Are Pesticides Causing Farmers to Commit Suicide? - The Rundown Live
Is the same thing that’s destroying the bees also crippling our farmers?
When Ginnie Peters’ farmer husband took his own life after a sudden
mood shift, she really hit the nail on the head when she said:
These chemicals that farmers use, look what they do to an insect. It ruins their nervous system. What is it doing to the farmer?
No one can deny that farming is drastically different than it was in
the 1950s, and today it requires extra demand, complete expertise and
the stress of uncertainty. Most farmers don’t go into it for high
profits.
The EPA, however, has long denied that the pesticide exposure they
experience is directly tied to psychological symptoms, mental illness,
behavioral changes and higher rates of suicide. Even though those are
the very symptoms caused by such exposure, and the results of the EPA’s
own studies, decades and decades ago, have arrived at the very same
conclusion.
