Health and Environmental Protection Urgently Requires Precaution

摘要

This issue of Pesticides and You makes the case for the adoption of the precautionary principle and related law from a medical, policy, and experiential perspective. The call to transform federal and state laws governing pesticide use restrictions is explained by a medical doctor who has studied patterns of environmentally induced diseases through epidemiology, lawmakers in the European Union who, as part of a joint commission, evaluated over several years the current deficiencies in pesticide restrictions, and examples of specific failures to mitigate the hazards of specific pesticides. As we have said so often on these pages, the pesticide threat is real, but so are the solutions. To make the necessary changes in law we must elevate our call for change. This is the time to call for urgent action to transform our nation's pesticides law, and state laws that mimic it, as part of a larger movement to transform a pollution-based economic system that drives us toward crises, despite the availability of sustainable and regenerative strategies that are right in front of us. Current law assumes the need for pesticides despite the evidence to the contrary and the robust scientific literature that documents adverse effects, and a high degree of risk uncertainty associated with the complex chemical interactions (from mixtures) that are not studied or evaluated. Current law ignores whole systems-the interrelationship of organisms in the ecosystem, the power and balance of nature, and the nonrenewable fossil fuels and natural gas used to manufacturer pesticides.