A new crop of concerns: Congress investigates pesticide safety.

A March 2000 report by the General Accounting Office, Pesticides: Improvements Needed to Ensure the Safety of Farmworkers and Their Children, states that much remains unknown about the risks faced by children in agriculture, and that enforcement of pesticide protection standards for farmworkers is patchy and unsystematic. Many cases of farmworkers' pesticide-related illnesses go unreported, leaving health workers with an inadequate basis for tracking patterns and fine-tuning pesticide standards, says the report. In addition, children are known to be more vulnerable to the effects of pesticides, but there is a lack of data regarding children's exposures and the precise effects of pesticides on children's health.