hands and set about attempting to make an appointment for a ten minute phone call. The request was denied. After several exchanges of emails and phone messages with the scheduling office, I was offered contacts with individuals and departments already known to me. I declined to renew those contacts since they’d claimed no authority to act in prior incidents and discussions. Had those individuals been able to utilize the information previously related, I certainly wouldn’t have any need to speak with the head of the EPA. Unfortunately, when one takes over an ineffective system, some degree of ‘micro-management’ is initially required until existing or new personnel can effectively work with novel goals and procedures.

Apparently, my efforts to reach Ms. Jackson will have to begin with this blog. Every day these issues go without resolution, more people end up sick, disabled or dead. What was most interesting is that the scheduling office mentioned that Ms. Jackson lacks the in-depth knowledge of her staff in pesticide toxicology as another reason for my speaking with other staff. While this may indeed be the case, the issues I am raising do not require a degree in biochemistry. They do require familiarity with FIFRA, the EPA bureaucracy and the obstacles standing in the way of implementing FIFRA. Ms. Jackson is indeed well versed in that morass by now. As is Carol Browner, currently involved in the current administration in other capacities. Perhaps the two minds might together address these issues while health costs soar for leaving them unresolved.

I have been asked why I’ve gone beyond the cursory awareness many Americans have from reading headlines or hearing sound bites about such industry giants as Monsanto, Dow Corning, Bayer, Syngenta and other trans-national corporations which all enter our lives in one way or another. It is because I, like many others, ultimately learned something about the manner in which chemicals can both help and harm society. I witnessed damaged children use drugs which controlled seizures and enabled them to function normally, and met patients cured of cancers like Hodgkin’s Disease. I also witnessed years of chemical exposure leading to disease and death in adults working in harmful occupations. Did you know that the list of ‘harmful’ occupations includes teaching? Teachers have high rates of autoimmune disease.

And then I lost a layer of brain cells and some functions I’d taken for granted would always be mine, because I was exposed to pesticides in a school setting. This happened even though I’d taken preventive measures to avoid such an eventuality for the sake of both the students and staff under my supervision. It is literally impossible to do that successfully in our world which takes all personal choice about chemical exposures away from citizens. That is unacceptable and places business interests over and above all other rights in the USA. How is that democracy in action?

We can certainly praise companies for their successes while still holding them accountable for their failures. They don’t get a free ride for causing cancer just because they treat it as well. We can’t sacrifice the water table to carcinogens in order to use pesticides on the land to artificially increase yields for mere, short term gains. Bad practices should not be permitted as the price to be paid for positive outcomes of related commercial enterprises. It can take thirty years to remove a hazardous chemical from the marketplace. The economy can’t withstand the costs of such large-scale harm in terms of lost worker productivity and high health care costs of preventable illnesses.
 
Consumers were successful in making their desires known to their favorite store chains when it came to marketing genetically modified foods and increasing selections within organic brands. However, typical vendors of food and home/business products such as cleaners and pesticides remain unaffected by the preferences of that sector of consumers. It takes too long to educate the average citizen in the neuro-toxic effects of many chemicals on the market today including their favorite weed and seed lawn products. That is where, however reluctantly, governments have to offer regulatory guidance which can protect citizens from the adverse effects of widely marketed (and deceptively advertised) products. In Canada, such lawn care products will be banned in most of the country within a few years while industry pursues their quarrel with any restraint of trade in the Canadian courts. Canada’s willingness to engage in legal wrangling with mega-corporations selling poisons is based on the fact that it is cheaper than spending tax dollars on the health care consequences of using those products. The same motivation led the US to widely pass bans on smoking in the workplace. This has already had a huge economic benefit to all Americans in reducing heart disease among non-smokers.
 
Government agencies have become complicit in the less attractive activities of multi-national corporations by acquiescing to their dictates of non-interference. By the time sufficient outrage has been generated by a consumer base to initiate regulation, an extraordinary degree of damage has already been suffered in terms of societal costs. It isn’t only measured in terms of dollars spent on health care. Many children are prevented from reaching their optimal potential for intellectual achievement through contact with lead, mercury and neurologically damaging pesticides.

