For information on the human health effects of pesticides, please visit:
the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment website.
In partcular, you may wish to read:
Why Canadian Physicians are Concerned about the Policies Regulating Pesticide Use
A Presentation by Kelly Martin, M.D., to the Standing Committee on the Environment

To get started creating your NATURAL GARDEN, Peterborough Green-UP has many great resources, including a Fact Sheet (pdf), entitled, "First Steps To a Natural Garden"

Summary:
- The most common pesticides were first formulated as nerve gas and as part of Agent Orange, during WWII.
- Pesticides cause various forms of severe disease in people, particularly children, as well as in pets, fish and other wildlife.
- Granular, "weed and feed" pesticides can persist on your carpet for up to a year, off-gassing cancer-causing dioxins. Birds are often killed by ingesting the granules as grit for their crops.
- Over 100 Canadian municipalities currently have pesticide by-laws.
- Many of the chemicals commonly in use in Canada, have been banned in other countries for years.
- On average, a much greater amount of pesticide is used per acre of lawn than of agricultural land.
- We drink pesticides everyday because it washes into our groundwater. Communities like ours that are on rivers and lakes are especially vulnerable to contamination as the path from lawn to open water is very short. The pesticides we spread on our lawns also travel quickly to other communities downstream.

A (very) Brief History:
WWII: 2,4-D and organophosphate insecticides are born, as components of Agent orange and nerve gas respectively.
( Ontario College of Family Physicians report)
1989: Sweden disallowed the use of 2,4-D, currently the most commonly used herbicide in Canada.
1991: Montreal suburb of Hudson passed a by-law to restrict the use of pesticides on lawns. Soon after, 2 pesticide companies took the municipality to court, but the by-law was upheld. (Sierra Club)
1996: The Quebec Poison Control Centre and the Quebec Ministry of Environment and Wildlife reported 1,650 poisoning cases. 79.4% of the cases were in private homes, and 46.1% of the victims were children under age five. (Sierra Club)
2001: Canada's Supreme Court ruled that municipalities across Canada have the right to ban pesticide use on public and private property, in order to safeguard the health of their residents. (Pesticide Action Network Updates Service)
2006: Over 100 municipalities across Canada enact by-laws restricting or banning pesticide use, including Peterborough. (The Coalition for a Healthy Ottawa)

Health Effects:
The effects of pesticides on our health are described as either acute (immediate, short-duration) or chronic (may be delayed in onset, long duration). Pesticide companies focus on the acute effects, maintaining that so long as we don't touch them, inhale them or eat them, pesticides are nearly safe.

However, they persist in our environment and homes: they wash into our ground-water and we drink them; we walk across treated grass and the residue may persist on our carpets for years. Therefore, even for adults, to avoid ingesting pesticides is impossible. For our children and pets who live on our lawns and carpets, ingestion is not only inevitable, but frequent.

Acute Effects: The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has identified acute health effects in humans including nausea, eye, skin, respiratory and throat irritation, muscle spasms, and even death.

Chronic effects: Repeated exposure to pesticides has been linked to neurological problems, brain and lung cancer, immune suppression (which creates environmental hypersensitivity), leukaemia, Parkinson's disease, kidney damage, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and reproductive disorders, including endocrine disruption, low sperm count, and sterility. (Sierra Club)

Some interesting facts:
" Insects...are the most important component of the ecosystem, an integral part of the food chain...without insects the vast majority of flowering plants would not be able to reproduce. A miniscule fraction of this huge group of animals are pests to human beings....spraying powerful poisons that kill all exposed insects is no more 'management' of pest than killing everyone in New York city would be managing urban crime." David Suzuki - The folly of Chemical Pest Control The Pesticide Treadmill (davidsuzuki.org)

Some newborns may be 26 to 50 times more susceptible to exposure to certain organophosphate pesticides than other newborns, and 65 to 130 times more sensitive than some adults, according to a new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington. (UC Berkeley News)

The rate of pesticides used on lawns is on average ten times more per acre than what is used on agricultural land. (The Coalition for a Healthy Ottawa)

A study, published in the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association, found that Scottish terriers were four to seven times more likely to develop bladder cancer if they had been exposed to lawn chemicals (University of Delaware)

"Weed and Feed" and other granular formations (The Coalition for a Healthy Ottawa):
A person spraying their lawn with a weed and feed product according to the instructions will spray six times the amount of pesticide in a single application than would be used by a professional using IPM on the same yard in one year.

Persist longer in the environment. They off-gas unpredictably over extended periods of time, so neighbours affected by the off-gassing, who have to leave their homes, don't know when it is safe to return.

Stick on shoes and children's hands and are very mobile. The weedkillers (phenoxy herbicides) are contaminated with chlorinated dioxins. These persistent, bioaccumulative toxic substances are linked to cancers, and to reproductive, immunological and neurological problems.

Birds eat granules exposed on the soil surface, mistaking them for food or grit. Ingesting only a few highly toxic granules can kill a small bird. Wildlife can also be poisoned by residues left on food items after granules dissolve. (North Carolina Fish and Wildlife Dept.)