Which can be more dangerous, the pests or the pesticides we use to kill them?
That has been a $64,000 question for a number of years, and depending on the situation the answer can be different. Much progress has been made in developing pesticidal chemicals that are safer to humans, and improvements in developing better safety procedures for handling, storing and using pesticides.
While the number of deaths related to pesticides has decreased dramatically over the years thanks to these improvements, there is still a concern with people getting sick from exposure to these chemicals. But is that concern being underestimated as it is?
It makes sense for many people that those who are most exposed to pesticides are agricultural workers on various farms and ranches. Much agricultural work is seasonal, meaning that many of the workers work only a few weeksor a few months a year on any one farm. These temporary, nomadic workforces are hard to track, and the reality is that many of the workers are undocumented or have no noticeable footprint in the economy when they are not on the farm.
And with some of these workers being fearful of authorities, there is a question whether the number of illnesses and injuries reported from pesticide exposure is accurate. After all, those who are fearful of authorities may not go to a hospital or otherwise report illness, avoiding hospitals and health cennters and not taking much if any time off work.
NIOSH recently put out a report about pesticide illness and injury in the workforce, and the agency revealed that there is evidence in its data to suggest that the actual number of illnesses and injuries may be significantly lower than the actual reported numbers from 2007 to 2011.
And let’s be clear here – much of what we do as safety professsionals can be based on data, and if that data is not accurate or not fully reported, we may end up taking action in an alternate reality which means we take different steps (either more aggressive or more defensive) than we otherwise should – which may end up making the problem worse not better.
The report does mention that the pesticide-related injury and illness rate among agricultural workers is a remarkable 37 times higher than those workers in every other industry (including pest-control workers). And this is just the recorded illnesses; how much different are the actual numbers?
The question is whether we will ever have a mechanism to capture those unreported cases in the future. You can find the full NIOSH report at this link.