Questionnaire Survey Method
REPORTING A PESTICIDE EXPOSURE INCIDENT TO
THE HEALTH & SAFETY EXECUTIVE
One hundred and sixty-three questionnaires were
sent out to those members of PEX—Action on Pesticide Exposure
(formerly Pesticide Exposure Group of Sufferers) whose records
indicate that their incident was reported to the HSE.
Fifty-seven were completed and returned.
Forty-two described incidents pre-dating 1990.
The 15 key questionnaire returns referred to
in this Evidence (anonymised copies attached)[2]
describe incidents which occurred post-1990.
Re: Question 177
Pesticide incident reporting system:
California's Pesticide Illness Surveillance Program
This is the most extensive system in the USA.
California has the largest agricultural economy
in the country, and employs about 600,000 men and women. From
1991 to 1996, the California Environmental Protection Agency's
Department of Pesticide Regulation reported 3,991 cases of occupational
poisoning by agricultural pesticides, an average of 665 cases
per year. However, for the reasons given below, this is still
an under-estimate.
— Doctors are legally obliged to report
pesticide poisonings promptly to the California Occupational Safety
and Health Administration and the Medical Board of California
can sanction them with fines if they fail to do so.
— Employers are legally obliged to
record pesticide usage, and are fined if they do not.
Shortcomings
Because, as here, doctors know little about
pesticide exposure symptoms, inadequate information is often recorded
about: specific pesticides, type of work, symptoms, medical tests.
This may mean that opportunities for immediate investigation are
lost.
The system, as here, addresses only acute health
effects: chronic effects are not accounted for at all, despite
evidence from studies indicating that pesticides can carry elevated
risk of certain cancers, birth defects, spontaneous abortion and
developmental problems.
Key recommendation (Pesticide Action Network North
America)
Information about the acute and chronic health-effects
of the pesticides in use, written in understandable language,
should be available in farm records to agricultural workers and
the public. A public database giving amounts of pesticides being
used, contraventions of the regulations, and the number of people
affected by the contraventions, should be available, updated no
more than six months after the end of the year for which the information
is reported.
December 1999
2 Evidence not printed. Back
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