Human Rights Watch says children are getting sick working in tobacco fields, calls for safer practices

For families who still raise tobacco, it is fairly common for the whole family, including small children, to help with the tobacco harvest. But a report by Human Rights Watch found that children as young as 7 years old working on tobacco farms in the nation's biggest tobacco producing states, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, are "suffering serious health problem from toiling long hours in tobacco fields to harvest pesticide-laced leaves for major cigarette brands," Charlie Campbell reports for Time. The children "get so sick that they throw up, get covered by pesticides and have no real protective gear."

Researchers interviewed 140 child workers, who reported suffering from "nausea, vomiting, headaches and other health problems associated with nicotine poisoning, known colloquially as green tobacco sickness, which is common among agricultural workers who absorb the toxic substance through their skin," Campbell writes. "On small farms, there is no minimum age set for child workers."

Kentucky state Sen. Paul Hornback, a Republican,in  "says he worked in tobacco fields from when he was 10 years old and doesn’t think further legislation is necessary." He told The Associated Press, “It’s hard manual labor, but there’s nothing wrong with hard manual labor." (Read more)