It’s a fact. Kids today are sicker than they were a generation ago, and pesticides are part of the reason why.

From childhood cancers to birth defects and asthma, a startling array of childhood diseases and disorders are on the rise. Public health experts tell us we have a “silent pandemic” of learning disabilities and disorders, with one of every 6 children affected.

Concerned parents can make smart choices at home that do make a difference, but we can’t protect kids from pesticides one household at a time. It’s time we name and tackle this problem by building a national conversation — from the ground up.

Do one thing.

Nobody can do everything, but everybody can choose one thing and do it. Whether it’s writing a letter or check, making a phone call, or being a conscientious consumer — we each have real power. That power builds when we act together, and it starts when one person does one thing.

Pledge to be a kids’ health conversation starter in your community! Write letters to your local paper, activate people in your network — whatever your starting point, the folks at Pesticide Action Network have created some tools to help.

After signing the pledge, you’ll find a 2-page discussion guide with facts and figures from PAN’s latest report outlining the state of the science on pesticides and children’s health, A Generation in Jeopardy. Take it out in the world, and start the conversation.

All across the country, many states and school districts have decided that pesticide-free schools are better for children’s health – and that doesn’t mean schools are overrun with bugs or playing fields full of weeds!

Below are just a handful of the many examples – highlighted in the new report A Generation in Jeopardy– of school that are controlling pests without harmful chemicals. Why not at your school too?

• Since 2005, K-8 school playing fields in Connecticut have been pesticide-free. In 2009, the law was extended to daycare center grounds.
• New York lawmakers signed the Child Safe Playing Fields Act into law in 2010, banning use of pesticides on playgrounds and sports fields at schools (including high schools) and daycare centers.
• School districts in California are using fewer pesticides after a 2000 state law required schools to report what they spray, and provided incentives for adoption of Integrated Pest Management. School districts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Palo Alto have made particularly good progress.

And schools are keeping pesticides out of school lunches too! Chemical residues on food mean everyday exposure for children – and studies show even these low levels can cause serious health problems.

Many school cafeterias are going pesticide-free:

• In Washington state, the Olympia School District has implemented an Organic Choices Salad Bar 25% of the produce is purchased from local farms, and 50% of the salad bar is organic.
• The Orcas Island Farm-to-Cafeteria Program integrates produce from local, organic farmers and a school garden — and hosts student chef competitions!
• In Minnesota, the White Earth Land Recovery Project recently added a Farm to School component to their Mino-miijim (Good Food) Program to bring students fresh, local and organic food at school.
• Berkeley, California’s Edible Schoolyard (ESY) Project began as a one-acre “interactive classroom” providing organic, fresh fruits and vegetables for student’s meals. This small project has grown into an online program sharing a food curriculum, and is now a model for similar programs across the country.

Find out more about how you can promote healthy schools in your community – inside and out – by visiting our Healthy Kids campaign page.

Last week, Pesticide Action Network released A Generation in Jeopardy, an easy-to-read — but deeply disturbing — report that highlights the latest science linking pesticides and children’s health harms.

The take-home message? It’s time we do a better job protecting our kids from these dangerous chemicals. The problem is big, and can seem overwhelming. That’s why we’ve put together a list of all the ways concerned parents and others can be part of the solution.

We’re confident that working together, we can do it. Here are the Top 10 things we recommend — right now — to get us started.

1. Choose kid-safe foods. Whenever possible, shop for fruits and veggies free of pesticides that harm children’s health. More and more families across the country are choosing pesticide-free or organic produce, joining local CSAs, shopping at farmers’ markets or planting their own backyard gardens!
2. Keep homes kid-safe. Use safer, alternative methods to control pests in homes, on your pets, and on your lawns and gardens.
3. Create safer child care. Daycare centers should be free of pesticides known to harm children. Ask your daycare facility about the pesticides they use, and urge them to join the Eco-Healthy Child Care program run by our partners at the Children’s Environmental Health Network.
4. Make schools pesticide-free, inside & out. Pesticides that harm children — and especially those known to harm developing minds — have no place in our schools. Learn what communities across the country are doing to create school environments free of neurotoxic pesticides.
5. Link local farms to school plates. Urge your school district to link with a pesticide-free farm-to-school program to protect children from pesticide residues and build the family farm economy.
6. Support green & healthy farming. Our policies should better support farmers who grow healthy, pest-free crops without relying on pesticides that can harm children. Let’s make financial help and on-farm technical support for these growers a national priority.
7. Spread the word about pesticides & health. Follow and share the science on pesticides and kids health with friends, family, parent-teacher groups and neighbors.
8. Press policymakers to put children’s health first. Overall, current rules protect the interests of the pesticide corporations much better than they protect our children. Pesticides stay on the market long after science shows they harm children’s health, and new pesticides are approved that may increase the risk. Find out how you can help press for policies that put children’s health first.
9. Vote for kids’ health. Hold politicians accountable to vote for kids’ health, not pesticide industry profits.
10. Join the PAN family. We will keep you informed, plug you into smart actions and help you spread the word.

