Wisconsin Farmers Skip Protective Gear When Using Pesticides

Most farmers ignore warning labels and expose themselves to toxic pesticides wearing little or no protective gear, according to a Wisconsin-based study of compliance with federal guidelines conducted by the Medical College of Wisconsin Department of Family and Community Medicine and Injury Research Center and the Occupational Health Program at Harvard’s School of Public Health.

The study found, for example, that among the three most common pesticides used (dicamba, atrazine, and cyanazine), fewer than one in ten farmers used all of the required protective gear (8.8%, 8.6%, and 2.5% respectively). In some instances, nearly six out of every ten farmers used no protective gear at all (56.9%, 38.6%, and 47.5% respectively).

“Pesticides include herbicides that are directed at plants and insecticides that are directed at insects,” said study co-author Peter M. Layde, MD, MS, Medical College Professor of Family and Community Medicine. “People are actually fairly similar to insects in many respects, as far as our physiology goes, so insecticides have some acute effects.”

“The things that we use to try to fight insects tend to be neurotoxins that affect the nervous system. Acute exposure to high doses of these can cause serious problems, things like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and in extreme cases it can result in death because of blockage of the nervous system.” The study noted the growing body of evidence that chronic pesticide exposure is also associated with certain cancers.

Low Rates of Compliance “Shocking”
Researchers interviewed 220 randomly selected dairy farmers from six counties in south central Wisconsin one week after they applied any of 15 chemical pesticides that can be absorbed through the skin, inhaled or ingested.

In general terms, the study showed that hardly any farmers used all of the gloves, eyewear, coveralls, respirators or boots to protect them from any particular pesticide, and that compliance with warning label recommendations did not rise along with the toxicity of the pesticide.

“This study was one that was shocking,” said Dr. Layde. “The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) requires labels detailing how much protective equipment is needed for different products based on how harmful they are. The more dangerous the pesticide the more protective equipment you have to use. For all of the pesticides that we evaluated, these farmers frequently did not make use of any protective equipment and when they did it was certainly not all that was required by the label.”

“This ranged across the board from some of the relatively innocuous pesticides, although none of them are totally innocuous and they all require wearing some protective equipment,” Dr. Layde said. “There are one or two pesticides that are considered relatively safe and don’t require use of any protective equipment, but they weren’t included in the study.”

Under EPA guidelines, the use of restricted pesticides is limited to persons who successfully complete a state-administered certification course and pass a written exam. But as the study notes, there is no system in place to monitor compliance or conduct site visits so it is up to the individual to safely handle pesticides and use appropriate protective gear.

Farmers Might Not Realize Extent of Health Threat
“The training that these people got evidently wasn’t effective at motivating them to wear the protective equipment,” said Dr. Layde. “That’s part of the problem. Another part of it is that farmers are very busy people and taking these precautions takes a little bit of time. Farmers tend to be kind of rugged individualists and they sometimes feel that they’re wiser than government regulators who are going to put these restrictions on them. And sometimes they feel that none of their friends do it. We found that the perception of what peers are doing is a very important factor in determining farmers’ behavior.”

Opinions about using protective equipment when applying pesticides are often “formed at the checkout counter at the feed store,” according to Dr. Layde. “Farmers will ask ‘do you use the protective equipment when you’re applying atrazine?’ and they’ll hear back, ‘nah, who has time to do all that?’”

“The acute intoxication from pesticides is something farmers can relate to,” said Dr. Layde. “They tend to try to avoid those types of exposures. But the longer-term delayed consequences of things like cancer are a different story. In general people pay more attention to immediate risks than they do to delayed risks. The whole literature about risk perception and how it influences people’s behavior applies to everything from seat belt use to pesticide application.”

Dr. Layde said that one effective way to increase the use of protective gear is to emphasize the potential impact of pesticide exposure on family members. “Concerns about birth defects get people’s attention,” he said. “Farmers themselves figure, well, I’m tough and it’s not going to affect me, but you can sometimes motivate them by explaining that the risks aren’t just to farmers themselves.”

In addition to better training and more compelling ways to explain the health consequences to farmers, said Dr. Layde, allowing only professionals using the right gear to apply pesticides would minimize exposure risks. That approach might not be well received by farmers, he added, as it would increase their costs and take an important task out of their hands.

Dan Ullrich
HealthLink Contributing Writer

For more information on this topic, see the HealthLink articles Take Precautions When Using Pesticides and Nasal Discomfort Can Be Caused By Irritants on the Job.