Pesticide poisonings North America

Size and complexity of the dietary supplement market are only a few of a number of difficulties that public health officials face when dealing with poisoning episodes. In North America alone, at least 700 plant species have been described as being poisonous in one way or another, and plant poisonings are often difficult to differentiate from environmental intoxications caused by pesticides and industrial chemicals and from adverse reactions to synthetic drugs (Der Marderosian and Liberti, 1988). Complicating the picture is the fact that symptoms of many intoxications mimic those of medical conditions not associated with a toxic exposure, and that establishing causality may therefore be difficult (Perrotta et al., 1996). 

There have been thousands of serious poisonings and fatalities caused by pesticides and pesticides are a constant threat to millions in the more illiterate parts of the rural populations in many countries. A quick search on the Internet, for instance, gave this information from Pesticide Action Network North America (http //panna.igc.Org/resources/gpc/gpc 200008.10.2.24. dv.html) ... 

In 1985, 1000 US and Canadian consumers were poisoned by aldicarb residues in watermelon, the largest known incidence of pesticide food poisoning in North America. 

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