Manage your Risk Wearing protective clothing and equipment or PPE when handling or applying pesticides reduces the risk of pesticide poisoning. Risk of pesticide poisoning is reduced because the chance of exposure is reduced. Toxicity x Exposure Having an understanding of the toxicity of a product and the potential for personal exposure, allows risk to be lowered. No matter how toxic a substance is, if the amount of exposure is kept low, risk can be held at an acceptably low level. The toxicity of a substance can't be changed, but risk can be managed, and the applicator is the manager.
All pesticides are toxic.
They differ only in the degree of toxicity. Because of this characteristic, pesticides are potentially dangerous to people if exposure is high. The signal words indicate the degree of potential risk to a user, not the expected level of control. Along with the signal words, pesticide product labels also include route of entry statements and statements of specific actions a user must take to avoid exposure. Table I. Pesticide label signal words and relative toxicities.