Click a headline or scroll down the page
Most
timber treatments unnecessary
Golf ball liver
Drugs war in Columbia - the true cost
Sheep dip syndrome “real”
Roundup and birth defects
Mad bees disease blamed on pesticide
Higher birth defects on farms
Children most at risk from pesticides
Pesticide residues still a problem
Link between exposure to pesticides in the womb
and ear infection
Pesticides in sperm
Deadly mix of chemicals
DDT and pancreatic cancer /Risk
of Parkinsons doubles with home use of pesticides/Link
between exposure to pesticides and brain dysfunction
Private water supplies contaminated with Organophosphate
sheep dip
Organophosphates and autism
Nike jerseys contain fungicide
Alternatives to pesticides for home use
Desert polluted with deadly dust
Milk kills mildew on courgettes and cucumbers
Pesticide tests inadequate
Breast cancer pesticides link
Traditional
test miss 20-90% of residues
Drugs war in Columbia - the true cost
The true cost of the US’s so-called “drugs war” in Columbia
(see Environment Health News 16 p13) is mounting. There have now been
4,000 human and 178,000 animal reported cases of serious skin, eye, respiratory
and digestive problems due to the mass spraying of Monsanto’s Roundup
and Roundup Ultra herbicides.
Although available over the counter worldwide, Roundup should be used
with extreme care, according to Monsanto. Having stated that it will kill
virtually any green plant, the company warns that it should not be applied
to bodies of water such as ponds, lakes or streams as it can harm certain
aquatic organisms. After an area has been sprayed with Roundup, people
and pets (such as cats and dogs) should stay out of the area until it
is thoroughly dry. Grazing animals such as horses, cattle, sheep, goats,
rabbits, tortoises and fowl should remain out of the treated area for
two weeks. If Roundup is used to control undesirable plants around fruit
or nut trees, or grapevines, people should allow twenty-one days before
eating the fruits or nuts.
Against Monsanto’s advice the Roundup and Roundup Ultra are being
sprayed from higher than usual altitudes to avoid gunfire, ensuring the
‘accidental’ spraying of non-drug crops, animals and people.
Monsanto’s advice continues, “It is a violation of Federal law
to use this product in any manner inconsistent with its labelling. Do
not apply this product in a way that will contact workers or other persons,
either directly or through drift. Only protected handlers may be in the
area during application.”
Furthermore, the US army has added another highly toxic compound, the
completely untested Cosmo Flux 411F (a surfactant used to penetrate the
waxy surface coatings of the leaves) into the herbicide mix - The Roundup/Cosmoflux
mixture has never been scientifically evaluated.. Initial work by Columbian
biologist and chemist Dr. Elsa Nivia has shown that the addition increases
the herbicide’s biological action fourfold, producing relative exposure
levels 104 times higher than the recommended doses for normal agricultural
applications in the United States, and toxic enough to kill cows and sheep.
Ed.- Monsanto was the manufacturer and supplier
to the US Army of the herbicide Agent Orange used in the Vietnam war.
The herbicide not only deforested large areas of Vietnam but also caused
over 50,000 birth defects and hundreds of thousands of cancers in both
Vietnamese civilians and soldiers and former U.S. troops. After the war,
it came to light that Monsanto had known about this toxicity as early
as the late 1940s and had tried to cover it up. At that time, Monsanto
workers had regularly become sick with symptoms such as skin rashes, joint
and limb pain, after being exposed to 2,4,5-T, the specific Agent Orange
component that breaks down to form TCDD. After the end of the war, U.S.
Vietnam veterans sued Monsanto for causing their illnesses. The company
settled out of court, paying them about $80 million in damages. The Vietnamese
victims received nothing.
