August 11, 2026
Pesticides are widely used in the U.S. to kill, repel, or control certain forms of plant or animal life considered to be “pests.” However, pesticides do more than just kill their target pests—they can also have downstream effects on humans.
Due to the prevalent use of agricultural chemicals, Americans are exposed to low levels of pesticides through the foods they consume. Farmworkers who work with commercial crops and people who live close to agricultural fields have a high risk of exposure to pesticides. These people may exhibit pesticide exposure symptoms and have health complications later in life.
What are pesticide exposure symptoms?
For those wondering what do pesticides do to humans who have a high exposure risk, the answer is that there are a range of pesticide exposure symptoms, from those that may be less severe to more serious health complications.
The more serious health effects associated with pesticide exposure tend to impact children and pregnant mothers. Pesticides can cause damage to a mother’s chromosomes, leading to birth defects among children conceived during or after the mother’s exposure. Serious health complications linked to pesticide exposure include:
How do people ingest pesticides?
Eating contaminated food is one of the most common ways that people ingest small amounts of pesticides. This can include eating fruits or vegetables containing pesticide residue or eating produce that isn’t washed or peeled.
Pesticides may also sometimes enter water sources—for example, through agricultural runoff that reaches groundwater or rivers.
People who work in agriculture, landscaping, or pest control may ingest pesticides by accident. This can happen by eating or drinking with contaminated hands, by pesticide drift settling on workers’ food, or from spills that may occur during the application of pesticides.
Pesticide ingestion symptoms range from mild to severe. Symptoms associated with poisoning by pesticides include:
Which produce should be avoided?
Given the potential severity of some pesticide exposure symptoms, it is important to know which types of produce tend to have higher levels of pesticide contamination. Every year the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit environmental organization, ranks the 12 “dirtiest fruits and vegetables” by measuring pesticide contamination in 47 popular fruits and vegetables. A total of 203 pesticides were found on the dirty dozen.
In 2025, spinach topped the dirty dozen list—it was found to have more pesticide residue by weight than any other type of produce. After spinach, the other 11 types of produce on the list—ranked in order—are:
How can exposure to pesticides be minimized?
Similar to the “Dirty Dozen: counterpart, the EWG has developed a “Clean Fifteen” guide that identifies produce with the lowest levels of pesticides. Nearly 60 percent of samples on the Clean Fifteen list had no detectable pesticide residue. Here’s the produce listed on the EWG’s Clean Fifteen, ranked in order from the lowest levels of pesticide toxicity:
These 15 types of produce had the lowest levels of pesticide residue out of the 47 types of produce sampled.
How We Help Victims of Pesticide Exposure
With a national presence and a wealth of experience prosecuting pesticide exposure cases, Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel has battled corporate giants on behalf of individuals like you for 20 years, aggressively fighting to hold them responsible for failing to keep workers safe. If you have suffered catastrophic injury or cancer caused by harmful chemicals, we can help.
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