<story><title>Ban organophosphate pesticides to protect children&apos;s health, experts say</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/24/entire-pesticide-class-should-be-banned-for-effect-on-childrens-health</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>chicob</author><text>And what about safety to farmers?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve used phosmet, an organophosphate insecticide, and I don&amp;#x27;t like to use it. You can know it&amp;#x27;s around in the warehouse, still in the original sealed packages, just by smelling it. A feeling of dry mouth and eyes usually follows.&lt;p&gt;And it&amp;#x27;s not because it&amp;#x27;s a dangerous substance - most pesticides with very few exceptions are dangerous - but because it is very hard to handle.&lt;p&gt;Phosmet is usually sold as a fine powder, and as it is the case of most soluble powders, it disperses in air easily. I always ask for liquid insecticides, but these are not always available.&lt;p&gt;Masks are not particularly useful: cotton masks are of little to no use, filters are compromised by facial hair[1] and air supply masks are crazy expensive.&lt;p&gt;If farmers respect the required safety intervals, harm to consumers is considerably minimized.
The main hazard comes to people that come in contact with larger concentrations of pesticides: manufacturers, sellers and farmers.&lt;p&gt;Now I just open the package carefully underwater, if the sprayer is full enough and the package is to be completely emptied. This minimizes dispersion considerably.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;multimedia.3m.com&amp;#x2F;mws&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;463742O&amp;#x2F;facial-hair-and-respirators.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;multimedia.3m.com&amp;#x2F;mws&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;463742O&amp;#x2F;facial-hair-and-r...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ban organophosphate pesticides to protect children&apos;s health, experts say</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/24/entire-pesticide-class-should-be-banned-for-effect-on-childrens-health</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dragontamer</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;production&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;rmpp_6thed_ch5_organophosphates.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epa.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;production&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;rmpp_6t...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;EPA has this little chapter on organophosphates. Seems like this class of pesticides is well known to be toxic to humans.</text></comment>