(8967) Jeremy Bigwood. Corporate Watch 21.6.02
Dioxin Agent Orange
During the Vietnam war the US sprayed over 18m. gallons of dioxin-laden
Agent Orange over 10% of South Vietnam. This poisoned and defoliated millions
of hectares of forest and croplands and has left a legacy of health problems
including liver cancer and birth defects. In the ’80s in Ho Chi Min
City one baby with a birth defect was born every day. Now it’s down
to one baby every one and a half days. The dioxin levels in breastmilk
are still 50 times that of mothers living in (unsprayed) North Vietnam.
The US continues even now to reject pleas for help with research funding
into the long term implications because it will mean admitting to chemical
warfare.
(1105) Beatrice Eisman. New Internationalist 5.96 p4
Roundup and birth defects
Two new studies have linked Monsanto’s Roundup Ready herbicide and
some fungicides to significant increases in birth defect rates. Roundup
was also specifically linked to a threefold increase in neurodevelopmental
(attention deficit) disorders.
Original source: Environmental Health Perspectives 1.6.02 p441-49
(9288) Rachel’s Environment & Health News 5.7.02
Golf ball liver
Golfers who give their golf balls a ‘go faster’ lick before
teeing off are exposing themselves to herbicides similar to Agent Orange,
the organo-chloride defoliant used in the Vietnam war. Some enthusiastic
lickers have developed a new syndrome called ‘golf ball liver’.
(1915) Jeremy Laurence. Independent 14.5.97 p2
GM war on drugs
For the last forty years a civil war has raged in Columbia, South America.
The winner will control Columbia’s rich natural resources, including
large tracts of Amazon rainforest. Both sides - grass roots-based left-wing
guerillas and Government and US-backed right-wing paramilitaries - receive
significant funding from the coca crops grown in the areas they control.
More recently the rights and wrongs of the situation has been complicated
by the ‘War on Drugs’ declared by the US Government, who apparently
believe that they can significantly reduce the availability of cocaine
in the US and “protect their children” by destroying the entire
Columbian coca crop with pesticides. (At present, Columbian coca plantations
provide 75% of the world’s cocaine.)
Some in Columbia, however, suggest that this is simply a way of legitimising
US involvement in an internal war to protect its interests in Central
and South America. They ask, for instance, why coca crops in Government/paramilitary-controlled
areas are rarely fumigated (the pesticide used is Monsanto’s Roundup
- the chemical glyphosate), whilst coca and even Government-sponsored
‘replacement crops’ (e.g. rubber) in guerilla-controlled areas
are consistently fumigated.
Fumigation using Roundup by aircraft flying high enough to avoid the guerilla’s
bullets has been an unmitigated disaster. Not only can the coca plants
resprout from the base only weeks after being sprayed, spraying from that
height is inevitably indiscriminate and has poisoned the environment and
villages for miles around, killing other crops, livestock and wildlife
and creating illness and high levels of birth defects in human and animal
populations alike.
It is not surprising then many of the critics of fumigation in Columbia
suspect that the ‘War on Drugs’ is actually a war on local people
who live, inconveniently, on top of a lot of valuable resources. They
are now concerned that is about to become, perhaps unintentionally, a
war on the Amazon rainforest itself. The US wants to try a genetically
modified form of the fungus fusarium - called fusarium EN-4 which, it
is claimed, has been engineered to attack only the Erythroxylum genus
in a coca plant. This sounds a lot more targeted and safe (which is probably
why the United Nations are supporting the project) until one remembers:
• the intense fragility of the Amazon
rainforest combined with its critical role in the global climate
• the reckless way the US introduced
GM crops into their own environment
• the growing evidence of GM crops contaminating
other plant life and even insect life
• the growing acceptance that no-one
has a clue as to what the long term implications of GM crops will be
• that proposals to spray Florida’s
copious marijuana crops with fusarium EN-4 were rejected when Dr. David
Struhs, head of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection
wrote of its ability to mutate and attack other species. “It is difficult
if not impossible to control the spread of the fusarium species. The mutated
fungi can cause disease in a large number of crops including tomatoes,
peppers, corn, flowers and vines”. There are 200 other plant species
within that genus which could be affected or destroyed.
