Morbidity and mortality of pesticide poisonings in the Federal Republic of Germany
1994
Boedeker, W.
Pesticide poisoning is regarded as a major problem resulting from the widespread agricultural and non-agricultural use of these substances. According to estimates by the World Health Organization pesticides are responsible for 3 million poisonings worldwide and 220,000 deaths annually. In the Federal Republic of Germany, up to now there is no systematic evaluation of pesticide poisonings. In order to address this problem, firstly, the cause-of-death register for the period 1979-1990 was used to determine annual casualties and secondly, based in health-insurance morbidity statistics the total number of pesticide poisoning was estimated. In Germany, in 1990 237 fatal pesticide poisonings were reported, declining from 496 in 1979, 98% of the casualties were due to suicides, Total number of pesticide poisonings was estimated to amount to 20,000 cases with no decreasing tendency over the time period studied. The portion of suicides to total pesticide poisonings could not be determined, but is assumed to be much smaller compared to fatal poisoning. Since sufficient documentary facilities are not established in Germany, for the time being no monitoring of pesticide poisonings is in effect
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