Technological advances from the private sector will only advance so far as the desire for profit allows. Since industry has refused to diversify their scope of marketing of pesticides in the name of limiting current hazards for future gains – investing in their own consumers – then government must alter the degree to which problem industries can monopolize such markets by removing them from oversight positions and legislative influence. The Constitution of the United States permits regulation of industries where needed unlike NAFTA. Under NAFTA, a chapter eleven provision prohibits governments from restricting trade it considers harmful without making reparations to the industries for any loss of profits. Which provisions should we regard as more important and far-reaching? The U.S. Constitution gets my vote. It is possible to do this if agribusiness is simply declared to be a poor candidate for leadership of non-agricultural activities. We aren’t farmers and can’t tell those who are, how to run their farms other than by deciding what foods we wish to consume. Similarly, why should the Department of Agriculture be responsible for deciding what kinds of chemicals belong in my home or office? Just think of the incredible new industry that could arise if the process of researching and developing pest control products solely for use in occupied buildings were independent of agribusiness! There is no reason for farm chemicals to wind up in schools. Children are not crops.

I hope these six ‘bullet’ points makes sense to the average person who hasn’t actually thought about the influence of farm policies upon their daily lives and futures, beyond issues of food production. As of the present, they actually intrude upon every aspect of your life from the toothbrush you purchase to the paint you buy at Home Depot to your child’s classroom.
 
TO EPA ADMINISTRATOR LISA JACKSON:

 
I hope the following six areas of concern regarding oversight of FIFRA laws will spur your interest in widening the range of authorities involved. A division between the regulation of pesticide products used in agriculture versus those used in non-agricultural settings is crucial to the health of our citizens today and the potential achievements for future generations.
 
1. Detection of environmental poisons by odor: The legal use of pesticides and other toxic materials is quite widespread but, in the majority of locales, there are no laws requiring notification before they are used or permission of bystanders who will be inhaling, ingesting and absorbing the chemical drift and residues through their skins and mucous membranes (eyes, throats etc.). In areas where gas fuels are used, an odorant is added to the mixture to identify leaks which would lead to explosions for these highly flammable substances. Without that addition (usually methyl mercaptan), leaks would otherwise go unnoticed by residents and present grave risks for fires/explosions. Unlike our recognition of the dangers from combustion, we cover up the hazards presented by pesticides and many cleaning solvents by adding scents and masking fragrance chemicals. These hide the usual ‘warning’ odor of toxic materials among the many, undisclosed ingredients in these products. That means most individuals exposed to these chemicals remain unaware of their presence. Many who do purchase or contract for their application will assume the lack of odor–or a pleasant odor–means fumes emanating from these chemicals are harmless. It is essential that any chemicals which can harm have a ‘tell-tale’ odorant present. It doesn’t have to be ‘skunk-like’ to repel all comers but should be characteristic (as with gas fuels), so that building occupants and passers-by know of their exposures. It can then be avoided by choice or reported as part of an exposure history to physicians should illness arise. Ignorance of the presence of these chemicals is largely responsible for a lack of test data on their effects upon our population.
 
2. Registry of pesticide use: There is no reason not to offer a registry of information about the legal applications of pesticides within communities. Even the EPA has no right to inquire of a farm if they have applied non-restricted chemicals freely sold ‘over the counter’, despite their toxicity by inhalation or absorption in the water table. Instead of neighbors becoming aware of choices made by farmers with regard to their chosen chemicals after harm is suspected, it is far better for a town clerk’s office to have a registry of the chemicals in use. This would be accessible by those interested in making decisions about residency in farming communities. Many individuals should not reside close to such entities due to interference of pesticides with various medical conditions and drugs used to manage them. Homes near golf courses require similar disclosures as the advantages must be weighed against the disadvantages—particularly for those about to start families. Some pesticides are known to be disruptive of reproductive health and fetal/child health and individuals require the right of choice when large scale users of such chemicals are present in a community. This is not a punitive effort but one which frees all concerned to act in concert with their needs and preferences.
 
