Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides
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Our understanding of pesticides is abysmally poor. Time and again we are surprised when a pesticide wreaks havoc. Seven hundred Brant geese die after walking and feeding on a New York golf course treated with diazinon. One hundred and fourteen farmworkers experience severe skin reactions when they pick citrus sprayed with a new propargite formulation called Omite-CR. One hundred people poisoned by organophosphate pesticides an average of nine years earlier are found to be suffering from permanent intellectual impairment....
Why do these surprises occur? They occur because organisms and ecosystems are exquisitely complex and the testing of pesticides for environmental and health damage effects and environmental fate is minimal.