Pesticides Can Harm Immune Systems, Researchers Warn

Urging worldwide efforts to protect people from pesticides, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental research group Friday warned that agricultural chemicals used around the world are capable of damaging immune systems and increasing rates of infectious disease and cancer.

The World Resources Institute said scientific studies by a variety of experts show that many children and adults exposed to pesticides have altered immune systems.

The institute called for the U.N.-backed World Health Organization to spearhead a major research program into the links between immune system damage and widely used pesticides, such as DDT, lindane, aldicarb and malathion.

“New research may well show that the most widespread public health threat from pesticides is immunosuppression that weakens the body’s resistance to infectious diseases and to cancers,” said Robert Repetto, vice president of the World Resources Institute.

The group called for bans on the riskiest pesticides.