First, let me tell you how extremely sorry I am that you have experienced symptoms of pesticide poisoning three times in the last 30 years. That is truly dreadful and I am thankful you have survived.

Unfortunately, you have mentioned two major places where pesticides and herbicides are used – golf courses and forests. State and Federal Parks Departments and golf course owners work hand in hand with pesticide and herbicide manufacturers in order for all of them to make money, and they do not acknowledge that their way of earning a living sickens and kills people, animals, birds, insects, fish and other marine life. They want to make money badly enough to ignore, hide and deny the harm they are causing and the use of these deadly toxins is overwhelming in nearly all parts of the United States.

The best thing that you can do is try to educate the people in your own life about the true effects of herbicide and pesticide use. Unfortunately, it isn’t just big parks and golf courses that use these toxins – your neighbors are using them as well on their own yards. Every year, Americans accidentally kill their pets and sicken themselves using pesticides and herbicides on their private properties, and in the end, even the pesticide manufacturers do not profit because they are poisoning their own world. It is a crazy situation and I certainly agree with you that it is an evil one.

Please, tell everyone you know about what pesticides/herbicides did to you, Diane. By breaking the silence that surrounds the drastic effects of pesticide/herbicide use, we are taking the first steps toward having these utterly deadly substances banned.

Please, take care of yourself.
Mim

Any sane, moral person, if asked to decide whether loss of human life was worth the absence of an insect, would shout a resounding, “NO!” but westernized countries like ours have come to worship this thing we call ‘industry’ to the extent that they are willing to ignore or hide human illness and fatality so long as their money-making, pesticide-based programs can continue.

I am deeply sorry about what has happened to your community, your co-workers, your friends and your companion animals. It’s unforgivable and absolutely a violation of the Geneva Code which prohibits experimentation without consent.

I hope you are telling your story everywhere, JJK, so that silence cannot erase the truth about Australia’s agricultural departments. I thank you for sharing this story here on Vegan Reader, and apologize again that you didn’t receive an immediate response from us.

Allow me to wish you safety and protection.
Mim

I am not a medical professional, but my personal experience with pesticide poisoning helps me to understand what you are going through.

Golf courses maintain their weed-free lawns with 2 toxic substances: herbicides and chemical fertilizers. On a typical golf course, hundreds of pounds of herbicide are used each year and this poses a very real danger to golfers and to people who live near golf courses.

If you research the issue of herbicide use + golf courses, you will find studies citing health harms to golfers and studies claiming that herbicides are perfectly safe to be around. Unfortunately, most documents claiming that herbicides are safe are published with the aim of enabling industries to continue their use of herbicides and cannot be viewed as impartial.

It is documented fact that herbicides cause very real damage to living creatures (fish, frogs, mammals) and also contaminate our drinking water. Damage to skin, eyes and the respiratory system are some of the most common effects of herbicide poisoning.

Most important, perhaps, for you to understand, John, is that if you love the sport of golf and are regularly going to golf courses, your body may be giving you a warning with the rash that you are setting yourself up to develop an autoimmune disease such as Multiple Chemical Sensitivies (MCS) due to repeat chemical exposure.

As you walk through the golf course, your feet are kicking chemicals both from herbicide and chemical fertilizers back up into the air around you. When you sat on the grass, you were sitting right amongst these things. The rash is your body’s way of telling you that it encountered something it can’t handle.

It may also be that you have grass allergies. Some people are extremely allergic to typical lawn grass and will develop puffy white hives from sitting on it. This should also be viewed as a possible cause of or contributor to your persistent rash.

Whether toxic chemicals or simply plants initially caused your rash, it certainly sounds to me that you are having what is called a histamine reaction, and both sources are known to cause these things. Some herbicides work by disrupting histamines in plants and I would not be at all surprised to hear that they disrupt human histamines as well. Your body is in real agitation right now trying to handle the exposure, and most doctors prescribe an antihistamine like Benadryl for this kind of rash, though I have no idea if that would be useful to you.

I think it is such a pity that someone like yourself, who was pursuing exercise and health by playing a game of golf, should be put at risk by the chemicals golf courses use to maintain those unnaturally weed-free, green lawns. Sometimes, it takes a health crisis, like our body breaking out in a rash that won’t go away, for us to learn something new and important about toxins we may be having repeat exposures to, and this knowledge is going to assist you in deciding whether your body can handle further exposures to the chemicals used on golf courses. To me, it sounds like your body is trying to give you a message about something potentially dangerous.

I don’t want to see you go the route that more and more Americans have of developing a permanent autoimmune disease following exposure to chemical toxins, and I hope the above information will be helpful to you in making the best choices for your future.

