Poison Control and Pesticide Information Organizations Collaborate to Strengthen Pesticide Safety and Education

On February 23, 2015, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), which supports the work of the nation’s 55 poison control centers, and the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC), a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon State University, announced that they have teamed up to focus on pesticide safety and education.

The two organizations will bring their collective expertise and experience to developing bilingual health and safety educational materials for the general public related to pesticides such as antimicrobials, herbicides, and insecticides.

 Newton Committee for Alternatives to Pesticides

To read the joint press release in full, see http://www.aapcc.org/press/41/

Information about Poison Prevention Week 2015, March 15-21, 2015 http://www.poisonprevention.org/poison.htm

Ask your Member of Congress to support SEPA. The School Environment Protection Act (SEPA), HR 4225, is needed to protect children from toxic pesticides used in and around schools.

Beyond Pesticides' Tools for Change

Links to online resources and campaigns, also pest management information. http://beyondpesticides.org/

"IPM is not about hugging trees. It’s about a better environment in which to hug our kids.”

From Northeast IPM Insights: School IPM: Good for Children, Easy on the Budget

http://www.northeastipm.org/about-us/publications/ipm-insights/school-ipm-good-for-children-easy-on-the-budget1/

Consider School Air Quality in Absentee Rates

To the Editor (Education Week, 1 11 2011):

Regarding your articles about absenteeism, including “Early Grades Are New Front in Absenteeism Wars,” (Oct. 20, 2010), the healthfulness and safety of the facilities themselves should also be considered when looking for reasons why students aren’t in school.

The Environmental Protection Agency states: “Studies show that one-half of our nation’s 115,000 schools have problems linked to indoor air quality. Students are at greater risk because of the hours spent in school facilities and because children are especially susceptible to pollutants.” A 2002 review of studies related to school facility condition, commissioned by the 21st Century School Fund, found links to student absenteeism, achievement, and behavior. School buildings can affect student health in many ways.

A Government Accountability Office report from 1995 lists irritated eye, nose, and throat; upper-respiratory infections; nausea; dizziness; headaches; and fatigue or sleepiness as some of the impacts of poor indoor environmental quality.

The health problems resulting from unhealthy school conditions impact students’ educations in a variety of ways: absenteeism due to building-related health problems; “presenteeism,” when children are present, but not able to do their best because they don’t feel well; and use of substitute teachers because classroom teachers are absent for the same reasons as their students.

As the EPA notes in “Tools for Schools”: “The price for neglect is high, but the investment in maintenance need not be.” Although some indoor-environmental-quality issues may stem from problems requiring costly repairs, others can be resolved with cost-neutral measures, such as switching to environmentally preferable cleaning products and practices.

Our investment in our children’s health and academic performance is essential. There is ample evidence that buildings affect people. We need to ensure that school facilities–our children’s compulsory workplaces–are safe, healthful places. Until all schools are safe and healthful, we should include the impact school facilities are having on students in our discussions about absenteeism.

Virginia Mott

Lakeville, Maine

Related:

Press Release: New Data Shows Schools Ignore Children's Health: Groups Urge Action by EPA and States  National Association of School Nurses/Healthy Schools Network, January 11, 2011

Healthy Schools Network
National Healthy Schools Day

Lead Free Kids

You Can Prevent Lead Poisoning

Learn what you can do to prevent lead poisoning in your home, in your school, on the job, during your home renovation, or as a property manager/landlord.

Be Lead Safe, Not Lead Sorry

Stripping paint? Renovation?
Maintenance? Rehab? Restoration?

When old walls and woodwork need attention,
Take precautions. Think Prevention.

Beware lead fumes, chips and dust.
Learn lead safety. It's a must!

Bag up belongings. Take everything out.
Cover the carpets. Make sure no one's about.

No children, no pets, no mommies-to-be
Until all's cleaned up and completely lead-free.

Open the windows. Set up the fan.
Seal up the doors as well as you can.

Keep gardens and play yards lead-safe as can be.
Use drop cloths to catch flying chips and debris.

Choose tools with care. Sharp scrapers are best.
Sharpen them often. Don't make a mess.

Dress for the Job. Wear special work clothes.
Protect your hair, eyes, mouth and nose.

Choose a respirator just right for your face.
Make sure the appropriate filter's in place.

Don't eat or smoke on the job 'til you're through,
Or some of the lead will get into you.

Clean up with care. Don't spread lead about.
Vacuum and wet mop to get the dust out.

Change clothes at the work site.
Don't bring Poison dust with you.

Only after you're clean
Can kids safely kiss you.

With toxic hazards, don't take a chance.
Dispose of them properly, far from your manse.

Lead poisoning is bad news. You don't want to get it.
It comes from old paint. So take steps to prevent it.


-- Ellie Goldberg, 1985

A Safer Spring

A Safer Spring?

lawnsign circle.jpg

Be alert for pesticide warning signs.

Teach children to stay away from areas where pesticide warning signs are posted.

Avoid taking walks or exercising where you see landscapers applying chemicals to lawns, trees or shrubbery.

Do not walk on granules scattered on streets and sidewalks to avoid tracking the residue into your home where it accumulates on carpets and house dust.

Talk to your neighbors. Ask them to notify you if they use herbicides or insecticides. You need to keep children and pets inside and to cover play equipment, sandboxes, garden vegetables and lawn furniture.

Close windows to keep the spray or vapor cloud from drifting into your home.

Consider keeping children and pets off lawn areas that have been contaminated even after the warning signs are gone.

