Up to 1.5 million people who live near or visit fields sprayed with pesticides need better health protection and more information, says Britain's leading environmental body, which condemns government regulation as inadequate and flawed.
The independent Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution said it could find no hard scientific evidence that human health was directly affected by pesticide spray drifting across fields, but said there were concerns about a link and not enough studies had been done.
The commission recommended that farmers should not spray within five metres of where anyone lived or worked, that the medical establishment take reported illnesses more seriously and that new research be done.

"Pesticides are heavily regulated ... but there is significant uncertainty about whether spraying can cause ill health. Until research clarifies the extent to which the public is at risk we recommend extra precautionary measures," said Sir Tom Blundell, chairman of the commission.
Members of the group, who visited 13 people reporting illnesses in six counties and considered written evidence from more than 1,000 others, said they had identified symptoms after spraying. They included respiratory irritations, rashes, headaches and asthma attacks. "We were also made aware of less clearly defined symptoms including confusion, memory loss, impaired cognition, dizziness and shortness of breath," the report said.

The commission, while finding no causal links between illness and pesticide spraying, also said it was concerned about possible long-term effects and found people suffering from "Parkinson's-like tremors, allergic reactions, liver disorders and disorders of the immune system". Evidence from GPs, they said, found "real concerns" that pesticide spraying could be linked to cancer clusters. "Residents [living near fields that are sprayed] are genuinely ill. This is not all in the mind. It is plausible that there is an association between pesticides and ill health," said commission member Stephen Holgate.

The report heavily criticised the way government regulatory committees such as the Advisory Committee on Pesticides had consistently maintained there was little or no risk to the public from crop spraying.