3. Supervision of pesticide use by community-appropriate officials and agencies: Currently, most decisions made regarding pesticide use in our homes, offices and schools are merely extensions of policies developed for farmland management. People are not crops and the Department of Agriculture is an inappropriate agency to conduct oversight of pesticide use within residential and businesses settings. The sales of pesticides for non-agricultural uses has become hugely profitable and therefore a major conflict of interest. The incredible profits garnered from transferring agricultural chemicals off of the farm and into our urban communities has retarded technological advances in pest control which would increase the safety of humans occupying treated buildings. These chemicals do not act indoors as they do outdoors. The health effects are simply too well documented now to permit any confusion about the science. The School Environment Protection Act has been passed by the Senate yet has never been released from the Agricultural Committee for a vote in the House. One provision calls for the cessation of use for pesticides which damage the central nervous system. Another calls for the least toxic chemicals to be used in all cases. Where health issues require any higher toxicity chemical to be applied, notification of building occupants and signage is required. Why are our schools even asking the Department of Agriculture for permission to stop exposing our children and teachers to chemicals which damage brains because they were designed to do so in insects which eat growing vegetables and fruits? I lost 24 IQ points to exposures to such chemicals in a school setting. What chance do developing minds have to reach their potential when established learning is so easily disrupted as neuronal activity is directly impaired by these chemicals? If the Department of Agriculture ceases to be involved in chemical use within non-agricultural settings, a new industry will come to the fore. Certainly, new methods of assessing efficacy and safety of pesticides for use in and around occupied buildings can be promoted since these issues are in no way similar to the safety issues presented by agricultural uses for pesticides. Secondly, agribusiness will be freed from dependence upon the income generated by the virtual monopoly they hold upon the pesticide industry and concentrate on better methods of increasing cost-effective food production in the various climates and terrains around the world. The EPA will be able to divide its enforcement codes between the two diverse (and presently conflicting) aspects of pesticide use for the benefit of all citizens and consumers.

4. We cannot hope for any enforcement of the FIFRA laws when there is no medical monitoring possible for current-use pesticides. I contacted the CDC and every imaginable source but couldn’t find a single medical laboratory that presently measures blood or urine metabolites of pyrethrin and pyrethroid pesticides. One lab told me they were trying to ‘gear up’ for such testing. In 2002, the CDC found seventy percent of our population (N=3,000) positive for these chemicals when their urine was analyzed. I contacted the researcher herself but was told they don’t do these tests outside of research purposes. It is unconscionable to market chemicals for which exposure analysis can’t be accomplished in order to learn what concentrations are associated with immediate and deferred adverse effects. In a nation which requires consumers to prove harm instead of vendors to prove ‘safety’, this is a violation of our basic civil rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

5. Similarly, exposure is ubiquitous for these chemicals so it becomes even more important to be able to assess specific environments (e.g. a child’s bedroom or classroom) for the amount of such chemicals which are circulating in our air spaces and associated with immediate and deferred adverse effects. We have OSHA and NIOSH rules for exposure limits in workplaces but none for residences or schools/offices where non-employees are to be found without the right to report toxic exposures.. Having tested air purifier filters left running in numerous settings, the findings were shocking with regard to the amount and variety of toxicants found. Laboratory facilities which are consumer friendly for such analyses must be made available. This would indeed be a good subject of investigation for entrepreneurs to undertake at this time.

6.Respect for the toxicity of pesticide products: Pesticides are poisons which means they should only be used by individuals qualified to comprehend the precautions mandated on their labels and to seek help if adverse effects are noted. Purchase and use of these chemicals by minors is something to be avoided just as sales of liquor and cigarettes are prohibited. When sold in stores carrying food and children’s toys, only shrink wrapped cans ought to be sold as cans sometimes leak and buyers sometimes ‘try out’ aerosol cans to ensure they are working. Similarly, poisons can be used as weapons and forensic kits for sampling sites of suspected pesticide applications for malicious purposes are essential. There are many cases in which such actions are suspected yet go without any investigation for lack of training and procedural hurdles on the part of police. Some of those hurdles are voluntary in the refusal to cooperate with other agencies. Not one law enforcement agency I have contacted from the police to the EPA to FEMA and Homeland Security, will actually collect and analyze such samples. The FBI will take a report but not inform those involved of any actions taken which requires the assumption that nothing is being done to protect Americans from chemical threats of an organized or casual nature. Therefore, criminal activity using pesticides and many common chemicals cannot prosecuted. Sarin gas acts as some classes of pesticides still sold in stores—something the average citizen needs to know in selecting such products for their own use. There is no question but that the lack of forensic testing for these chemicals places our population at risk for their use in domestic acts of violence and terrorism.

Additionally, the devices and mechanisms for delivering pesticides such as foggers and hoses originally meant for broadcast spraying of outdoor settings are completely unregulated under FIFRA laws. Therefore, the methods of application can easily result in the introduction of high levels of these poisons which result in acute illnesses and are followed by long term exposures to residues. The fogging of rooms for fleas and the spraying of mattresses for bedbugs may be well intentioned by individuals subjecting their residences to such treatments in desperation for relief from household infestations. However, many people have found themselves and their families with far greater problems than their unwanted insect visitors, once their homes become permeated with levels of hazardous poisons they may neither recognize nor be able to assess and remove.

