Since WW II, world pesticide use has increased dramatically. Actual pesticide exposure is nearly impossible to estimate on an individual basis because there are so many distinct exposure pathways. Pesticides are in our food, water, and air. They are now a nearly universal feature of our environment found in every ecosystem in the world. They're used not only in food production and commercial forestry, but also in our homes, schools, public parks, and work places.
Pesticides are a pervasive part of our environment virtually impossible to avoid.
Even as we are now discovering that pesticides pose a much greater threat to society than ever suspected, the U.S. government is undermining already limited regulations. In light of endocrine disruption, this new reliance on tolerance levels and risk management poses many problems for consumers. First and fore most, a high proportion of pesticides registered for use have never had full toxicological studies and risk assessments performed on them. This is due to a lack of funding and political will on the part of state and federal agencies. Secondly, the only pesticides tested for endocrine disruption are those that are related to very specific events linking them to a rare health or environmental impact, thus bringing them under suspicion.