Educate your neighbors and friends about safe, ecological approaches to insect and weed control.

Use alternative lawn care signs. They are good conversation starters and help concerned individuals to identify each other. For example, in Newton, MA the Green Decade Coalition promotes the lawn sign:"Pesticide Free: Too Precious to Poison." In Wellesley, Massachusetts, the city's Natural Resources Department and the Wellesley Cancer Prevention Project adopted the Green Decade committee's logo as part of their green and white round lawn sign that says "Keep Wellesley Safe. Pesticide Free."

See Resources: http://greendecade.org/resourcegreenCAP.html

What Dog Walkers Should Know About Golf Courses

A neighborhood dog walker writes: "June 10, about 7am, one of the golf course employees drove by in a tractor which was pulling a spreader. He stopped the rig and told me that he was spreading fertilizer and Merit insecticide. According to him, dogs pads can absorb this, it lasts quite a while in the soil, but gets incorporated into the soil after the first inch of rain...."

From Ellie Goldberg, 617 965-9637

Below are some resources for you to read about Golf Courses and the insecticide Merit. Feel free to forward it to friends, neighbors and other dog lovers.

I believe golf courses should be required to give this information to anyone who uses golf courses, who live near golf courses, has access to golf courses (kids, dogs, etc.) , etc. (Especially in areas with elevated cancer rates such as Newton.)

(I also think there should have been a broad public notice when the Newton Parks Department used Trimec Plus on city fields.)

I recommend going to the GreenCAP webpages for the Pesticide Primer for basic concepts before reading the fact sheets. http://www.greendecade.org/greenCap_primer.html

You might also enjoy this videopodcasts: The Truth about Cats, Dogs & Lawn Chemicals http://catsdogslawnsvlog.blogspot.com/

1) GreenCAP, The Green Decade Coalition/Newton's Committee for Alternatives to Pesticides

2) JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM/ SPRING 2001 • VOL. 21, NO. 1 15 l I N S E C T I C I D E F A C T S H E E T Imidacloprid http://www.pesticide.org/imidacloprid.pdf

3) From Beyond Pesticides Gateway: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/gateway/index.htm

Imidacloprid Chloro-nicotinyl insecticide
(see product names)

Agriculture
Toxic
See chart
Extoxnet, PAN-UK, NCAP, NPIC, PAN

4) Toxic Fairways: Risking Groundwater Contamination From Pesticides ...The Attorney General's survey of pesticides used on Long Island golf courses .... (3) The actual rate of golf course pesticide use may be much higher than ...

5) Golf and the Environment Beyond Pesticides' work on golf and the environment continues to be an important strategy for outreach to the land area with one of the most highly concentrated per acre use of pesticides. The extensive use of pesticides on golf courses raises serious questions about people's toxic exposure, drift over neighboring communities, water contamination, and effects on wildlife and sensitive ecosystems.

Beyond Pesticides serves on a steering committee that seeks to develop a collaborative strategy with the golf course industry in an effort to effect change. This group developed the Environmental Principles for Golf and the Environment. Increasingly, players and golf course managers are asking the right questions and looking for answers that result in meaningful reductions in pesticide use.

In what it calls the most important article it has ever published, Golf Digest in its May 2008 issue (pp 196-232) published an article, "How Green is Golf?," which asks the hard questions about the environmental impact of golf in a series of in-depth interviews, including a builder, golf course superintendent, regulator, environmentalist and activist - Beyond Pesticides executive director, Jay Feldman (read Jay's interview).

The article spans a range of opinions on water usage, pesticide contamination, and management practices, with general agreement that golfer expectations and management practices must move and are moving in an environmental direction, citing important ways in which attitudes and understanding must change.

Read about this article on Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog, "Experts Discuss the Greening of Golf Courses," April 17, 2008.

A Smart Choice for the Children of Massachusetts

Regarding S-2481: An Act to Promote Safer
Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals.

On behalf of the Massachusetts Parent Teacher
Association (MassPTA) I urge you to do all that you
can to pass S-2481: An Act to Promote Safer
Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals.

Supporting the Safer Alternatives Bill is the safe
choice and the smart choice for Massachusetts. This
is the most important step you as a policy maker can
take for public health this session.

We know enough about the damage caused by toxic
chemicals to act now. We know that synthetic
hormones, pesticides, flame retardants and other
toxic chemicals are in our bodies and even in
newborn baby cord blood.

We know there is a direct connection between these
toxic chemicals in our water, food and air and the
growing rates of asthma, cancer, birth defects,
neurological and immune system disorders and the
crises in health, health care costs, and health
insurance – the budget busters of every family,
business and municipality in the state.

You can help stem the epidemic of illnesses and
disabilities caused by toxic chemicals and the
growing burdens they impose on our families and
communities.

Vote yes to pass S-2481. The wealth of our
communities is the health of our children.

Don't be fooled by the few short-sighted marketers and
manufacturers who think putting short-term profits before
people is good for Massachusetts. Setting a high standard
for community and workplace safety, public health and
corporate responsibility protects our children and the
health of our local economies and our long term interests
in the global marketplace.

Please let me know that I can tell the 19000 members of
the Massachusetts PTA that you are a leader among
legislators because you are committed to public health and
good government for all the residents of Massachusetts.

Ellie Goldberg, M.Ed.
Massachusetts PTA Legislative Chair
Massachusetts State PTA www.masspta.org
ellie.goldberg@gmail.com (H) 617-965-9637