Integrated Pests Management: A Safe Alternative to Hazardous Pesticide

Integrated Pests Management: A Safe Alternative to Hazardous Pesticides       The well being of our everyday day lives are affected by the agriculture industry.   For many years now we have been using pesticides to control the pest population in our crops.   Over the years research has shown that pesticides can cause fatal diseases like cancer.   Pests are also becoming resistant to pesticides.   It is time that we find a new way to rid of pests.   A program called the Integrated Pests Management is doing so and many growers have begun to use their tactics. Pesticides have been known to cause a number of diseases in humans as well as animals.   The most vulnerable to these diseases and side effects are infants.   Pesticides effect infants the most because the structures of their body systems are not fully developed.   Parents don’t use adult doses of drugs to their children. In contrast, the EPA allows infants and children to eat adult approved doses of pesticides that have not been evaluated in terms of safety for infants and young children.   Infants and children react differently to many drugs and toxic substances.   An example of this is Aspirin.   Aspirin can cause Reyes syndrome (a condition that kills 80 percent of its victims) in children and teenagers, but it does not cause this condition in adults (Cook, 2). Children are at the greatest risk to pesticides.   The national Cancer Institute USA found an increase risk of leukemia in children whose parents used pesticides in the home garden.   Children are commonly exposed to hundreds of pesticides in food, meanwhile, the incidence rate of childhood brain cancer and childhood leukemia continues to rise (Ries, 93).   â€Å"The reason that children are at risk the most is because ever... ...th. Pesticides in Food, Environmental Working Group,   http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/reports/Baby-food/Baby.html Elkins, E.R. Effect of commercial processing on pesticide residues in selected fruits and vegetables. Journal of the Associated of Official Analytical Chemists, 1989 Ries, L., et al.1993. Cancer in Children, SEER Cancer Statistics Review. U.S. Department   of Health and Human and Human Sevices. Washington, D.C. 1990 Sorensen, A. Proceedings of the National Integrated Pest Management Forum, June 17-19,   1992. American Farmland Trust Center for Agriculture in the Environment.   Arlington, VA, 1992 United States Environmental Protection Agency: Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic   Substances, For Your Information: EPA Efforts to Encourage Alternatives   To Traditional Chemical Pest Control, Washington, D.C., March 1993