President of the Columbian Center for International Physics, Eduardo Posada,
is concerned as much about damage to humans as damage to the Amazon rainforest.
He has documented a 76% mortality rate for humans infected by natural
fusilium. He believes that “to apply (fusarium EN-4) from the air
that has been associated with a 76% kill rate of hospitalised human patients
would be tantamount to biological warfare”.
Critics of the ‘War on Drugs’ suggest that, rather than attack
the ‘effects’ - the crops themselves - it would be far more
effective to address the three principal ‘causes’ which have
combined to make cocaine so available in the US: the deep alienation (including
boredom) across all sections of US society engendered by its vacuous consumer
culture; the US Military’s easy access to coca-growing areas; the
poverty of the Columbian campesinos (subsistence farmers) for whom coca
is almost the only profitable ‘cash crop’.
(7110) Guardian Unlimited 28.7.00
Sheep dip syndrome “real”
A UK Government-funded study by Professor Nicola Cherry and colleagues
at Manchester University backs farmers’ claims that their health
has been damaged by the organophosphate sheep dips the then Ministry of
Agriculture obliged them to use. The study of 400 farmers who used sheep
dip found that those whose health had deteriorated were twice as likely
to have a variation in a gene that regulates paraoxonase, a blood enzyme
which breaks down toxic chemicals. The 175 sick farmers in the study were
genetically less able to break down diazinon, an organophosphate used
in sheep dip.
Ed.- When the body is unable to break down a substance, it can accumulate
there, leading to excessive levels. Organophosphate pesticides were introduced
into UK agriculture despite warnings from scientists as far back as the
‘50s that they were closely related to nerve gas and too dangerous
to use. Successive governments since have denied any danger and dismissed
farmers’ claims of health damage.
(8948) Lancet 2002;359:763-64
Organophosphate sheep dip ...
In 1989 Brian Anderson complained to the European Commission (EC) that he had been poisoned by sheep dip chemicals from a neighbouring farm contaminating his private water supply. (Spent sheep dip is often simply poured into soakaways, often no more than holes in the ground. It then filters through the soil into either the groundwater or into rivers and streams.) As a result, the EC forced the UK Government to review practices for disposal of toxic chemicals on land, and this led to new regulations requiring farmers to seek prior authorisation before dumping sheep dip. A new survey of private water supplies by the Welsh Office during 1997 and 1998 shows that there has been some improvement, but that 20% of private water supplies tested were still being contaminated. In the worst case the level was 22 times the legal limit, and four other samples exceeded the limit. Brian Anderson has been confined to a wheelchair and unable to work since he was poisoned.
(6482-83) ENDS 1.2.00 p10
Most timber treatments
unnecessary
Liverpool University researchers have established that food containing
residues of more than one pesticide can be up to ten times more dangerous
than those containing residues of just one. This may be relevant to the
housing market. Houses are frequently treated for woodworm and dry rot
each time they change hands, whether they need it or not. This creates
cocktails of pesticides which may be many times more toxic that the simple
toxicity sum of the individual pesticides used.
Where a house is centrally heated, it is likely that all the timbers will
have become too dry to support insect life. The ‘flight’ holes
sometimes used by timber treatment salesmen or surveyors to recommend
fresh treatment may not have seen an insect for 50-100 years. Similarly,
the inappropriately named ‘dry rot’ only occurs where there
is excess moisture. This, as Government guidelines make clear, is most
effectively eliminated by eliminating the cause: repairing the plumbing
leak, the leak in the roof or the blocked gutter, reducing raised ground
levels around the house, etc.
The Government publication Remedial Timber Treatment in Buildings is available
for £4 from HSE Books - % 01787 881165.
(8856) Jeff Howell. Sunday Telegraph 17.2.02 p19
IPM wins again
When researchers compared the various pest management systems used 1997-2000
in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam, they found that farmers using integrated
pest management (IPM) techniques had reduced their use of pesticides by
65%, whilst non-IPM farmers had increased their usage by 40%. Furthermore,
IPM farmers on combined rice/fish farms used less than IPM farmers growing
only rice. They also found that IPM farmers were more aware of the dangers
of pesticides and of environmental issues.
