Mortality of intentional and unintentional pesticide poisonings in Germany from 1980 to 2010.

Pesticide poisoning is a major public health issue especially in low-income countries. WHO figures show about 3 million pesticide poisonings occurring worldwide annually. A recent systematic review estimated that 360,000 fatalities result from self-poisoning with pesticides, accounting for approximately 30 per cent of all suicides worldwide. We analyzed the German cause-of-death registry with respect to pesticide-specific ICD codes. We present crude and age-standardized mortality rates plus the percentage of all suicides that are intentional pesticide poisonings. From 1980 to 2010 the number of fatal pesticide poisoning in Germany dropped from 506 to 39. The crude mortality rate decreased from 6.5 per 1 million inhabitants in 1980 to 0.5 in 2010. Reduced availability of toxic pesticides in Germany played the biggest role in the decline of fatal pesticide poisoning. We worry that declines in pesticide poisonings in industrialized countries are not matched in developing countries.