About the Pesticide Program - Washington State Department of Health

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About the Pesticide Program

Protecting People From Pesticide Illness

The Pesticide Illness Monitoring and Prevention Program investigates about 300 pesticide-related illness cases annually. The Pesticide Program is mandated through Chapter 70.104 RCW and pesticide-related illnesses are required to be reported by WAC 246-101-101. The information we collect is used to design illness prevention messages and strategies that include national efforts to change labels and practices, or remove unsafe products from the marketplace.

Recent Success

Using evidence from our summary of fogger-related illnesses and recommendations (PDF 96KB), the EPA is requiring label changes to total release foggers (bug bombs). The new labels will provide pictograms to illustrate proper use and will contain improved and clearly stated health and safety information.

Resources We Provide

About Our Investigations
We investigate reports of acute adverse health effects resulting from exposure to pesticides. The types of reports that we investigate include:

  • Exposures to insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, and any other pesticides defined under federal law (FIFRA). We don't investigate exposures to disinfectants.

  • Workplace and home exposures.

  • Exposures to over-the-counter pesticides and restricted-use pesticides used by professional pesticide applicators.

  • Case reports of systemic symptoms, irritant symptoms, skin and eye injuries, and allergic symptoms.

What We Collect

The typical case investigation involves interviewing symptomatic people and witnesses, reviewing relevant medical records and lab test results, and obtaining pesticide spray records or interviewing the applicator to confirm the pesticide product involved. Interviews may be conducted by phone or at the patient's home or work site. We don't have a lab for processing environmental samples, but will review the results of sampling conducted by other agencies, who may also be involved in the case. Suspected violations may be referred to Department of Agriculture or the Department of Labor and Industries.

Classification of Cases

We use a standard protocol, developed by the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health, for classifying cases as to the likelihood that the symptoms reported are related to a pesticide exposure. All cases we investigate are internally reviewed to assure high quality and standard coding of pesticide illness cases. The chart below provides a basic description of the case classification criteria for acute pesticide-related illness and injury.

Category

Description
Definite

Objective evidence confirms both the exposure and the health effects. Objective evidence of the exposure include residues detected in the environment or positive results from biological testing for human exposure to a pesticide. Objective evidence of health effects includes documented observation by a health care provider of clinical signs or symptoms. The symptoms and pattern of symptom onset are consistent with what is known from human health and toxicology studies on the pesticide.
Probable

Objective evidence of either the pesticide exposure or the health effects is available. The symptoms and pattern of symptom onset are consistent with what is known from human health and toxicology studies on the pesticide.
Possible

Only subjective evidence of exposure and health effects is available. The exposure may be reported by the case and/or a witness, and supported by pesticide spray records. The case may have been seen by an health care provider. However, all symptoms were self-reported and were not documented by a health care provider. The symptoms and pattern of symptom onset are consistent with what is known from human health and toxicology studies on the pesticide.
Suspicious

Subjective or objective evidence of both the pesticide exposure and the health effects are available. However, there is insufficient toxicological or exposure information available to determine whether the symptoms and pattern of symptom onset are consistent with what is known from human health and toxicology studies on the pesticide.
Unlikely The relationship between the reported exposure and health effects is not consistent with the known toxicology of the pesticide. Symptoms may be atypical but cannot be ruled out as unrelated.
Insufficient Information Insufficient documentation on the exposure or the health effects was available to determine whether the health effects were related to the pesticide exposure. 
Not a case An individual may have been reported to a state surveillance system due to an alleged exposure, but was asymptomatic; or it was determined that health effects were due to a condition other than a pesticide exposure.

Data Analysis

Information collected during case investigations is entered into the Pesticide Illness Monitoring System (PIMS) database. PIMS is searchable by variables such as county, target crop, site of exposure, pesticide type, pesticide active ingredient, and demographic information. Analysis on PIMS data is conducted and published in pesticide-illness related reports. Because the database contains personal identifiers and medical information, it is not open to public viewing. Contact our program for data inquiries.

Limitations of the Data

We only investigate acute illnesses and injuries. We don't investigate chronic or latent effects of pesticides. These types of effects include cancer, birth defects, developmental abnormalities, and neurological disease. There are several regional research institutions that are actively studying these types of effects.

Not all cases of pesticide illness are reported to us. The case may not be reported if the sick person does not seek health care, if the person seeks health care but the health care provider fails to recognize it as pesticide-related illness, or if the health care provider does not report the case as required. A study also found that farm workers are unlikely to seek health care for mild or moderately severe illnesses they thought were caused by pesticides because of the cost of time away from work and the cost of medical care. For more information on this study, see Improving Data Quality in Pesticide Illness Surveillance (PDF 4.6MB).

Information on reported cases may be insufficient to document the case. We may not be able to locate a seasonal worker for our interview. We may not be able to determine where pesticide spray drift originated. We may not be able to identify a pesticide product. Such cases are entered into the PIMS database but are not included in most analyses of data.

 

Our Mission

Protect and enhance the health of people of Washington by preventing illnesses due to exposure to pesticides.

 

Our Vision

  • People of Washington have access to high quality pesticide information that helps them protect their health.

  • Our highly skilled team leads the way in pesticide illness investigations and data driven prevention.

  • Reducing pesticide-related illnesses is a shared value between our public health partners, the industry, and us.

Our Goals

  • Collect high quality information about pesticide illnesses so that we can understand the factors that contribute to them.

  • Design effective illness prevention strategies based on contributing factors.

  • Support relationships with public health and industry partners that help deliver our health information and prevent illnesses.
 

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Washington State Department of Health
Office of Environmental Health, Safety, and Toxicology
PO Box 47825, Olympia, WA 98504-7825
Phone: 360-236-3385  Toll Free: 1-877-485-7316

 

Last Update: 01/05/2012 02:53 PM

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