Pesticide use might not be top of mind when a patient or family member enters a hospital or assisted living facility, but guidelines ensure pest control and use of pesticides in health care facilities. Or they used to until they were gradually eliminated.
A Maryland group of concerned stakeholders is seeking to have those guidelines reinstated, calling for a tighter rein on use of pesticides in health care facilities. The Maryland Pesticide Education Network (MPEN)’s Integrated Pest Management in Health Care Facilities Project released a letter signed by 48 health care professionals, researchers, and advocates.
The group calls on the Joint Commission, a major accreditation body for health care facilities, to reinstate accreditation standards governing the use of pesticides in health care facilities. The Joint Commission had recognized the importance of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) requirements in 2011, citing MPEN’s project in its newsletter. IPM focuses on using the least toxic pest management around a health care facility’s most vulnerable patients.
The Joint Commission even went so far as to include IPM requirements in its “Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals” to ensure facilities met IPM standards in pest prevention and intervention. Since 2018, however, the Commission has gradually eliminated mention of elements of IPM in what MPEN calls “its desire to slim down the manual,” and MPEN expects all mention of any pest management standard to be eliminated in the Commission’s upcoming manual.
“Health care experts are calling on the Joint Commission to reinstate these critical requirements to ensure the safety of highly vulnerable populations from both pests and pesticides,” said Linda S. Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program. “The impact of pesticides on human health is well-documented; public safety must be our primary motivation.”
Pesticides have been linked to many health problems in otherwise healthy people, like cancer, neurological disorders, reproductive problems, and more. For medically vulnerable people the risks are higher, as they may have compromised immune and nervous systems, magnifying the toxic effects of pesticides.
“We are hopeful that the Joint Commission will reconsider this ill-timed omission of these critical standards,” said Katie Huffling, executive director the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “Forty-seven of my colleagues—health care and public health professionals and researchers, who represent just a fraction of our community—are sounding the alarm about our most vulnerable populations being exposed to pesticides that pose risks linked to the very illnesses for which they are often being treated.”
MPEN is concerned that toxic pesticides, including pesticides that contain PFAS (“forever chemicals”) are still used in healthcare facilities, exposing patients and employees to long-term health impacts. Use of PFAS is especially hazardous for patients in intensive care units, neonatal intensive care units, and emergency departments.
The letter from the group of health care professionals, researchers, and advocates makes recommendations to the Joint Commission. These include requiring that hospitals adopt a written IPM policy, designating an IPM coordinator, establishing an IPM education program, and requiring hospitals to maintain a current inventory of hazardous materials and waste that it uses, stores, or generates.
“We’re calling on the Joint Commission to recognize that pesticides are manufactured chemicals specifically engineered to kill living organisms, that pesticide use in hospitals and health care facilities is inherently dangerous and threatens the health of vulnerable patients, and to therefore reinstate requirements requiring that pesticide use in hospitals and health care facilities be minimized through the mandatory use of Integrated Pest Management,” said Philip J. Landrigan, MD, Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. “The negative impact of pesticides on human health is not hypothetical. Patient safety must be our primary concern.”
