Pesticides poison more than 6,000 Canadians every year, with about half of those being children under the age of six, according to a report by the David Suzuki Foundation.

The environmental group made the finding after compiling data from provincial and regional authorities.

The study, released Thursday, says an average of 6,090 people suffer from acute pesticide poisonings every year, with children under six account for an estimated 2,832 -- or 46.5 per cent -- of those cases.

The report focuses on cases of acute pesticide poisonings, in which a person develops symptoms ranging from watery eyes and skin rashes to seizures and respiratory failure immediately after exposure.

The David Suzuki Foundation is calling on the federal government to create a national database to accurately record the number of poisonings and consider requiring pesticide products to come in childproof containers.

"The startling number of Canadian children poisoned by pesticides provides compelling evidence that stronger actions are required to prevent these incidents from happening," the report's author, David Boyd, a professor and environmental lawyer, said in a release.

Lisa Gue, the foundation's health and environment policy analyst, said governments should ban the use and sale of cosmetic pesticides on lawns and gardens to eliminate a probable source of many of these poisonings.

"The mere presence of pesticides in a home, garage, or garden creates a risk to homeowners and children, as does the application of pesticides," she said.

The organization said it was unable to obtain data from Manitoba or the territories, so the report based estimates for those regions on the results for the rest of Canada.

Boyd said he was surprised at how difficult it was to obtain the information.

The report asks the federal government to revive Prod Tox, an online network that combined data from provincial and territorial poison control centres to track poisonings and analyze trends, The Globe and Mail reports.

The initiative, started by a division of the Public Health Agency of Canada, was shelved in 2002 while still a pilot project.

The new and improved Pest Control Products Act, which came into effect this April, requires pesticide manufacturers to report all poisoning incidents to Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency. That information is set to be published on the agency's website next week.

A voluntary reporting system for the general public is currently being developed, the agency says.

The pesticide report says more than 125 municipalities in Canada have passed bylaws to restrict cosmetic pesticide use, adding Quebec is the only province with legislation that prohibits the sale of some pesticides.

The report also recommends:

  • Banning the use and sale of pesticides for cosmetic purposes;
  • The federal government stop registering pesticide products whose active ingredients have been banned in other member nations of the Organization for Economic and Development;
  • Ottawa increase funding to poison control centres; and
  • The creation of a national environmental health tracking system.