Protecting farm workers and their children from pesticides is a difficult undertaking—these workers have great pride, suffer from abundant toxic exposures, and have insufficient legal
protections.
Agriculture is the only industry where child labor is legally sanctioned. The Fair Labor
Standards Act of 1938 prohibited child labor in most industries, but did not impose age limits in agriculture until 1974—and even then 14-year-olds could work unlimited hours and 16-Indianapolis, IN
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year-olds could perform hazardous jobs, including handling pesticides. The National Child
Labor Committee estimates that there are 200,000 to 800,000 children and adolescents who
work in agriculture in the U.S., and at least 100,000 minors working on farms in violation of statutes every year.
The Federal Pesticide Act of 1978 decreed that use of a pesticide must be consistent with its label; there were 70,000 pesticides on the market at that time. Acutely toxic and some
nonacutely toxic pesticides are labeled as restricted use. Nonacutely toxic pesticides are included in this category because they may harm crops. Restricted use pesticides may not be
applied without a permit, which is regulated by individual states. Pesticide regulation is one area where a national program is needed to ensure proper certification and that usage is
reported for both restricted-use and general-use pesticides.
The chronic health effects (including cancer) from low-level exposure to pesticides that meet legal requirements and for which there is no evidence of illness or misuse are unknown.
Current policy allows thousands of pesticides to stay on the market while lengthy testing or
retesting for health effects is performed.
One of the problems with regulation of pesticides is that it focuses on food residues, which does not provide protection for workers who must still manufacture, transport, use, store, and dispose of the potentially toxic chemicals. At each of those steps there is enormous
opportunity for exposure to workers and their children. Once in the environment, residues
that persist in air, soil, and water continue to pose a threat to the biosphere and to public health.
There should be a comprehensive, ongoing national study of all childhood cancer cases in the United States. According to American Cancer Society data, there are about 8,000 new
incident cases of cancer in children each year. Children are an ideal group in which to study pesticides and other exposures as a risk factor for cancer because they have a much shorter
latency for cancer, are unlikely to be smokers or drinkers, and overall do not have
confounding occupational exposures. If children and pregnant spouses of farm workers are
protected, then the entire community will be protected.
About ten years ago a group of farm organizations and unions (California Rural Legal
Assistance, Farm Worker Justice Fund, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Migrant Farm
Workers Justice Project, National Council of La Raza, Pesticide Education Center, and
United Farm Workers of America) devised ten commitments to protect farm workers from
cancer. 1 Progress has yet to be made on meeting many of these basic commitments.
1 The ten commitments were to: (1) prohibit the use of any pesticides known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects, neurological damage, or that are in the highest acute toxicity category during any phase-out period; (2) prohibit all aerial application of pesticides; (3) guarantee farm workers the right to know what specific pesticides are used in their workplace through crop sheets, posting of warning signs, and training that covers health effects, protective clothing, and other safety information in a language the workers understand; (4) require and enforce a mandatory national pesticide use reporting system for all uses to include all active and inert ingredients in products; (5) require and enforce a mandatory national reporting system for all potential pesticide-related incidences and illnesses by agricultural employers and health professionals; (6) guarantee farm workers the right to bring an action to enforce their rights under the law, including employer retaliation, violation of worker protection standards, and regulation of toxic pesticides; (7) guarantee farm workers the right to organize, human representation, living wage, overtime pay, a safe workplace, and workers’ compensation; (8) require and fund a continuing program with the cooperation of farm workers for biological and environmental monitoring of pesticides in farm worker families and their communities; (9) require and fund research with the cooperation and approval of farm workers to set up a program to monitor long-term effects of pesticides; and (10) change Federal and state agricultural funding to promote research in the transition from toxic pesticides to rational and sustainable pest control methods.
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DR. SANDRA STEINGRABER:
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT PESTICIDES AND BREAST CANCER