New evidence from researchers across the country shows that pesticides are harming our children.

As a mother of two teenagers, I know we can take steps at home to reduce our family’s pesticide exposure. The food we eat, how we control bugs in our backyard garden, what we do about that line of ants that shows up every spring — these are important choices that really do make a difference.

Food choices alone can make a tremendous difference – many recent studies show health effects from exposure to very low levels of pesticides, like the levels found on the food we eat every day. And children are especially vulnerable.

Pesticide Action Network has developed a great tool for making healthier choices: the “What’s On My Food?” online database and iPhone app. This easy-to-use site will show you which fruits and vegetables are likely to be covered with what pesticides — and what health harms are linked to those chemicals.

Here are just a few examples of what you’ll find when you take a look at whatsonmyfood.org:

•14 of the 52 pesticide residues found on blueberries are neurotoxicants, which can harm brain development and contribute to falling IQs.
•19 suspected hormone disruptors were found on broccoli samples. These chemicals are linked to cancer, obesity and developmental disorders.
•8 known or probable carcinogens were found in green bean samples.

And choosing pesticide-free fruits and vegetables does more than cut down our family’s exposure. It also supports those farmers who have stepped off the pesticide treadmill, and protects rural and farmworker families – and their children.

But household choices alone cannot solve the problem of pesticides. It’s just too big. We use more than a billion pounds of pesticides a year in this country, and these chemicals are harming our children.

We need to push for policies at the local, state and national level that will bring these numbers down, that will better support schools, cities and farmers that want to reduce the use of pesticides — and we need them urgently.

Put simply, it’s high time we made our children’s health a national priority.

Today’s children are less healthy than they were a generation ago, and science shows that pesticides are contributing to the trend. This is the core finding of a new report from Pesticide Action Network, A Generation in Jeopardy.

As a mom I find this report both profoundly disturbing and deeply motivating. As one of the report co-authors, I’m hoping A Generation in Jeopardy will jumpstart a long overdue national conversation about how pesticides are undermining our children’s health and intelligence — and how we can do better.

It’s Time to Follow the Science

Our team of scientists at PAN reviewed more than 200 recent studies exploring how pesticides are linked to a range of childhood health harms. We also looked at government data tracking the trends in these diseases and disorders.

From learning disabilities, ADHD and autism to childhood cancers, early puberty and more, many childhood diseases are on the rise, and a growing body of evidence points to pesticide exposure as a significant contributor.

Here are just a few of the startling findings we highlight:

• 400,000-600,000 of the 4 million children born in the U.S. each year are affected by some sort of developmental disability. This is up 17% in the past 15 years, and public health experts are raising the alarm about a “silent pandemic” of learning disabilities and disorders undermining the potential of an entire generation of children. The science linking exposure to neurotoxic pesticides to harm of the developing brain and nervous system is especially strong.
• More than 10,000 children are now diagnosed with cancer every year, and incidence of leukemia and childhood brain tumors, the two most common types of childhood cancer, have risen 40% and 50%, respectively since 1975. Studies suggest that exposure to pesticides during pregnancy and early childhood is contributing to this trend.
• Today, more than 7 million U.S. children are affected by asthma, up from an estimated 2 million in 1980. Emerging science points to pesticides as a possible contributing factor.

The list goes on.

To be clear, pesticides are not the only driver of these health harms. Scientists agree there are many factors at play, and that there is often a combination of genetics and environmental contaminants involved.

But pesticide exposure is a piece of the puzzle that we can do something about — if we set our minds to it, roll up our sleeves and work together to make change.

^{Image source: See the report A Generation in Jeopardy for a full list of citations.}