Is frequent contact with pesticides harmful to your health?

Pesticides enter the human body mainly through three ways: first, accidental large-scale contact, such as eating by mistake; Second, long-term exposure to a certain amount of pesticides, such as workers and users (farmers and related technicians) in pesticide plant; Third, daily contact with pesticide residues in the environment and food is the main reason why a large number of people suffer from pesticide pollution. A large number of pesticide residues in the environment can enter the human body through biological enrichment through the food chain. The harm of pesticides to human body is mainly manifested in three forms: acute poisoning, chronic harm and "three causes" harm.

(1) acute poisoning

Pesticides enter the human body in large quantities through oral cavity, respiratory tract or contact, and the acute pathological reaction in a short time is acute poisoning. Acute poisoning often manifests as abnormal symptoms of acute attack and leads to a large number of individual deaths, which is the most obvious pesticide hazard.

(2) Chronic hazards

Long-term contact with or eating food containing pesticides can make pesticides accumulate in the body and pose a potential threat to human health. Organochlorine pesticides have been banned in Europe for 30 years. A German university examined 262 children in Frankfurt, Munich and other cities. The polychlorinated biphenyl content of 17 newborns was 1.6 mg/kg fat.

(3) Carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic

According to animal experiments, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has proved that 18 kinds of widely used pesticides have obvious carcinogenicity, and 16 kinds of pesticides show potential carcinogenicity. It is estimated that the number of cancer patients related to pesticides in the United States accounts for about 10% of the total cancer patients in China. During the Vietnam War, the US military sprayed a large number of defoliants in Vietnam, which caused many American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians who had been exposed to defoliants to suffer from diseases such as cancer and genetic defects.