The study, to be published in the December 15th issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal, Analytical Chemistry, and entitled, “Determination of Pesticide Residues in Fruit-Based Soft Drinks,” screened for approximately 100 pesticides in fruit-based soft drinks purchased from 15 different countries from companies with brands distributed worldwide and found relatively large concentration levels of pesticides in most of the samples analyzed. The detected pesticides included carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil and its main degradate, prochloraz and its main degradate, malathion, and iprodione. These pesticides are normally applied to crops as post harvest treatments.

The researchers found relatively large concentrations of pesticides, in the micrograms per liter (ug/l) range, in most of the samples analyzed. Samples from Spain and the U. K. had the highest levels of pesticides, while samples from the U. S. and Russia were among the lowest. Many international brands are imported into the United States.

While pesticide regulations in the United States and the European Union set limits for pesticide levels found in fruits, vegetables and drinking water, little attention is paid to the presence of pesticides in to highly consumed derivate products, such as soft drinks made from fruits. The researchers of this study are concerned about the possible impact of pesticide-containing fruit juices on the health of children, who tend to consume large amounts of such soft drinks. Pound for pound, children take in more pesticides relative to their body weight than adults in the food they eat. The body of evidence in scientific literature shows that pesticide exposure can adversely affect a child’s neurological, respiratory, immune, and endocrine system, even at low levels.

In the United States, under the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must assess the cumulative risks of pesticides including exposures from food and drinking water and set chemical tolerances (the maximum amount of pesticide residue allowed to remain on food products) for pesticides. However, the cumulative effects of these allowed pesticide residues are not fully evaluated, nor are cumulative exposures to a mixture of many different pesticides and other toxics.

TAKE ACTION: Go Organic: Studies have found that diet is the primary route of exposure to pesticides, especially in children, and that switching to an organic diet decreases exposure substantially. The most important organic food products to purchase for children are those that they consume in great quantity. For example, if children drink a lot of juice, purchasing organic juice is particularly important to reduce their pesticide exposure.

Following the Environmental Protection Agency’s phase-out agreements with the manufacturers of organophosphate insecticides chlorpyrifos and diazinon in 2000 and 2001, the Columbia University researchers sought to determine the impact of the new regulations on pest infestation levels, pesticide use, and pesticides measured in indoor air samples. They enrolled 511 pregnant women from inner-city New York between 2000 and 2006. Permethrin, a pyrethroid insecticide; PBO, a pyrethroid synergist; chlorpyrifos; and diazinon were measured in 48-hr prenatal personal air samples. Data on pest infestation and pesticide use were collected via questionnaire.

88% of women report using pesticides during pregnancy and 55% report using higher-exposure pesticide applications (spray cans, pest bombs and/or professional pesticide applicators). Self-reported pest sightings and use of higher-exposure applications increased significantly after the regulations were implemented. PBO, cis-, and trans-permethrin were detected in 75, 19, and 18% of personal air samples, respectively. Detection frequencies of PBO and cis- and trans-permethrin increased significantly during this time period. Levels and/or detection frequencies of these compounds are significantly higher among mothers reporting use of high exposure pesticide applications. Chlorpyrifos and diazinon levels decrease significantly during this time.

PBO, a highly toxic substance that causes a range of short- and long-term effects, including cancer and adverse impacts on liver function and the nervous system, is one of the most commonly used synergists in pesticide products. Synergists are chemicals added to pesticide formulations to enhance the toxicity of the active ingredients. PBO is frequently used, especially in aerosol products and mosquito sprays, to increase the potency of pyrethrin and synthetic pyrethroids, as well as other types of insecticides. Products generally contain between five to ten times as much PBO as pesticide product active ingredient. PBO has been associated with decreased liver function.

Permethrin is a possible human carcinogen and exposure is linked to possible endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and reproductive effects. It is also highly toxic to fish, aquatic organisms, and bees.

“This is one of the first studies examining the effects of real-world contaminant mixtures on growth and development in wildlife,” said study lead author David Ostrach, a research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “If the fish living in this water are not healthy and are passing on contaminants to their young, what is happening to the people who use the water, are exposed to the same chemicals or eat the fish?…We should be asking hard questions about the nature and source of these contaminants, as well as acting to stop the ongoing pollution and mitigate these current problems.”

