When researchers measured evidence of exposure to pesticides in 386 pregnant women (mainly from Harlem in New York) they found that their exposures had been:

• higher than had been found in previous studies, and

• higher than had recently been found in children living in a rural part of Washington state

The findings underline the importance of reducing the use of pesticides by town dwellers and local authorities.

In a separate study, members from the same team tested the hypothesis that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) would be as effective as pesticides at controlling cockroaches. They found that IPM measures such as cleaning up food scraps and crumbs, removing potential nutrients for the insects, sealing cracks and crevices and using the least toxic pesticides very sparingly matched the performance of the pesticides normally used and cost far less to apply.

A third study from the team linked the level of mothers’ exposure to pesticides with the head size of their newborns. Reduced head circumference has been linked to lower intelligence. [1]

It is generally accepted that, because pesticides in indoors air and house dust are very persistent, the average indoors environment is much more dangerous than the average outside. Some scientists claim it can be as much as forty times as toxic.

In the US 80%-90% of households use pesticides. Researchers there have examined the impact of spraying lawns with the pesticide 2,4-D. They found that:

• walking on treated lawns as much as a week after spraying transferred significant amounts of 2,4-D onto carpet, where it could enter children’s bodies through skin contact

• the presence of pets increased this

• taking shoes off at the door decreased this

• so-called ‘track-in’ was a far greater cause of indoors contamination than spray drift in the air

• a week after spraying, background levels of 2,4-D had risen twelvefold on average, but in some cases by up to 400 times