Pesticides Effects on Humans essays

Pesticides Effects on Humans essays Pesticides are chemicals that make our produce perfect, and our yards free of pests. However, this perfection comes at a price to many different people. Pesticides are poisons with the sole purpose of killing. They are intended to kill weeds, insects and fungus. There are three types of pesticides called herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. Every pesticide has an active ingredient, and an inert ingredient. The active ingredient is the poison that kills he pest, and the inert ingredient is the carrying, or spreading compound. (Honey pg. 2) Pesticides were once thought of as a miracle cure for hunger. They were supposed to keep crops free of pests, and misquitos under control. People were not aware of the dangers that these poisons possessed. DDT* was supposed to be a, "benefactor for all humanity"(Honey pg. 2). There were few regulations on the use of DDT use. It was even sprayed where children played. It was intended to kill misquitos, but it ended up poisoning, even killing people. (Honey pg.2) Elizabeth Rollings says that one of her teachers, Mrs. Keller, had a sister that died from DDT poisoning when Mrs. Keller was a child. People came to her house that sprayed the bushes with DDT to control misquitos, and when Mrs. Keller and her sister played near the bushes they were exposed to the deadly poison. Now a days the U.S. has seen the dangers that pesticides possess and banned many kinds from use in this country. However, the U.S. has yet to ban them from being made here and exported to foreign countries. In fact, 25 tons are exported every hour. (Honey pg. 1) There are three main problems with this: the regulations are very low in the places the U.S. exports to, many of the people in those places are unaware of the dangers, and the pesticides can return on the produce that the U.S. imports. A specific example of how unaware the people are is an incident ...