The researchers concluded that IPM rice/fish farming was a sustainable
alternative to non-IPM monoculture rice cropping.
Original research: Berg,H et al. Crop Protection 2001;20:897-905
(9038) Current Research Monitor 1.1.02 p1
Dichlorvos insect sprays
withdrawn from sale
Many common brands of insect sprays have been withdrawn from sale after
the UK Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) advised that they presented
a risk of skin, liver and breast cancer. These included Vapona, Boots
and Superdrug own brands, which all contain the organophosphate pesticide
dichlorvos.
Friends of the Earth spokesperson Sandra Bell was relieved but scathing.
Why had it taken ten years since the chemical’s classification as
a possible carcinogen for the Government to act? Why was the ACP saying
that it was safe for people to use up any existing stock?
(8947) Valerie Elliott. Times 20.4.02 p4
Dumped and almost forgotten
Greenpeace has just completed the containment of a stockpile of highly
toxic obsolete pesticides in Nepal. They had been abandoned there by multinational
companies like Bayer, Sandoz, Shell, Rhone Poulenc, Du Pont, Union Carbide
and Monsanto after they reached their expiry dates or had been banned.
Similar work has recently been completed by the Pakistani Government,
which sent 317 tonnes of obsolete pesticides for destruction by high temperature
incineration in the Netherlands.
(8819) Pesticides News 1.12.01 p17
Infants exposed through
diet
When 88 items from children’s meals were analysed for the presence
of fifteen different organophosphate pesticide residues:
ä six different OP pesticides were detected
ä sixteen items contained one pesticide, two items contained two
ä fruit and vegetables were the prime source of OPs
The most detected pesticide, Azinphos-methyl, was most commonly found
in apples and apple juice.
Ed.- All good reasons to buy organic.
(9254) Current Research Monitor 1.4.02 p1
Repealing advice
In 1997 the UK’s Chief Medical Officer advised parents to peel fruit
and vegetables to reduce their children’s exposure to pesticide residues
(which were considered excessive at the time). In 2000 the advice was
confirmed because residues were still excessive. One year later, in order
not to tarnish the New Labour Government’s ‘free fruit for schools’
scheme, Health Minister Yvette Cooper needed the advice to be repealed.
The Food Standards Agency asked its advisor on pesticides, the UK Advisory
Committee on Pesticides (ACP), whether this was tenable and the ACP obligingly
confirmed that, having checked out two studies from the UK Pesticides
Safety Directorate (PSD), that residue levels had reduced sufficiently
to reverse the advice.
However, when Friends of the Earth acquired copies of the two studies,
they realised that there was, if anything, stronger reasons to keep on
peeling:
• Both papers analysed residues in 2000,
when Government advice to peel was reconfirmed
• One paper reported that residues (including
organophosphates - OPs) had been found in 74% of apples and 81% of pears.
35% of the apple samples were contaminated with residues of the OP chlorpyrifos.
The US has severely restricted its use on foods likely to be eaten by
children
• In 1999 residue levels of chlormequat
on pears were high enough to give toddlers a mild stomach upset. The 2000
PSD study confirmed that average pear chlormequat levels still exceeded
safety levels
• The PSD sought to minimise the relevance
of its own finding by reminding readers that the safety levels had been
set with reference to the tolerance of rabbits and dogs, and that monkeys
appeared to be less sensitive. It apparently holds as an article of faith
that humans will react more like monkeys than rabbits
• The second paper confirmed that residues
likely to be found in bananas, oranges, nectarines and peaches can be
up to 20 times the safety limit (acute reference dose) for toddlers. These
pesticides residues included organophosphates and pesticides known to
adversely affect the human reproductive system
There are more fundamental problems:
• The two PSD papers only measured residue
levels pesticide by pesticide. It did not report on the dangers of combinations
(so called ‘cocktails’)
• The current safety levels depend on
estimates of daily/ weekly consumption by the Food Standards Agency (e.g.
