Accreditation Group’s Plan to Eliminate Standards Governing the Use of Pesticides Poses Grave Risk to Vulnerable Patients
August 19, 2025 | Annapolis, Maryland – The Maryland Pesticide Education Network (MPEN)’s Integrated Pest Management in Health Care Facilities Project today released a letter signed by 48 health care professionals, researchers, and advocates calling on the Joint Commission, a primary accreditation body for health care facilities, to reinstate accreditation standards governing the use of pesticides in health care facilities.
The Commission’s Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals previously included Integrated Pest Management (IPM) requirements, which promotes non-toxic pest prevention and intervention, in its accreditation standards to ensure facilities met IPM standards. Since 2018, the Commission has gradually eliminated elements of IPM practices in its desire to slim down the manual and is now slated to eliminate all mention of any pest management standard in its upcoming manual regarding required accreditation requirements.
In 2011, the Commission recognized the importance of IPM, citing MPEN’s project in its newsletter: Pesticides as a Last Resort: Least-Toxic Pest Management Protects Most-Vulnerable Patients.
“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 are known to contribute to cancer, neurological disorders, reproductive problems, birth defects, and liver and kidney damage. They also can cause irritation to the eyes and skin, can trigger respiratory problems such as asthma, cause headaches and nausea, and can affect learning disabilities in children. Hospital patients who have compromised immune and nervous systems, the elderly, infants and children, and those who have an allergy or sensitivity to pesticides are particularly vulnerable to these toxic effects. Patients taking certain medications may also have heightened reactions to pesticides.
“We are hopeful that the Joint Commission will reconsider this ill-timed omission of these critical standards,” said Katie Huffling, the 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 they are often being treated.”
Toxic pesticides, including pesticides containing PFAS “forever chemicals,”continue to be used in health care facilities, exposing patients and staff to their potentially serious adverse long-term health impacts.
For over 18 years, MPEN’s IPM in Health Care Facilities Project has advised Maryland health care facilities about implementing a “least-toxic/last resort” pest management protocol. The project supports proven effective policies and procedures that eliminate the sources of pest food, water, and shelter in hospitals and on hospital grounds.
MPEN has found that some health care facilities are unknowingly using PFAS-containing pesticides. The use of these pesticides is of particular concern in patient care areas like intensive care units, neonatal intensive care units, and emergency departments—places that cannot be emptied prior to applying pesticides—for example, exposing a NICU baby, already health compromised, to potentially known toxic pesticides, especially PFAS-pesticides. Just one exposure to PFAS-pesticides can impact a person for years. Certain PFAS are known to cause certain cancers.
The letter makes several recommendations to the Commission, including requiring that hospitals adopt a written IPM policy, designate an IPM coordinator, and establish an IPM education program. It also recommends 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.”
The full text of the letter and a list of signers can be viewed here.
For more information, contact Sean Lynch, Project Director of the IPM in Health Care Facilities Project, sean@mdpestnet.org, 301-664-4374 or Ruth Berlin, Executive Director, Maryland Pesticide Education Network, mpnberlin@gmail.com, 410-693-7319.
