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Informed diagnosis of poisoning critical as indoor misuse of pesticide spreads

— A 5-year-old boy drinks from a bottle of bleach that he found under the bathroom sink.

— A 3-year-old girl tries to spray her hair the way mommy does, but sprays an aerosol disinfectant in her eyes instead.

— A baby who has just begun to crawl eats green pebbles from behind the sofa. They look like candy, but are really rat poison.

These poisonings can occur in homes if pesticides are not stored out of children's reach or if label instructions are not carefully followed by parents and/or primary caregivers before using a pesticide product.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-sponsored study by Colorado State University showed that an estimated 2,300 hospitalizations occurred between 1977 and 1982 due to unintentional pesticide exposures, and 38 percent of these cases involved children less than 5 years of age. The largest percentage of these child poisonings was associated with organophosphates (22 percent).