Pesticide delivery devices should be considered weapons just like any firearm discharging a tool (bullet) which can be used defensively or offensively. Either way, innocent people are routinely hurt if safety considerations aren’t carefully followed. These considerations are poorly publicized and the public lacks understanding of them. A fogger can be considered an ‘ouzi’ in the indiscriminate spraying of liquid poison around a room or yard. In comparison, a layer of diatomaceous earth placed around a foundation is the equivalent of a ‘barbed wire’ fence to keep insects from crawling into openings yet to be caulked.
 
Sincerely,
Barbara Rubin

My own history of disabling pesticide exposures in a school—my former workplace–is no different for having taken place in our nation instead of a war-torn country. Misinterpreting (or misrepresenting) agricultural chemicals as having equivalent value and efficacy for indoor control of pests, industry has been pouring these same chemicals into our homes, offices, schools and public areas for two generations. The amounts applied are prescribed for efficacy rather with respect for the health of human occupants, also subject to the ‘knockdown‘ effect so valued in pesticides. The cosmetic relief of pests returning to their hidden nests after spraying belies the fact that they haven’t been eradicated and survivors will merely breed a generation of chemically resistant descendants. DDT and chlordane would likely not have been banned despite their hazards had not the insects for which they were used become resistant. In that case, industrial interests worked in concert with those of citizens.

Even as we slogged through the mind-numbing—and expensive—process of eliminating a few of the obviously damaging pesticides, we left their sister chemicals alive and well in the marketplace. Today’s pyrethroids are similar in action to DDT (banned in the 60s), mainly differing in their shorter span of environmental persistence. Residues of DDT are finally diminishing nationally, but break-down products (DDE) are found in small amounts everywhere you test. Lindane and other organochlorines remain on the market, despite the ban placed upon chlordane in the eighties. Most intriguing is the fact that chlordane was banned for agricultural uses first while withdrawal from residential uses followed about five years later. It has yet to break down after all these years and millions of people remain exposed to its deleterious effects upon our central nervous and immune systems. Building upon old agricultural sites where this was employed may lead to intrusions of chlordane into the home much as radon enters via foundations. Unfortunately, ventilation won’t erase it’s effects. Dursban and Diazanon were banned in 2002 for most uses and there is an upcoming ban on aldicarb pesticide after thirty years of expressed ‘concerns’ about it. A large number of other pesticides in that same class of organophosphate chemicals are still available for use. . . and harm.

Huge industries such as the manufacturers of pesticides and chemicals, such as pyrethroids and formaldehyde, have arranged to make the distribution of their products so wide that exposure is unavoidable to the general population. Those who are not primary consumers purchasing them for personal use, are second and third hand consumers by inhalation, skin absorption or ingestion through hand/food contamination. Walls, floors and ceilings offer an imaginary privacy but are no barrier to the migration of gaseous emissions from chemicals ‘next door’.

We live in a ‘show-me’ world, which works well for businesses who can slap cosmetic facades upon cheap goods and ‘sell the sizzle’. The comic phrase, “It is better to look good than to feel good-”, is taken quite literally among our often shallow culture. Unfortunately, the same theme sells in the world of medicine. We spend ages seeing ailments, which defy explanation, until we take the plunge and look at the invisible forces around us. First came Leeuwenhoek, who invented the microscope and others like Lister, who endured ridicule and censure to save millions from death by germs lurking in unhygienic medical practices. It prevented minor wounds from developing fatal infections, improved surgical outcomes and reduced childbed fever, which had turned pregnancy into a life-threatening condition.

How long will we wait before existing, and safe technology, overcomes that Madison Avenue fable of ‘better living through chemistry’? Probably not until the sick have easier and independent access to tests which reveal their sources of injury and inflammation so we can begin to improve the health of future generations. For now, as long as we continue to ignore that which is not visible, we will be held hostage to the chemical companies and the ignorance of consumers who support them through the purchase of their outmoded, though still profitable, products.

Today, gas chromatography reveals the presence of many invisible, yet toxic, chemicals present in air, absorbed by objects and invading our bodily fluids and tissues. Unfortunately, such testing is costly – another depends upon sharp doctors taking environmental histories from patients with unusual or multi-systemic ailments. We’ve finally realized the toxic effects of inhaling tobacco smoke in our proximity and proven the long-term contamination caused by smoke in indoor areas (called third-hand smoking). Yet the effects of absorbing other forms of poisons which are less visible, but intentionally applied in order to poison nerve cells and interrupt other bodily functions, go undiagnosed.

