Available statistics on pesticide poisonings are mainly rough estimates or even guesstimates rather than based on thoroughly and systematically gathered data. Therefore it is important to undertake thorough documentation of poisonings wherever possible. Ideally, all health and environment protection personnel would be thoroughly skilled in diagnosing pesticide poisonings and able to document them for detailed analysis and interpretation at national level - but this situation rarely exists. Developing countries in particular do not have the necessary resources to run national poison information, control and surveillance systems to track pesticide impacts on health and environment. But community-based monitoring of pesticide impacts based on a participatory approach can help in gathering valuable information which can help to identify where action is needed to avoid harm.
Resources
The PAN Pesticide Databaseprovided by PAN North America provides information on the toxicity and regulation of pesticides and is available at:
http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Index.html
The PAN Pesticide Library
provided by PAN UK provides information on articles and studies dealing with pesticides at:
http://www.pesticidelibrary.org
The PAN Community-based Pesticide Action Monitoring (CPAM)
is a programme developed by PAN Asia & Pacific for awareness-building and empowerment of local communities. It is based on Participatory Action Research and aims, for example, to fill the information gap on the impact of pesticides on human health and the environment.
More at: http://www.panap.net/18.0.html
For action against paraquat
"Paraquat ‘unacceptable health risks for users’ download
For action against endosulfan
PAN Asia & Pacific Position Paper on Endosulfan (2006) download
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