The new study, published online by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is one of a series of reports by UC Davis researchers on investigations they began in 1988. Their goal is to better understand the reasons for plummeting fish populations in the estuary, an enormous California region that includes the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay.

The estuary is one of the world’s most important water supplies for urban use and agriculture, and is also one of the most contaminated aquatic ecosystems. The ominous decline in estuary populations of striped bass, delta smelt, longfin smelt and threadfin shad, named the “pelagic organism decline,” or POD, by the region’s environmental scientists, was first reported at the turn of the century. The UC Davis lab is part of the multi-agency POD research team and charged with understanding contaminant effects and other environmental stressors on the entire life cycle of striped bass. The new study details how the research team caught gravid female striped bass in the Upper Sacramento River, then compared the river fishes’ eggs and hatchlings (larvae) to offspring of identical but uncontaminated fish raised in a hatchery.

Studies of striped bass are useful because, first, they are a key indicator of San Francisco Estuary ecosystem health and, second, because contaminant levels and effects in the fish could predict the same in people. In the river-caught fishes’ offspring, the UC Davis researchers found harmful amounts of PBDEs, PCBs and 16 pesticides, including commonly used agricultural chemicals such as chlorpyrifos, and others banned decades ago, such as dieldren and DDT.

The compounds identified are known to cause myriad problems in both young and adult organisms, including skeletal and organ deformities and dysfunction; changes in hormone function (endocrine disruption); and changes in behavior. Some of the effects are permanent. Furthermore, according to the researchers, when the compounds are combined, the effects can be increased by several orders of magnitude.

“Most of the man-made chemicals assessed in the USGS study are unregulated in drinking water and not required to be monitored or removed,” says Tom Jacobus, General Manager of the Washington Aqueduct. “These findings are not surprising and they will be important in helping regulators and assisting water utility managers arrive at decisions about future water treatment processes.”

Scientists tested water samples for about 260 commonly used chemicals, including pesticides, solvents, gasoline hydrocarbons, personal care and household-use products, disinfection by-products, and manufacturing additives. This study did not look at pharmaceuticals or hormones.

Low levels of about 130 of the synthetic chemicals are detected in streams and rivers before treatment at the public water facilities (source water). Nearly two-thirds of these chemicals are also detected after treatment. Most of the chemicals found are at levels equivalent to one thimble of water in an Olympic-sized pool.

“Low level detection does not necessarily indicate a concern to human health, but rather indicates what types of chemicals we can expect to find in different areas of the country,” said USGS lead scientist, Gregory Delzer. “Recent scientific advances have given USGS scientists the analytical tools to detect a variety of contaminants in the environment at low concentrations; often 100 to 1,000 times lower than drinking-water standards and other human-health benchmarks.” Pesticides, however, have been found to cause long-term health effects from even very low doses and in combination. For more, see “Facing Scientific Realities: Debunking the ‘Dose Makes the Poison’ Myth.”

Testing sites include the White River in Indiana; Elm Fork Trinity River in Texas; Potomac River in Maryland; Neuse River in North Carolina; Chattahoochee River in Georgia; Running Gutter Brook in Massachusetts; Clackamas River in Oregon; Truckee River in Nevada; and Cache La Poudre in Colorado. The populations in communities served by these water treatment plants vary from 3,000 to over a million.

This study is among the first by the USGS to report on a wide range of chemicals found before and after treatment. The full source-water quality assessment and listing of chemicals are available online, as well as Mr. Delzer’s presentation from a December 5 press conference.

Chemicals included in this study serve as indicators of the possible presence of a larger number of commonly used chemicals in rivers, streams, and drinking water. The most commonly detected chemicals in the source water are herbicides, disinfection by-products, and fragrances. Herbicides include atrazine, metalachlor, and simizine. Many of these chemicals are among those often found in ambient waters of 186 rivers and streams sampled by USGS since the early 1990s, and are highly correlated with the presence of upstream wastewater sources or upstream agricultural and urban land use.

Measured concentrations of chemicals detected in both source and treated water were generally less than 0.1 part per billion. Although potential human-health effects and risk are not assessed in this study, USGS takes the position that adverse effects to human health is negligible based on comparisons of measured concentrations and available human-health benchmarks. Other scientists point to health effects associated low level exposures well below regulatory standards set by government and acknowledge serious and troubling uncertainties or unanswered questions associated with human health and environmental impact.