Hysteria, depression, anxiety and somatoform disorder is a frequent assumption or default diagnosis when women and children are ill without obvious cause. Certainly such things as poisoning are not possible in the world of psychologists like Simon Wessely and Herman Staudenmayer. These individuals have raised the age-old practice of pinning psychiatric diagnoses on patients to an art form. Instead of ruling out organic problems, patients are asked to prove to clinicians that their illnesses may have an organic basis. Otherwise, the default condition of psycho-pathologically disordered patients goes into effect. It is almost amusing to see the lengths they go in order to make the search for knowledge and peer support. When any novel or puzzling constellation of illness is publicized, as with Gulf War Syndrome, support groups for those patients are labeled (or ‘libeled”) a means of spreading hysteria instead of knowledge via shared experience with the problem. We will next be informed that groups like the Compassionate Friends, lead bereaved parents further into depressive states. We are told social isolation is unhealthy, but now gatherings for mutual support and study are suddenly ill advised. No matter what affective presentation a patient offers, someone will determine it to be pathological. How is one supposed to respond to tragic events? Perhaps the pathology is more likely to be found among those who fear facing such facts among friends and loved one. It certainly appears to be an opportunity for profit in some quarters.

Psychiatrist Dr. Frances Allen, headed up the last group effort to update the DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). He has widely criticized an insistence upon pathologizing normal human experience with diagnoses of mental illness. There are no objective medical criteria. The new committee to create a fifth edition of the manual is proposing to reduce the length of time a patient experiencing sadness and related symptoms from six months in order to qualify for a diagnosis of depression to a mere two weeks. Frankly, such a brief period of intense mourning for a loved one would indicate an absence of any depth of feeling—an affective disorder—essential to strong relationships, unless one qualifies for an affective or personality disorder. This means profound grief comes at the end of them, a heavy but worthwhile price to pay for years of sustained joy in human interactions. Why are we so afraid of facing the physiological damage inflicted by a chemically complex modern world? Why are we afraid to become responsible consumers and learn about the products chosen for us, if not by us? Dr. Peter Breggin heads an advocacy group for the use of safer psychoactive medications than the current ones and only then, for a far more limited group of patients. A return to the provision of short-term, supportive counseling should be adequate in many situations.  True pathology is simply not as prevalent as claimed and lacks any supporting medical evidence.

There is a firm movement to stigmatize and dismiss patients seeking relief from acute and chronic conditions that are hard to diagnose. Our economy relies upon an ‘honor system’ for the sale of food, clothing and dwellings essential to life, along with the non-essential toys we choose to enhance our life-styles. Vendors are not required—and may not even know—what goes into their merchandise. From Chinese drywall to melamine laced baby foods to diacetyl in our flavored popcorn, many illnesses are generated through bad decisions in manufacturing processes. Lack of labeling keeps physicians and patients from being able to associate various products with human illness until huge numbers of severe outcomes results in an investigation. Industries willing to reap economic gains via unethical means, rather than modernizing their products and services. This is likely because profit margins may be reduced. Perhaps a few more home-owners will choose to conduct their own pest control activities. Nonetheless, poisons placed unnecessarily in our living and working spaces are a human rights violation. Instead of religious fanaticism, we see a financial fanaticism in which any form of profit is wildly applauded in the mistaken belief it may lead to more jobs being provided.

We don’t owe any industry unearned profits. If the technology of the past is no longer desirable, we have the right to choose vendors supplying more appropriate options. You wouldn’t go to a Ford dealer and ask to buy an Edsel, would you? Or a car without seat belts? The majority of pest control problems, including bed bugs, can be handled with less toxic methods than currently used. It may not be as fast or as easy as we’d like to believe it should be, but life is never that simple. Less toxic choices are actually recommended by the EPA. They note that residences have been rendered uninhabitable after treatments with pesticides intended for outdoor use. Pest control services are more important than ever before, but companies must diversify in their methodologies to truly serve their purpose of improving our lives.

