Pesticides Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Thesis: The use of pesticides, in particular the most common ones which will be of primary focus, organophosphate pesticides, have been linked to cause detrimental health effects up to and including death but also give people fruits and vegetables that help increase overall health. Pesticides are also beneficial and play a role in

Benefits of Using Pesticides:

"Benefits of Pesticides and Crop Protection Chemicals." CropLife America. American Crop Protection Association, n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.

This website, which represents the developers and manufacturers of almost all crop protection companies, asserts the positive effects and benefits of using pesticides in agriculture. According to CropLife America farmers lose

states the health risks of pesticides that are used specifically on tobacco pose to farmers and pesticide sprayers. Toxicity levels are determined by LD values, which are the minimum lethal dose in mg substance/kg organism. It states the three different exposure areas are inhalation, oral, or dermal with the jaw and forehead being the most susceptible dermal area. The most commonly used pesticides are only slightly toxic to humans and according to Cope et al. humans require an ounce to a pint to be lethal to humans if ingested orally. While this is the case, Cope et al. also suggests that prolonged exposure to pesticides such as is the case with workers “may cause” nervous system damage, liver damage, cancer, genetic damage, and birth defects. However this source does acknowledge that the possibility that pesticides will individually cause this is difficult to determine amongst factors such as variations in lifestyles, diet, and genetic makeup. This source appears unbiased because it is made to warn farmers and pesticide users of their potential risks and how to minimize exposure by using tobacco crops as an example. However, it is worth mentioning that this source fails to show the potential benefits of crop protection products as mentioned in Aktar et al.. This source disproves my thesis but it is important to show that there are potential side effects and poisonings from

investigates the effects of exposure to organophosphate pesticides and its particular link to Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. This was fulfilled by obtaining DAP (metabolites of Organophosphate’s) measures from urine samples which is a common indicator of common Organophosphates pesticides and participants were run though a ADHD determining test. The results were then normalized to account for variations in sex, age, race, poverty-income ratio, fasting duration, and urinary creatine concentrations. In the end, children with increased levels of DAP and therefore levels of pesticides in urine showed a doubled risk of having ADHD in comparison to those without detectable levels of DAP. This in turn supports that children with organophosphate levels that are commonly found in US children may contribute to an increased ADHD prevalence. This study is important to determining a correlation between pesticides and mental illnesses that impact