one orange per day). Many feel that the estimates are rather conservative
and will, anyway, need to be revised if the Department of Health’s
‘five portions of fruit or vegetables a day’ campaign is successful
• Scientists’ estimates of safe
levels of chemicals, pesticides, radiation, etc. have almost always reduced
as better measurement technology has revealed more and more evidence of
toxicity at extremely low levels
The Pesticides Action Network (UK) considers that the ACP’s behaviour
calls into serious doubt its scientific integrity as well as of the ability/desire
of the Food Standards Agency to protect the people rather than profits
or politicians.
(9259) Pesticides News 1.6.02 p8
Cars
vacuum up pesticides
Researchers from the University of California - Berkeley analysed dust
taken from inside cars and the owners’ houses during July-September,
a period of above average pesticide use. They found sufficient similar
pesticide residues in both and concluded that:
• the heating and air conditioning systems
of cars are efficient concentrators of air pollution, accumulating toxic
pesticides inside the car
• the substances are transferred by
the passengers into the home
• cars should be considered a significant
source of child exposure to pesticides in the home environment
(9328) ISEA/ISEE Conference. Epidemiology 1.7.02 S55
Mad bee disease
French honey production declined sharply during the ’90s. The National
Union of French Beekeepers blames the introduction of systemic pesticides,
which spread throughout plants (rather than rest in the skin) and can
contaminate nectar and pollen, poisoning the bees. This, they say, is
the cause of the so-called ‘mad bee disease’ they have experienced.
The French Government responded to ‘mad bee disease’ by suspending
the spraying of sunflower seeds with Bayer’s Gaucho, the pesticide
most suspected by the beekeepers. The keepers feel that this is insufficient,
given that plants grown in soil as much as two years after Groucho has
been applied still contain traces. They want the ban on Gaucho to be extended
to wheat, barley, maize and sugar beet.
(7622-23) Reuters News Service 27.10.00
back
to the top
Bringing it home
When researchers analysed the babies born between 1980 and 1993 in Washington
State (US) they discovered that those born of women who worked in agriculture
had a significantly higher risk of limb defects than those born into families
where neither parent or only the father worked in agriculture. They suggest
that agricultural chemicals are to blame.
The study confirms similar studies carried out in Sweden, Canada and Australia
20 years earlier.
(7480-81) Engel,LS et al. Current Research
Monitor 1.6.00
back
to the top
Children most at risk
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that children have a
twelve times greater health risk than adults associated with ingesting
dust and soil. Children spend more time on the floor or ground, touching
all manner of objects and putting them or their fingers in their mouths.
This is also one of the reasons why they have greater exposure to domestic
pesticides than adults living in the same house. Pesticides residues settle
on surfaces and floors and children take them in through the skin or orally
with house dust as well as breathing them in as the adults do.
Children also tend to be more exposed to pesticides residues than adults
because children’s diets tend to contain more water, milk and fruit
juice. This higher exposure is cause for concern in itself, but doubly
so when one appreciates that children’s lower body weights means
that the exposure is also more concentrated in the body. A 1999 Italian
study involving 195 children living in Siena established a significant
link between domestic indoor or outdoor use of organophosphate pesticides
(OPs) during the previous month and OP metabolite in the children’s
urine. The levels of OP metabolite in the children’s urine were significantly
higher than in adults living in the same houses.
(7447-49) Aprea,C et al. Environmental
Health Perspectives 2000;108(1)
back
to the top
Brain function damaged
A Dutch study involving 800 people has found a link between exposure to
pesticides and mild brain dysfunction. Results from colour-word tests,
verbal learning and recall tests, fluency and letter-digit tests showed
that exposure to pesticides gave up to a fivefold increased risk of dysfunction.
(7312) Food Magazine 1.10.00 p21
Ed.- It is also worth remembering that Government ‘safe levels’
always refer to a single pesticide and do not take the effect of combinations
into account.