We need to stop pretending that pesticides are regulated in any fashion which is meaningful to the average citizen. Lisa Jackson, the newly appointed administrator of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), is highly concerned about toxics in the environment but is handicapped by precedents, and the enormous conflict of interests reflected in the oversight of major industries involved in agribusiness. As with any elected or appointed official, Ms. Jackson’s interests cannot turn into effectiveness without public support and participation. A declaration of full disclosure for use of pesticides is at minimum required to fulfill the requirements of FIFRA and to monitor the costs in human health for the marketing of products which have yet to be fully evaluated. Provisions for the bio-monitoring of pesticides in the population needs to be as widespread as the products if we are going to market them as an experiment prior to safety testing.

The harm these chemicals do is measurable whether or not exposed individuals are openly symptomatic. This is rarely understood because people are both fearful and under-informed of the meaning of the word, “poison” . Poisoning isn’t an event restricted to spies carrying cyanide pills or a Lucretia Borgia-type character emptying the deep well of her ring into a victim’s drink. Poisoning doesn’t usually result in the immediate paralytic and knock-down effect we expect insects to experience. It consists of any degree of interference with bodily functions, as with the suppression of enzymes or alteration of hormone levels which act as catalysts for other physiological events. Insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes are now well documented as consequences of exposures to persistent organic pollutants and herbicides such as Agent Orange. Blood sugar regulation is key in many disease processes and has recently been linked to Alzheimer’s as well. Failure by industry to diversify towards safer methods of pest control and landscaping for non-agricultural purposes in a timely manner, unrelated to regulation or litigation, is a form of Eco-Terrorism. This term no should no longer refer to vandalism of construction sites by a few over-zealous, eco-logically minded activists, but to the huge violence done to humans (Terrorism) in the name of Eco-nomics.

Related posts: Testimony Before the NH Legislature on Pesticides and Schools, A Nation of Patients, Getting the Bugs Out

Part I: General Remarks

Thank you for permitting me to offer this information in support of HB 1456. We urgently need to improve the indoor air quality (IAQ) of schools through reducing and/or potentially eradicating the use of pesticides with known toxicity effects upon people and other non-targeted life forms.

As a disabled educator poisoned by pesticides used in my own NYC school facility in 1999 and, as a part-time journalist who has published a few articles and commentaries on the subject matter, I hope my informal remarks and lay studies will be of use to this committee. Please forgive any errors committed in the conveyance of this testimony as I am mildly aphasic and have acquired learning disabilities. These disabilities have been attributed to brain injury suffered in a NYC school setting as a result of exposures to the very chemicals we are here to discuss. My exposures occurred while I was a supervisor of a school for developmentally disabled children between 2 and five years of age. My aim today is to discuss the scope of inquiry for a committee dedicated to developing a needs assessment for policy setting in pest control practices. I hope to accomplish this through a review of well known issues in the science of pest control and my own, personal experience of the terrible results of ignoring science in the service of retaining old technologies and business practices.

Pest control services are a vital industry to the health of the population. We know that it is impossible to eradicate insect populations, and other invasive organisms. While these will always be with us, controls are important in preventing intolerable concentrations of these unwanted items from turning into infestations and uncontrolled colonizations of molds or bacteria. Advances in chemistry taught us how quickly we can kill such organisms but gave us little preparation for the collateral damage such chemicals can cause. Fortunately, we now have the knowledge and technology which allows us to avoid sacrificing the safety of building occupants against the desirable goals of pest management A study regarding pesticide use in the schools is not a dismissal of the value of pest control services but rather an investigation into the forms it should take in these environments occupied by the most vulnerable of exposed populations – children and a largely female staff.

Pesticides are toxic by definition and it remains against the law for vendors to claim they are ‘safe’, even when used as directed. This alone makes examination of their use in schools a worthwhile endeavor. We know pesticides include ingredients which are irritants as well as well as contributing to asthma – the largest cause of missed school days for children and the fourth largest cause of lost work productivity among adults. While the waste products and remains of dead pests such as roaches also contribute to respiratory problems, those can be resolved with a vacuum cleaner unlike the residues left by pesticides.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the ailment.

