Protecting Children From
School Pesticide Exposures

Safeguarding children’s health while at school is a priority for parents, teachers, school administrators, lawmakers, and clinicians. Yet children are continually and unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals while in and around school buildings. Substantial scientific evidence indicates that children are at risk for disease as a result of these exposures.

Many pesticides may be more harmful to children, and at lower doses, than they are to adults. Children breathe more air per pound of body weight than do adults, and they are more likely to put toys and hands in their mouths than adults are. Both of these factors cause them to be exposed to a greater quantity of chemicals in their environment.

Moreover, the nervous system undergoes rapid growth and development in the first years of life. A child’s developing nervous system is not well able to repair any structural damage caused by environmental toxins.

Thus, if cells in the developing brain are destroyed by chemicals, there is a risk that the resulting dysfunction will be irreversible. The consequences can be loss of intelligence and alteration of normal behavior.

Also, because children have more future years of life than adults, they have more time to develop chronic disease, such as adult forms of cancer, triggered by early exposures to toxins.

Two of the most popular classes of insecticides used in the U.S. — organophosphates and carbamates — are designed as neurotoxins, poisoning the nervous systems of unwanted insects. These pesticides also affect the nervous systems of people.

Organophosphates and carbamates harm both insects and humans by interfering with an enzyme in the brain, acetylchol-inesterase, which regulates signals in the insect and human nervous systems.

Acute poisoning by these insecticides in humans has caused a myriad of short and long-term nervous system disturbances, including agitation, insomnia, muscle weakness, respiratory agitation, nervousness, irritability, forgetfulness, confusion, and depression.

There is substantial evidence in animal studies and limited evidence in studies of adult humans that chronic, low-level exposure to organophosphates may also affect neurologic functioning and neurodevelopment in humans.

Given this evidence, there is a strong likelihood that low-level chronic exposure adversely affects children’s ner-vous systems, resulting in lower cognitive function, behavior disorders, and other subtle neurological problems.

Studies also indicate that exposure to organophosphates disrupts the part of the nervous system that regulates the motor functioning of the lungs. This has led researchers to hypothesize that pesticides are among the preventable causes of asthma in children.

In addition to nervous system disruption, studies have noted links between cancer in children and their exposures to pesticides. Leukemia and brain cancer — the two most common forms of childhood cancer — have increased substantially in incidence since the mid-1970s.

Children are exposed to pesticides on a daily basis from multiple sources. Fruits and vegetables contain residues of pesticides applied in agriculture. Ninety percent of American homes use pesticides. Schools are also common sites of pesticide use.

Eliminating pesticides from the school environment is critical to lowering children’s total exposure. Children spend an average of 6-7 hours per day, 5 days per week, 180 days per year, in school. The only other place in which children spend more time is their home.

In order to protect children’s health wherever they work and play, pesticide use in schools must be reduced, and families must be routinely notified whenever pesticides will be applied in schools.

The Center for Children’s Health and the Environment (CCHE) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine supports efforts at the local, state, and federal level to avoid pesticide use in an around schools and to notify children and parents when pesticides will be used.

CCHE’s director is Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., M.Sc., a pediatrician who chairs the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai.

For support getting your school to use Integrated Pest Management, contact CCHE’s Washington, D.C. office at (202) 776-1105 or e-mail at ac@acpm.org

For the last year and a half, some-thing very wonderful has been going on at Bandelier Elementary School — weekly dance classes for Mary Sciumbato’s Special Ed class.

The classes are taught by Tsiporah Nephesh, a dancer and member/volunteer at the Co-op.

Tsiporah says of her work at Bandelier,

“I love to dance and I like to share the joy of dancing with others. It benefits students in helping them focus and concentrate: skills they can apply in other areas. It’s a good approach for students who have trouble learning in a traditional way. The students don’t even realize they are learning — they’re just having fun.”

The learning and the fun were evident in a performance given by the students in May to a school assembly. The students glided through several complex modern dance pieces with gusto — wowing their audience, and obviously enjoying the dancing.

Tsiporah has been volunteering at the Co-op for four years now, in a variety of areas, before moving on to Bandelier.

“There is a lot special about the Co-op — a sense of community and shared values. Co-ops on a reasonable scale like ours keep life a little more personal, sane and humane. Everything else has that glossy, corporate feel. The Co-op is a touchstone of humanity.”

There’s a lot special about Tsiporah too, and what she brings to the students at Bandelier.

Thanks, Tsiporah!