Pesticide POISONS Can Cause Breathing Problems -- Duh!----

These Australian researchers have shown that sprays can reduce respiratory capacity by an average of 9% compared with an environment without insecticides.

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Subject:  Pesticide POISONS Can Cause Breathing Problems -- Duh!----
Date:  Mon, 31 Jul 2000 07:55:01 -0400
From:  Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:  Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

Insecticide Sprays Can Cause Problems for Some Asthmatics - July 28, 2000 - European Respiratory Journal/Medscape Wire.

Fly sprays can affect asthmatic patients in several ways: reduced breathing capacity, coughing, or eye irritation. This is revealed by an Australian study that appears in the July issue of the European Respiratory Journal, the official publication of the European Respiratory Society.

The standard insecticides sold in the shops are not only harmful to bugs. Their spray can produce significant though short-lived problems in asthmatics. This was found by Cheryl Salome and colleagues of the Institute of Respiratory Medicine of the University of Sydney in Australia, in a study of 25 patients suffering from asthma.

These Australian researchers have shown that sprays can reduce respiratory capacity by an average of 9% compared with an environment without insecticides.

"In just over a quarter of the people tested, it fell by more than 15% -an amount which would be considered clinically important," adds Ms. Salome. The study focused on a sensitive group of people, asthmatics, who had already told a doctor that they experienced cough or irritations of the eyes or nose when using these sprays. The researchers exposed their subjects to precise doses of insecticide in the course of laboratory experiments.

In the double-blind study, Salome and colleagues compared the effects of standard store insecticides with those produced by a recently marketed spray designed to cause little irritation and with those of a "neutral" control aerosol giving off only water droplets.

For each of the categories of spray, the patient was first exposed to a 4-second jet, which is the equivalent of a typical everyday dose. Then 15 minutes later the patient received a second longer jet, lasting 32 seconds, which was supposed to simulate overzealous use of the product. At regular intervals, the researchers evaluated the respiratory capacity of the subject by measuring forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1). The patient also reported the intensity of the irritation felt in the chest (coughing, out of breath) or in the nose and eyes, on a scale of 0 to 10, ranging from "no effect felt" to "the worst I can imagine."

The first finding was that one of the standard insecticides caused a significant drop in FEV1 5 minutes after the second dose. More precisely, the subjects experienced twice the loss of  respiratory capacity compared with those exposed to water droplets. The same product also caused other chest symptoms and nasal irritation (including a runny nose), which were twice as bad as with the low-irritant insecticide.

Salome and colleagues also found that the standard insecticides increased the sensitivity of their patients' airways. To test this point, the researchers measured the amount of airway narrowing caused by a chemical called methacholine. The airways of people with asthma are more sensitive to the narrowing effect of methacholine than those of people without asthma, and people with severe asthma have the most sensitive airways of all.

In the study, methacholine caused more airway narrowing after the patients were exposed to the standard sprays, leading Ms. Salome to ponder that "the insecticide aerosols may temporarily increase the sensitivity of our subjects' airways to other environmental triggers." One positive point to emerge was that the low-irritant aerosol did not cause the same problems. The researchers are therefore recommending that asthmatics who know that insecticides cause them breathing troubles should be able to use this product or possibly other similar low irritant insecticides without serious problems.

Ms. Salome does not want to be an alarmist, however: "The results of this study do not support the view that some insecticides should be banned. It is important to stress that the effects were short lived, and breathing capacity returned to baseline levels within 30 to 40 minutes."

Eur Respir J. 2000;16(1):38-43

Medscape Wire is prepared by Deborah Flapan, associate editor at Medscape. Send press releases and comments to medscapewire2@mail.medscape.com.

The amazing thing is that there are safe and far more effective alternatives out there that do not cause breathing problems and they control pests better.  Why do supposedly intelligent scientists still advocate the use of any "registered" POISON?  The pests are or are quickly becoming immune but we obviously are not!

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