By analysing aspects of the development and functioning of the French pesticide registration system up to 1972, this paper highlights four long-term trends that significantly influenced how that system took charge of public health, while exposing a series of problems with pesticide-related health management practices. It argues that the function of these practices was not so much to protect populations from the detrimental effects of pesticides but to enable the development of intensive agriculture and the pesticide industry. Ultimately, it stresses the need to introduce long-term perspectives into risk studies and to place economic interests at the core their analyses.