(7161) James Chapman & Sean Poulter.
Daily Mail 20.9.00 p21
Otitis media finding
Canadian researchers have demonstrated a link between a baby's exposure to the organochlorine pesticides DDT, hexachlorobenzene and dieldrin whilst in the womb and a raised risk of contracting otitis media (an infection of the middle ear) during the first years of life. This suggests that pesticides may compromise babies immune systems. There was no significant difference between babies who were breast-fed and babies who were formula-fed.
(6987) Dewailly,E et al. Environmental Health Perspectives 2000;108:3,25-10
A survey of 97 farmers from Ontario, Canada, has shown that the semen of pesticide sprayers contains significant traces of the pesticide 2,4-D they were applying, even after only two days' exposure. Scientists are concerned that this could lead to birth abnormalities and that semen could be a major transmitter of damaging pollutants into both women and the unborn child.
(6975) Arbuckle,TE et al. Reproductive
Toxicology 1999;13:421-29
back
to the top
Deadly
mix
The first defence of any chemical company being sued for damages is that its product is safe if used in the recommended way. The recommended doses are usually determined by laboratory tests of single products on animals, rather than on humans working and living in the chemical cocktail that is the real world.
This distinction is crucial, as new work from Dr. Goran Jamal shows. He cites research by Mohammed Abou-Donia, professor of neurobiology and neurotoxicology at Duke University in North Carolina (US). Dr. Abou-Donia established the safe levels of three different chemicals for his research subjects (battery hens). He also established the lethal dose for one of the chemicals, the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos (manufactured as Dursban by Dow Chemicals). When the hens were given each chemical separately no ill effects occurred. When the three chemicals were given in combination harmful effects equivalent to the lethal effect of chlorpyrifos occurred. In other words, the combination increased the effect of chlorpyrifos by a factor of several hundred.
The three chemicals used were typical of combinations found commonly in the outside world: an organophosphate pesticide, a synthetic pyrethroid pesticide and an organochlorine (OP) pesticide. Such combinations are frequently used by livestock farmers, and were used by UK and US troops during the Gulf War. Dr. Jamal explains that such a huge increase in toxicity occurs because some chemicals work by binding to and blocking the action of protective enzymes, thus leaving the body undefended from the other chemicals present.
This effect was also shown by Israeli scientists in 1998. They showed how a combination of chemicals undermined the effectiveness of animals' blood-brain barriers, permitting 100-fold higher levels of toxic substances into the central nervous system. It has also been shown that skin exposed to a combination becomes increasingly sensitive.
(6337-42) Pesticides News 1.3.00 p10
Initial research from the Municipal Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona (Spain) suggests a link between the organochlorine pesticide DDT and pancreatic cancer. A possible link was also found with PCBs, a family of chemicals widely used until recently in the electronics industry. The researchers found that 51 patients who suffered from pancreatic cancer also had abnormally high levels of these chemicals in their blood. It was not possible to say whether the genetic abnormality had been caused by the chemicals or whether it made the patients more susceptible to developing the cancer when exposed to the chemicals. A larger study is needed to properly determine whether the suggested link is real.
Meanwhile, good news from the UK Government. It intends to destroy existing stockpiles of PCBs by mid 2000 and to set up a new body to review 1,000 widely used chemicals by 2005.
(6039-40) Aisling Irwin and Charles
Clover. Daily Telegraph 17.12.99
Original research: Porta, M et al. Lancet 1999;354:2125-29
Pesticides and prostate
cancer
The US Agricultural Health Study enrolled 55,000+ farmworkers in order
to examine the health implications of working in farming. One of the illnesses
under the spotlight was prostate cancer, a growing problem in more industrially
developed countries (MIDCs). In this study, whether there was a family
history of prostate cancer or not, an increased risk of prostate cancer
was linked to working with chlorinated pesticides and the pesticide methyl
bromide.
Exposure to other chemicals also increased the risk, but only in families
with a genetic susceptibility.
