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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Q: How much pesticide exposure is too much?
  • Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:19:04 -0600


How Much is too much?
http://whatsonmyfood.org/howmuch.jsp#3

Q: How much pesticide exposure is too much?

A: Depends on the pesticide. Depends on the person. Depends on the timing and
type of exposure.

What we do know is this: Pesticide regulations in the U.S. are well behind
much of the rest of the industrialized world. This is mostly because
agrichemical corporations like Monsanto have too much influence in
Washington, but also because pesticide regulation in the U.S. does not
adequately account for things like additive and synergistic effects.

Since the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) regulates most chemicals
on a chemical-by-chemical basis, the combined and cumulative effects of a
mixture of pesticides are nearly impossible for them to address – and so they
usually don’t. 1

Given the complexities of chemical causality and disease-formation, the smart
solution would be to follow the European Union’s lead and adopt the
"precautionary principle"2 as the basis for regulatory decision-making. Put
simply, this approach prioritizes protecting human health when there is
significant doubt about the safety of a product. By contrast, pesticides and
industrial chemicals in the U.S. are innocent until proven guilty. It often
takes decades to prove a chemical guilty.

Meanwhile, we are exposed to dozens of pesticides in the food we eat, water
we drink and air we breathe. People working on farms or living in rural areas
near non-organic agricultural fields face even higher exposure levels.
How are we exposed?

» In our bodies
http://whatsonmyfood.org/howmuch.jsp#1
» On the farm
http://whatsonmyfood.org/howmuch.jsp#2
» In the environment
http://whatsonmyfood.org/howmuch.jsp#3
» On our plates
http://whatsonmyfood.org/howmuch.jsp#4

Most of us are born with persistent pesticides and other chemicals already in
our bodies, passed from mother to child during fetal development. The human
health impacts linked to pesticide exposure range from birth defects and
childhood brain cancer in the very young, to Parkinsons’ Disease in the
elderly. In between are a variety of other cancers, developmental and
neurological disorders, reproductive and hormonal system disruptions, and
more.

* Autism
http://www.panna.org/resources/autism
* Breast Cancer
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2001/suppl-1/35-47snedeker/abstract.html
* Children’s diseases
http://www.panna.org/node/2392
* Endosulfan – Health effects
http://www.panna.org/campaigns/endosulfan/health
* Gestational diabetes
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/newscience/2007/2007-0706saldanaetal.html
* Parkinson’s Disease
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/8/919

On the farm

"Most of us are born with persistent pesticides and other chemicals already
in our bodies." Farmers and farmworkers are some of the hardest working
people on the planet. Yet they and their families bear the highest health
costs and face the greatest risks of pesticide exposure. Farmworkers in
particular remain the least protected class of workers in the U.S. – last
year another slavery case was brought in Florida on behalf of farmworkers
there. Poisoning incidents among farmworkers are vastly underreported – yet
in California alone, hundreds of cases of pesticide poisoning are documented
every year.

Occupational exposure to pesticides in acute cases range from dizziness and
nausea to death; chronic exposures are linked to the same array of diseases
listed above plus a few more listed below.

* Acute poisonings (PDF download)
http://whatsonmyfood.org/images/Calvert.AgWrkrPoisoning2008.pdf
* Allergic asthma in farm women
http://www.physorg.com/news118057193.html
* Childhood Leukemia
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/moms-pesticide-contact-at-work-increases-childs-leukemia-risk/
* Organophosphates – Health effects
http://www.panna.org/ops/journal
* Parkinson’s Disease
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/8/919

In the environment

Pesticides don’t stay where they’re applied. They drift from their target and
are carried in our air, oceans, rivers, groundwater and soil. They
contaminate ecosystems and can poison fish, birds and wildlife. Water
supplies around the world contain measurable amounts of pesticides, including
atrazine. Atrazine, a suspected endocrine disruptor recently banned in
Europe3, is the most commonly used herbicide in the U.S.

Besides heavy use in industrial farming, pesticides are used in or near
playing fields, parks, schools, public gardens, golf courses, grocery stores,
offices, apartment buildings, hotels and resorts, airplanes, cruise ships --
the list goes on. Rural communities are routinely contaminated by pesticide
drift, while city dwellers may trace pesticide residues on their shoes to
public parks and even their apartment’s common areas.

* Atrazine - Groundwater Contamination
http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=WR
* Atrazine - Hormone system alteration in mammals & fish
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002117
* Atrazine - “Chemical castration" of frogs
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11960004
* Pesticide Drift
http://www.panna.org/index.php?q=drift/catcher/results/DCYakima06-CP
* Vanishing bees
http://www.panna.org/mag/summer2008/news/vanishing-bees
* Endangered Species
http://www.panna.org/node/817

On our plates

Does eating organic make a difference? When researchers compared the levels
of pesticide breakdown products in the bodies of children who eat organic and
conventional diets, they found children who eat mostly organic foods carry
fewer pesticides in their bodies. The good news is that some of these
pesticides break down fairly quickly, which means increasing your consumption
of organic foods can have an immediate impact on your pesticide exposure
levels.

By eating food produced organically or without pesticides, not only will you
be reducing the amount of pesticide in your body, you will be helping create
a better environment for other people, the planet, and future generations. By
engaging in political action to change our food system, you'll be part of
making sure that everyone can eat their meals without pesticides on the side.

References

1. See Monossoon, E., "Chemical Mixtures: Considering the Evolution of
Toxicology and Chemical Assessment," Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol.
113, No. 4, April 2005. for an overview of the history and limitations of
E.P.A.’s risk assessment models.

2. The precautionary principle states that if an action or policy might cause
severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the
absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of
proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action. The principle
implies that there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public
from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a plausible
risk in the course of having screened for other suspected causes. The
protections that mitigate suspected risks can be relaxed only if further
scientific findings emerge that more robustly support an alternative
explanation. In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the
precautionary principle is also a general and compulsory principle of law.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

3. See:
http://edexim.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.php?id_left=153&annex=108&part_limit=1





  • [Livingontheland] Q: How much pesticide exposure is too much?, Tradingpost, 09/12/2009

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