Pesticide poisoning deliberate

The nature of pesticides is one of a poison deliberately being applied to plants and animals for the benefit of man. Much work has been done on the methods to do this most efficiently and effectively. Finding pesticides to accomplish this task has been rewarding and has increased both the quality and quantity of mankind food supply. This is clearly the beneficial and good side of the coin and is a fairly well-known fact in the agricultural community, but much less well-known and appreciated by the consumers in our society. 

Pesticides were massively used, especially in the first decades after WWII, thus becoming one of the largest risk factors to human life and health, as well as to the entire natural environment. In 1962, Rachel Carson [2] described the terrible consequences of using pesticides in a way that the general public could understand for the first time. She also showed the most important difference between pesticides and other pollutants pesticides are not production waste, but are introduced into the environment deliberately. For the first time, the well-founded hypothesis was stated that, with time, poisonous and foreign chemical substances could make the Earth uninhabitable. 

Snicide deaths and impnlsive acts of self-harm associated with pesticides have cansed increasing global concern. It has been reported that deliberate ingestion associated with pesticides has resnlted in 2-3 million hospital admissions and about 220,000 deaths each year. In recent years, pesticides have been used in a spate of suicides in some parts of India (Andhra Pradesh). Pest resistance and resurgence (mainly on cotton crops) and abuse of pesticides because of lack of strict market regulation of toxic chemicals like pesticides have been found to be the causative factors of human poisonings. 

Risks associated with the exposure of chemical substances cannot be evaluated and quantified easily. Although many data for different chemicals are available (ie, annual risk of death from deliberate or accidental exposures by overdoses of drugs, pesticides and industrial chemicals) these data are usually limited to acute poisoning. 

In cholinergic syndromes, the presenting signs and symptoms are related to the build-up of acetylcholine (ACh) in the voluntary and autonomic nervous systems and the characteristic toxidrome has been described for many years. Most cases have been following pesticide exposure or pesticide self-poisoning, but there is also information about accidental and deliberate release of nerve agents. 

---