(9329) ISEA/ISEE Conference. Epidemiology 1.7.02 S240
Parkinson's risk
A study comparing 496 people newly diagnosed with Parkinson's to 541 matched controls without the disease has found that people exposed to pesticides in the home and garden are twice as likely to develop the disease. It is thought that certain types of pesticide target the base ganglia in the brain, where they damage nerve cells. The author of the study, Dr. Lorene Nelson, thought that there were probably other factors, such as genetic susceptibility, and called for more research.
(6640) David Derbyshire. Daily Telegraph 6.5.00 p11
Dr. Paul Shattock - the Director of the University of Sunderland's Autism Research Unit spoke at a conference set up by the Pesticides Action Network to consider the COT report and examine the potential dangers of low-level long term exposure to OPs. He told delegates of his hypothesis that autism and other neurological disorders had physiological/genetic causes including, possibly, exposure to OPs. An analysis of thousands of urine samples supported his hypothesis that OPs can damage the lining of the digestive tract, permitting peptides (parts of proteins) to cross into the bloodstream, having severe effects on the central nervous system. He believes this could be the cause of the perceptual and behavioural disorders of autistic people, and is developing a diet for such people based on his findings. A book is to be published in May 2000.
(6333-36) Pesticides News 1.3.00 p9
Random tests of new clothing for traces of chemicals found that Nike soccer jerseys contained the fungicide tributyltin. German retailers removed the shirts from sale pending further investigation.
Ed.- Much clothing contains traces of pesticide, whether from crop spraying (e.g. cotton) or to reduce pest damage whilst in storage. It is always wise to wash new clothes thoroughly before wearing.
(6523) Grist Magazine 7.1.00 Original source: New York Times 7.1.2000
The Pesticides Trust have produced a series of leaflets giving the least toxic alternatives to pesticides. These cover: timber treatment; head lice; flea control; wasp control; house mite control; cockroach control; and rodent control. They cost £2 each (£7.50 the set) and are available from: The Pesticides Trust, Eurolink Centre, 49 Effra Road, London SW2 1BZ.
Ed.- Several studies have shown that cancer rates in children are very much higher where pesticides are used in the home.
(6174-79) Pesticides Trust 1.3.00
Irrigation schemes over the last forty years are turning Russia's Aral Sea into a desert. This is considered one of the world's worst environmental disaster zones. It is feared that the health of many millions of people living in the region will be badly affected. Raised levels of childhood pneumonia, respiratory diseases, anaemia and infant mortality are already evident. A team of English scientists suspected that dust blowing off the dried out farmlands may be to blame and took samples. They found that, although systematic spraying is no longer carried out, the dust contained high levels of the OP pesticide phosalone.
Ed.- The implications for areas like over-farmed East Anglia (which is developing into dust bowl) are obvious. The case for responsible, mixed agriculture, rotation and organic farming is made yet again.
(6473) O'Hara,SL et al. Lancet p627
Milk to the rescue
Powdery mildew, which affects cucumbers and courgettes, is a major problem for organic growers. Until very recently, the only known solutions were chemical pesticides like fenarimol and benomyl, which they are not permitted to use. The answer may lie in ordinary milk. Having found that by-products from milk-processing factories seemed to kill the mildew, Wagner Bettiol of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Jaguarina, near Sao Paolo) tried a spray comprising one part milk and nine parts water. The spray was faster and more effective than fenarimol and benomyl. After 2-3 weeks spraying, the infected area of leaves was in some cases only a sixth or less of the plants treated with the two chemical pesticides.
Some organic growers in Bettiol's region have controlled less severe mildew with a 5% milk solution sprayed once a week. The milk may be acting against the mildew in two ways. Firstly, milk is known to kill some micro-organisms. Secondly, milk contains potassium phosphate, which boosts the plants' immune system.
(5635-37) New Scientist 16.10.99 p10
Breast cancer pesticides link
US findings that the breast fat of women who contracted breast cancer contains higher than normal levels of organophosphate pesticides have now been reinforced by British researchers.
