Poisoning by pesticides

Poisoning by pesticides that contain organophosphate compounds produces a variety of symptoms, including nausea, blurred vision, fatigue, muscle weakness and, potentially, death caused by paralysis of respiratory muscles. 

IPEN has a number of regional counterparts such as the Southeast Asia Pops Elimination Network (SEAPEN), which aims to build capacities of NGOs so that they may help their respective countries implement the Stockholm Convention. It undertakes projects that are supportive of IPEN objectives such as conducting tests and follow-up examinations of persons poisoned by pesticides, and conducting training and disseminating information on alternatives to pesticides. 

Dogs and cats are commonly poisoned by pesticides, herbicides, household products such as antifreeze, and drugs such as acetaminophen applied by humans to their pets. By far the most common toxicities in these small animals involve various insecticides and the overzealous use of these products by owners attempting to control fleas and ticks on their pets. 

Ferrer A, Cabral R Recent epidemics of poisoning by pesticides. Toxicol Lett 82/83 55-63, 1995... 

There are cases of acute human poisoning by pesticides in the Ukraine. In the last 20-25 years this occurred more often in workers not involved directly in the application of pesticides, but amongst those workers who cultivate agricultural crops on fields treated previously with pesticides. This problem was the subject of a special investigation [8]. 

A UN report estimated that approximately 500,000 people a year are poisoned by pesticides in Pakistan of which 10,000 die. 

A large number of domestic animals are poisoned each year by pesticides and must be destroyed. Additionally, significant amounts of meat and milk are contaminated with pesticides and must be removed from the market place (51). The yearly cost of these losses is estimated to be at least 30 million. 

While before 1964 the main cause of poisoning was the violation of safety rules, more recently the causes of poisoning have been violating quarantine periods when returning to treated fields, violating health protection zones, and ingesting water and food products contaminated by pesticides (emphasis ours - authors). 

The risk of acute, more likely chronic, poisoning by different pesticides concerns not only this small number of children who are in one way or another linked to pesticide use, but also the larger number of children with no link whatsoever to pesticides. The danger of pesticides effects on children and their mothers is examined in many different papers [12, 37, 45, 48, 57, 70, 89, 90, 93, 96, 101, 103]. 

The growing concealment of medical data during this period meant that the problem of food product contamination by pesticides disappeared from discussion. Over three five-year periods (from 1970 to the middle of the 1980s), Soviet society was almost completely deprived of information on human poisoning by food products contaminated with pesticides. However, the trend itself did not weaken. 

A predator eating a victim that has accumulated pesticides in its tissues may die from secondary pesticide poisoning. For example, newts died when they ate tadpoles poisoned by OCPs. Frogs may die as a result of eating poisoned caterpillars [85]. 

Mammals may die from pesticide poisoning not immediately, but many months later, when they more actively use their fat deposits, for example, when waking up after hibernating they are then poisoned by deposits of toxic substances in their fat [3,6]. 

Potential Uses of These Polymers. We have studied the phenyl isocyanate modification of poly(vinyl alcohol) as a model system. Many uses exist for carbamates as medicines, pesticides and herbicides (67,68). For example, ethyl carbamate has been used to treat leukemia and multiple myeloma. Ethyl carbamate has also been used as an antidote for central nervous system poisoning by strychnine. The tranquilizer Meprobamate is a carbamate derivitive. Numerous pesticides and herbicides, such as Sevin and Propham, are also carbamate derivatives. Propham is isopropyl N-phenylcarbamate which bears a strong resemblence to the polymers of Equation 21, and this compound is used as a preemergence herbicide. Numerous other close analogs could be cited also. We might note also that the N-phenyl carbamoyl unit bears... 

Oral Toxicity How poisonous a pesticide is to an animal or person when taken by mouth. Organelle A structure with a specialized function which forms part of a cell. 

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