The Corona virus crisis should not obscure the health problems induced by the use of pesticides.
In this period of pandemic, their use has not decreased, on the contrary the rules of use have even become more flexible during this period.
It is often difficult to link the use of pesticides to a defined pathology.
The study published this month by a team of Iranian researchers has highlighted a worrying problem affecting women working in a confined environment, greenhouses, which directly links their health problems to the chemicals to which they are exposed.
Greenhouse crops, allowing the production of fruit and vegetables in all seasons, are enclosed spaces forming an ideal laboratory to demonstrate the effect of the phytosanitary products widely used in this type of intensive cultivation.
The study involved 645 women of childbearing age, and showed higher rates of infertility, miscarriages, premature births, and a higher average number of female births among exposed women compared to a control group.
The most common products that were used in the greenhouses studied, pesticides, fungicides and insecticides such as Mancozeb, Abamectin, Fenpyroximate, Daconil, Ridomil, Rovral-TS are known to have a potential effect on pregnancy outcomes and biochemical reactions in the blood.
The study also reports similar cases found in different populations working in agricultural settings, whether in California, Egypt or Bolivia.
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Indoor air quality diagnosis to measure indoor environmental pollution by pesticides: insecticides, herbicides and fungicides. Test with laboratory analysis. Order your TestSources:
(1) Tahereh Rahimi1, Foozieh Rafati2, Hamid Sharifi3 BMC Women's Health volume 20, Article number: 103 (2020)
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