David Phillips and colleagues at the Institute of Cancer Research in London took samples of healthy breast tissue from 40 women undergoing breast reduction therapy and found that the tissue - or the chemicals in it - caused genetic damage and mutation in bacterial and human cells. They believe that the fatty tissue which makes up 80% of a woman’s breasts soaks up carcinogens (which tend to be fat-soluble) thus making cells in the breast more likely to form tumours.
Whilst some scientists argue that even if the carcinogens can be identified, little can be done to reduce women‘s exposure to them, Phillips believes that reductions in breast cancer are possible. He points out that women in Japan have a very low rate of breast cancer but that this rises dramatically if they move, for instance, to the US. Phillips is open-minded as to the source of the carcinogens, suspecting both food and airborne sources (e,g, pesticides, chemicals).
(1462-63) Michael Day. New Scientist 1.12.96 p6
--------
Pesticides - no escape
A report from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food accepts that nearly a third of all common fruit and vegetables contain pesticide residues which may not be removed by washing or peeling. It has also announced that 40% of some of these may contain residues above statutory limits.
The Pesticides Trust and the Food Commission are critical of the current ‘snap shot’ safety limits because they take no account of gradual build-up through consumption over time. Tim Lobstein of the Food Commission warns that children are at particular risk because they are consuming pesticide residues throughout whole lifetimes. (See young children most at risk on the children's page)
Specific findings in the report include:
• Two banned pesticides were detected in pears: vinclozolin, which affects the fertility of laboratory animals, and chlormequat, a plant growth regulator.
• 84% of pears contained pesticide residues, as did 74% of desert apples.
• All but 1 of 49 samples of celery tested contained pesticide residues. 41% of these were above statutory limits. These pesticides included procymidone, which is classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a carcinogen.
• Pesticide residues in carrots rose from 4.14% in 1992 to 16.51% in 1995. MAFF now recommend peeling, topping and tailing.
• 11% of lettuce samples contained pesticide residues, including vinclozolin. Some were above statutory limits.
• Pesticides were also detected in milk, bread, potatoes, pork, beef, lamb and chicken products.
• Lindane, an organochlorine pesticide linked to breast cancer, was found in 12 out of 137 cheeses and 100 out of 219 milk samples taken from supermarket shelves.
Ed.- For those wanting to maintain good health the only course now is to maximise their consumption of organic products. A UK-wide guide to organic sources and door-delivered box schemes is available for £2.50 from The Soil Association, Bristol House, 40-56 Victoria Street, Bristol BS1 6BY. www.soilassociation.org
(1541-43) Paul Nuki. Sunday Telegraph 3.11.96 p11
Higher levels than first thought
The UK Central Science Laboratory (CSL) has discovered that the traditional way of measuring levels of pesticides residues in fruit and vegetables has been missing 20-90% of the pesticides. Chopping up the samples is thought to release enzymes and other substances which then degrade the residues. They have now moved to cryogenic milling, where samples are frozen before being ground down and analysed, and are finding substantially higher levels than before.
(1680) Pesticides News 1.12..96 p19
In a recent survey of pesticides contamination of apples the most contaminated was a Worcester Pearmain which contained 11 times the recommended maximum recommended level (MRL) of triazophos (an organophosphate insecticide). Any schoolchild or adult eating that apple unpeeled would be consuming four to six times the ‘acute reference dose’ (MAFF definition - 'the maximum amount which can be consumed on a single occasion in the practical certainty that no harm will result’ -Ed.). Scientists say that eating two such contaminated apples could cause stomach pains, especially in small children.
The survey found that peeling apples greatly reduces the amount of chemical consumed, but does not eliminate it because some of the pesticide is left in the flesh of the fruit.
Of the 700 apples analysed, 126 (18%) registered pesticide levels above the MRL.
(1899) Michael Hornsby. Times 15.3 .97 p1
home
• contact
us • free sample
• links
The Environment-Health Trust