Pesticides are a class of chemicals which include not just products that kill insects but also target other life forms – hence the suffix, ‘cide’. This extends the range of our concerns here to include herbicides (targeting weeds); mildicides/fungicides (targeting molds/ fungi) and products which kill disease promoting micro-organisms like bacteria. Many products called ‘repellents’ are actually pesticides despite the alteration in labeling. Today, DDT is applied as a repellent to the interior of house walls in some countries. The overuse and abuse of biocides such as triclosan has led to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria which has become a concern to school programs in recent years. Our increased understanding of mycotic diseases stemming from exposures to certain forms of molds and fungi associated with moisture damaged buildings has led to increased use of fungicides and mildicides in the schools. These pesticidal agents are present in products used in cleaning to those used in painting and other construction/renovation materials. Since all of these products are regulated by the same EPA department, I suggest they should be considered by this committee as falling within their scope of inquiry. It would not only serve the NH communities but set precedents for other states to broaden their range of concerns. For a full listing of the various kinds of pesticides, I refer you to this website by the EPA.

A major concern should be the fact that the most commonly used pesticides act by disrupting the ability of nerve cells to cease firing, over and over again until they become damaged or die. They don’t discriminate between the type of cells they disrupt and humans are a non-targeted organism affected by them. Central nervous system functioning is primary to learning. Developmental disabilities are now affecting one in six children according to Dr. Phillip Landrigan of Mt. Sinai Hospital, a leader in developing the field of environmental pediatrics. You may wish to consult with him since you will be reviewing the testimony of experts in the field at some point in this process. Further, exposure to toxic materials is also a candidate for investigation into high rates of illness, particularly autoimmune diseases. Disability among adults working in the schools may also be worth examining in a needs assessment of the type being recommended today.

Pesticides are quite persistent when used indoors without the aid of sunlight to degrade them, contrary to assumptions and recommendations for re-entry to treated rooms on material data and safety sheets. Exposure considerations must take into consideration the re-release of pesticide residues into the air each time a treated surface is exposed to heat (e.g. baseboard heating surfaces), light from direct sun or lamp exposure, or subjected to increased temperatures from seasonal changes. Recurrent applications, something which is very common in school settings, leads to issues of insect resistance calling for the use of more and mixed types of pesticides. The effects of combining chemicals upon bystanders has not been studied but we do know that effects are not just additive but synergistic. Also, the break-down byproducts or metabolites of some pesticides are more toxic than their original forms (as in the case of malathion).

Further, decades of use of chemicals such as chlordane and DDT, prior to their bans, means continued risks to children in older buildings where these chemicals and their metabolites remain. This means that the age of school buildings and their locations should also fall within the parameters of our concern. I have personally measured concentrations of these chemicals in both low and high amounts in residences. School locations are also subject to pesticide drift from nearby sources. Proximity to farms and gardening/nursery enterprises are obvious sources while communities near marshes and bodies of water will be open to drift for chemicals used for mosquito control. Commercial properties near schools may still be allowed to use chemicals currently banned for residential and school use so such chemicals can still become significant presences in our schools.

Drift from aerial applications of pesticides for forestry management and farming purposes travels extensively and communication with the Department of Agriculture in preparing a needs assessment for the testing of buildings is advisable. Aerial spraying is soon to be banned altogether in the European Union for this reason. Exposure by children in agricultural communities has been proven to be unavoidable, regardless of proximity to farmland as measured in metabolites of these chemicals in the urine of children. Therefore, applications in schools add to the overall body burden of children already affected by these chemicals in other settings.

The literature on the effects of pesticides contains a wealth of evidence for both immediate and delayed symptoms, long term damage to multiple organs biochemical processes apart from enzyme inhibition and adversely affecting learning abilities. Pesticides are also delivered in solvents such as xylene and trimethylbenzene, members of a large and hazardous class of regulated substances all on their own. These are known central nervous system depressants and carcinogens. The Ontario College of Family Physicians did an exhaustive review of the literature with specific conclusions about the risks of exposure to children by these chemicals.

This is the basic information I wished to present to this committee. My next submission is about my personal experiences which exemplifies how vital it is that we do not ignore this technical data. The results of doing so are with us daily.

Part II: My Personal Experiences in Pest Control in School Settings:

I first learned of my vulnerability to pesticides when I fainted following the departure of a pest control applicator in a school where I worked in the Bronx, NY in 1990. After learning about Dursban, the chemical in use, I began to work with accommodation plans permitting me to be absent when pesticides were applied each month. However, while a difference of a few days may make it appear as if one escapes hazards, the effects can only be assessed by looking at biochemical changes rather than overt symptoms. A poison is not just a substance that brings direct harm to us but also one that damages by adversely impacting catalysts in the body which are necessary to other functions. These may include hormones (e.g. thyroid, estrogen) or various enzymes (e.g. acetylcholinesterase). Reductions in important enzymes, interference in hormone regulation, inflammation and deferred symptoms of toxicity must be considered.