As for the rash…I’m a little concerned that you’ve listed so many different products you’ve tried to control it. You might actually be making the rash worse by applying too many different substances to your skin, as some of the things you’ve listed are not organic or natural. It would be best to find 1 natural thing that helps and stick with it. By all means, avoid taking any kind of hot shower or bath as this worsens histamine rashes.

Finally, if the dermatologist you see expresses any kind of disbelief regarding the possibility that herbicides could have contributed to your rash, I would urge you to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, the majority of American doctors are either uneducated or bull-headedly blind to the very real damage being done to people by our constant exposure to pesticides and herbicides in public parks, parking lots, roadways and places like golf courses.

If you cannot find help from a conventional dermatologist, find a naturopathic doctor in your region and be sure they understand the seriousness and reality of this kind of poisoning.

I am so wishing you luck, John, and hope you will come back and let me know how you are doing. I will say a prayer for your recovery and for your protection from further chemical exposure.

Mim

Aveeno baths, creams, baking soda baths, spraying body with vinegar, using hydrocorisone creams, Epsom Salt baths, all calm itching sensation, but nothing has cured the rash, itch, or pain.

Advil, and cremes take away itch for 4 hours, but itch and pain come right back. Bath subsides itch for 4 hours, but itch comes right back.

Doctor visit to Emergency Room got me no where, Dr. was afraid to put me on Steroids, Dr. visit following week, was put on steroids for two weeks, but nothing happened. Steroids didn’t even budge the rash.

Now am out of Steroids, have Dermatology appointment in the a.m., and pray something can be done to make this go away.

John

As it happens, I worked in a nursery as a younger person and also ended up with a very weird rash on my hands. Though I cannot tell you what caused this, or why you are having this rash, you have 5 potential causes to investigate. Let me list them for you so that you can start getting to the bottom of what is giving you this rash.

1) Pesticide:
Both nurseries and the flowers that are delivered to florists are, unfortunately, contaminated with pesticides. Unless the nursery or floral supplier is organic, you could be reacting to any number of pesticides.

2) Fungicides:
Both nurseries and floral industry providers heavily use fungicides to prevent things like powdery mildew on plants and flowers. Flower bulbs are also frequently coated both with fungicide and pesticides. You could be reacting to this.

3) Herbicides:
Nurseries often spray herbicides rather than hand-pulling weeds and these can be very toxic to people.

4) Allergies:
You could simply be allergic to some of the plants you are working with. Certain plants contain sap or have substances on their leaves that cause rashes. As a florist, you are constantly in contact with the plants and it could be that one or more of them is causing a rash.

5) Water:
One of the things that I felt was a culprit in the hand rash I experienced was the fact that my hands were constantly in water as a nursery person. I was wearing gloves all day, but from watering plants, potting things up, cleaning things, water would get into the gloves which were rough inside and this began to really irritate my skin. So, that’s something to consider as well.

Unfortunately, the majority of florists and nurseries have not made a change over to organic practices because they have become dependent on using toxic substances in order to win profits. Rather than teaching patrons to expect that a perfectly good plant might have a few bug nibbles on it, they want to sell blemish-free flowers and this is a very artificial expectation.

Nurseries ought to switch over to treating their stock like parts of a diverse, poly-culture garden that is non-toxic and full of wonderful wildlife like birds that help keep pests in good balances. Failing to do this exposes workers and customers to pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that are life-threatening, in addition to causing skin irritations like you are experiencing.

I am so sorry to hear about the discomfort you are in. I definitely recommend that you see a dermatologist, but am concerned that you may have trouble finding one who understands the link between pesticides and skin irritations. What you are experiencing is serious, as the skin is an organ and if yours is in poor health, you have reason to be concerned that your internal organs may also be in trouble from things you are being exposed to.

On a happier note, Kim, if you love working with flowers, maybe the future holds something special for you. Maybe your experience with the toxic environment of commercial growing might be the beginning of you founding your own organic floral supply. I know I’d plunk my money down for a fresh-cut bouquet from an organic garden and I’d be glad to see a lady bug or two on it. There is a farm down the road for me that sells organic bouquets and charges handsomely for them. Maybe your skills, coupled with your bad experience in conventional agriculture, could be the basis for you becoming a leader in organic flower growing.

I surely wish you luck, and hope my suggestions will help you start researching why you are being harmed by your job.

I hope you’ll comment here again.
Mim

So far as I know, there is no treatment for pesticide poisoning, though in the case of respiratory failure, obviously there are asthma-type medications that would likely be given.

I keep thinking about the fact that if people inhale toxins, such as gas from a gas leak, the first thing you are supposed to do is get them outside so they can breathe clean air. Unfortunately, in this case, there will be no clean air to go outside to.

When I think of that, I feel so dreadful.

Mim