Students Sickened When Pesticides Drift

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2007/may/15/051509065.html

STRATHMORE, Calif. (AP) - AP Video On Grandparents Day, Domitila Lemus accompanied her 8-year-old granddaughter to school. As the girls lined up behind Sunnyside Union Elementary, a foul mist drifted onto the playground from the adjacent orange groves, witnesses say.

Lemus started coughing, and two children collapsed in spasms, vomiting on the blacktop.

She and the little girls have since recovered without apparent lasting effects.

But an Associated Press investigation has found that over the past decade, hundreds, possibly thousands, of schoolchildren in California and other agricultural states have been exposed to farm chemicals linked to sickness, brain damage and birth defects. The family of at least one California teenager suspects pesticides caused her death.

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[kestrel91316]

1. Guilt over any contribution I might have made to this problem over the years

has finally convinced me to pretty much go exclusively organic with my produce. It's not out of concern for myself, it's concern for workers and the environment and INNOCENT BYSTANDERS that drives me.

This is completely inexcusible and completely avoidable.

[kimmerspixelated]

2. Agreed.

And, good for you. I'm sure we all used pesticides way back when. There are now so many other solutions, and the education for safe and natural subsitutes needs to be front and center.

[bananas]

4. k&r nt

[MountainLaurel]

3. "Without apparent lasting effects"

Of course, when the kids are diagnosed with some rare form of cancer 20 years down the road that no one their age should be getting, or respiratory issues, or whatever, will they even think to associate it with pesticide exposure from neighboring farms?