The information I gained at that time was used again when I lived in NYC in 1999 when West Nile Virus made its appearance in New York City and malathion was unwisely chosen to be applied by helicopter. Testimony by experts before a bi-partisan congressional committee headed by Congressman Gary Ackerman in March of 2000 found it to be most unwise with side effects far more damaging than its presumed benefits. The practice was halted. I have appended a copy of an article I wrote in 2002 for a magazine in which the effects of pesticides in school settings are discussed with respect to a particular child along with general considerations and quotes from interviews with several experts in the field.

We now use pyrethroids in many locations where we used to use the organophosphates listed above since they were banned for the purpose. Pyrethroids are often advertised as synthetic pyrethrins or acting much like the anti-pest effects of the essence of chrysanthemum flowers. However, we also know these chemical effects, while still disabling to the nervous system, are amplified by the addition of synergists to the formulas. This increases the toxicity beyond the levels at which the active ingredient was approved for sale. Attached is a news article describing up to a ten-fold increase in toxicity, rendering these chemicals threats to aquatic life. The particular synergist cited is piperonyl butoxide and quite toxic in its own right.

I had never heard of pyrethroids until June of 1999 when I was enjoying my second year as supervisor for a school program for developmentally disabled preschoolers called the Douglaston Early Childhood Center. This program was run under the aegis of the New York League for Early Learning (a subsidiary of YAI/National Institute for Early Learning). Having learned first hand that environmentally induced illnesses in school programs can be avoided, I had instituted an indoor air quality program in our first year of operation (1998) which proved quite effective in maintaining a productive working and learning environment.

The spraying of pesticides in and around the property ceased and increased maintenance efforts along with the use of baits unlikely to become airborne were substituted. The school building itself was used for multiple purposes and the owners, in conjunction with their pest control company that more toxic pesticides should be applied in spray form during our week long break between spring and summer sessions. Upon our return, the staff and I all were conscious of residual fumes and remained in better ventilated areas of the school until they faded. Unknown to me, further applications were made to the building and I developed serious and chronic health effects. By September of 1999, I was unable to eat during school hours and lost weight; fought constant bronchial constriction requiring me to carry oxygen with me to work since inhalers were not effective for me. I found myself unable to concentrate for prolonged periods of time, to recall names of familiar people and had difficulty with word-finding in conversations and in my writing. Where it used to take me two hours to write a comprehensive clinical report, it now took days to achieve anything resembling a satisfactory effort. [additional description of symptoms/damage submitted here as well]

My career was over.

An EPA complaint was filed regarding lack of notice and the use of those chemicals in poorly ventilated areas and locations where food was prepared, both advised against in the MSDS sheets. The investigator informed me that the EPA did not pursue actions in the use of registered pesticides as it comprised a conflict of interest between the applicators and their agency which approves these chemicals for use. Instead, they encourage private individuals to file law suits in order to encourage the industry to refrain from using these chemicals in school buildings, residences etc. My law suit is still pending. The federal government has yet to pass the School Environment Protection Act or SEPA, providing national guidelines for the use of nontoxic methods and least toxic methods of pest control. Notification for use of such products to interested parties is also included in those provisions. Only a handful of states have such regulations at present and my own home state of NY didn’t pass their version until a year after I was disabled.

I ask this body to conduct their needs assessment and do whatever it takes to make my tragedy the last of its kind in the Northeastern United States. The material is not only plentiful in identifying the undesirability of using toxic pesticides in school settings but the alternatives are plentiful The pest control industry is slowly evolving into novel practices referred to as Integrated Pest Management or IPM. I thought my school program was following such IPM protocols but was denied my rights to participate in the process because local laws to that effect were lacking. Every person should have the right of choice with regard to exposure to toxic chemicals for themselves and their children, whether that involves being able to substitute other products for the undesirable ones or simply leave the vicinity. Had I known recurrent applications were going to be made, I would have quit my job before becoming so damaged.

We don’t have to choose between pest control and human safety. We can have it all if all parties are required to modernize their knowledge of the effects of these chemicals and make better decisions about selecting among them. It takes work but then that is what adults do to ensure our children grow up to become healthy and capable individuals. The sight of a few ants or roaches shouldn’t be a barrier to any of us losing our health, our futures and becoming burdens upon society instead of assets.

Barbara Rubin, M.A.
Former speech-language pathologist and educator