The National Institute of Health’s Agricultural Health Study has been underway for over a decade. It has produced valuable data on the impacts of pesticides on human health, and established linkages between pesticide use and cancer and neurological disorders. In an important paper in “Diabetes Care,” a team of government scientists found that pregnant women […]
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Some pesticides can disrupt the development of the brain and nervous system at extremely low doses. A study published in October 2006 provides key new insights into how and why (Slotkin et al., 2006). The organophosphate (OP) class of insecticides includes some of the most dangerous pesticides still in widespread use. This family of chemistry […]
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Latino farmworkers and their children face the highest levels of pesticide exposure of any population group, with the possible exception of certain types of pesticide applicators. In 2004 a team of scientists measured the levels of urinary metabolites in 60 farmworker children ages 1 to 6 in North Carolina (Arcury et al., 2007). The testing […]
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The organophosphate (OP) insecticide chlorpyrifos is still sprayed on over two dozen crops, leading to periodic residues in many common foods. Until December 2001, chlorpyrifos was also one of the most widely used insecticides in the home, schools, and residential environments. Products containing this OP insecticide were spayed in and around homes for control of […]
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This study reports some remarkable numbers quantifying the economic impact of exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Pesticides cause the second largest impact — some $44 billion — right behind flame retardants. While worrisome enough, the huge increases now occurring in herbicide, insecticide, and fungicide use on farms growing the three major genetically engineered (GE, or GMO) crops (corn, soybeans, cotton) is bound to markedly increase exposures, reproductive problems, birth defects, and a host of life-long health problems. Hopefully sooner rather than later, the agricultural commodity groups and farmers will rediscover prevention-based Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and start to reduce their…
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Historic posts are reprinted verbatim from their original source. Source: Editorial Desk, The New York Times, February 19, 2003 One of the most pervasive chemicals in modern agriculture is a herbicide called glyphosate, which is better known by its trade name, Roundup. When it was first introduced in 1974, by Monsanto, no one could have predicted […]
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