Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: It's somewhat surprising, to me, anyway, that they made quite a strong statement about the probability of pesticides being related to development of cancers. And from my perspective, that's an issue that's still not entirely clear. I think it's in the early phase of assessment, and I think it's a little premature to say that the pesticides definitely cause cancer.

SPEAKER 2: But they can cause problems of other sorts, obviously.

SPEAKER 1: Yes, there are well-established toxicities of acute exposure, and the long-term exposure consequences are less well-known.

SPEAKER 2: Well, what are you telling doctors and, as a consequence, I suppose, indirectly farmers themselves? How can they protect themselves from the sun and from pesticides they need to work with short of doing something other than farming?

SPEAKER 1: Well, for skin cancer prevention, there are some things that can be done very easily. Wearing proper clothing, for example, when farmers are out in the field is an obvious sort of thing that can be done. There are also skin blocks and lotions and so forth that are very effective in reducing exposure to the ultraviolet radiation. Those things have proven efficacy, and they just are not being used as much as they should be in farming and in non-farming situations.

SPEAKER 2: What about the pesticides? Now, that's something unique to farming.

SPEAKER 1: Well, most pesticide use in the United States-- of all the pesticides produced, most of it's used by farmers, somewhere around 90%. And so if there are risks of pesticide usage, they would be the prime targets for health problems. And I guess the issue of whether there are long-term health effects-- we know there are acute short-term health effects, short-term-exposure-related health effects, but the long-term issue is a little more difficult to sort out.

But even so, the safe thing to do would be to prevent exposures whenever possible. And what we're advocating in that regard is, again, there are techniques for mixing and applying, and there are also protective clothing techniques which need to be adhered to if one is to reduce exposure.

SPEAKER 2: Do farmers and, for that matter, their doctors take these issues pretty seriously, or do they tend to slough them off to some degree?

SPEAKER 1: No I think that people in the rural areas are quite sensitive about these issues. I think pesticides in particular, over the last few years, because of some of the preliminary studies that have come out, are making the possible associations between exposure and health consequences. I think because of that, that's raised their level of concern.

And when you talk about pesticides to farmers, I think they have a pretty keen sense that they better be careful about how they're used, and I think they have a healthy respect for those chemicals.

SPEAKER 2: So your seminars aren't falling on deaf ears out there?

SPEAKER 1: I don't think so. I think even the physician group-- again, I think there's been somewhat of a lag in the health care industry in terms of what health effects are actually might be as a result of these chemicals. But I think in the rural areas, we sense last night there was a terrific amount of interest and appreciation in having us share that information.