More than 75 percent of source- and treated-water samples in this study contained 5 or more chemicals. The common occurrence of chemical mixtures means that the total combined toxicity may be greater than that of any single contaminant present. The USGS report identifies the need for continued research because the additive or synergistic effects on human health of mixtures of synthetic chemicals at low levels are not well understood or regulated. The study also did not look at implications to ecosystems or aquatic health.

USGS findings are used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the States, utilities and many nongovernmental agencies to help protect streams and watersheds that serve as water supplies and to guide those involved in decisions on treatment processes in the future.

The USGS is a non-regulatory agency which often monitors the quality of available, untreated water resources. These studies begin to relate the quality of these resources to drinking water. USGS studies are intended to complement drinking-water monitoring required by Federal, State, and local programs, which focus primarily on post-treatment compliance monitoring.

The study, entitled, “The effects of triclosan on puberty and thyroid hormones in male wistar rats,” was reviewed by the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and approved for publication in Toxicological Sciences. Researchers measured blood concentrations of testosterone and several other types of hormones and weighed a variety of organs that are essential for rat development and puberty, including the pituitary gland, the testes, the prostate gland and the liver of male rat pups fed an oral dose of triclosan for 31 days. The purpose of the experiment was to determine what effects triclosan would have on concentrations of thyroid hormones and the onset of puberty.

Results show a dramatic decrease in the thyroid hormone -thyroxine in rats exposed to increasing concentrations of triclosan, as well as significant increases in liver weights. This thyroid hormone is critical for normal development and to a properly functioning metabolism. When the thyroid produces lower than normal amounts of hormones, hypothyroidism occurs and this condition can lead to obesity, goiter, infertility, neurological problems and other serious concerns. Hypothyroidism during early development can change reproductive tract development, hormone concentrations and sexual maturation, including puberty onset. It is unclear whether triclosan acts directly on the thyroid gland to interfere with hormone production. Enlarged livers, observed in the exposed rats, may indicate excessive stress on the liver to remove triclosan from the body. Stressed livers enlarge to accommodate the higher production of the enzymes needed to detoxify substances.

Triclosan is found in a variety of household products and has been detected in human blood, urine and even breast milk. This study’s findings raise further concern for adverse impacts on humans. Although this study used rats, the similarities in how the thyroid systems between rats and humans function raises concerns as to whether people could share the same physiological fate. Conversely, it takes a far greater dose of a chemical to alter a rat’s biology than it would to change a human’s; so although the concentrations evaluated in this study were higher than normal human exposure, it is possible that the low doses that humans are currently exposed to are enough to cause similar problems.

Triclosan’s association with hormone disruption has been documented in other studies and has also been observed in amphibians. In a recent risk assessment conducted by the EPA for the reregistration of triclosan, the agency, after reviewing this study and others, agreed that there is “evidence that triclosan disrupts thyroid hormone homeostasis and interacts with the androgen and estrogen receptors.”

In comments submitted to EPA in July 2008 by Beyond Pesticides, Food and Water Watch, Greenpeace US, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and dozens of public health and environmental groups from the U.S. and Canada, the agency was urged to use its authority to cancel the non-medical uses of the antibacterial chemical triclosan in order to protect human health and the environment. However, despite these comments and the mounting evidence against triclosan’s safety and efficacy, the agency approved triclosan and triclosan-registered products for reregistration in September. The Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) document is open for public comment until December 29, 2008. To view EPA’s documents click here.

TAKE ACTION: Let EPA know that it is not doing all it could to protect public health and the environment from the serious and long-lasting impacts of the continued and unnecessary use of triclosan. Submit your comments at www. regulation.gov using docket number ID number EPA-HQ-OPP-2007-0513 no later than December 29, 2008. Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.

You can also send your comments via mail to the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) Regulatory Public Docket (7502P), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460-0001.

Of the pesticides that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has registered for use on Christmas trees, most are linked to one or more adverse effects, including cancer, hormonal disruption, neurotoxicity, organ damage, reproductive/birth defects, asthma, environmental effects and more. Their use results in exposure to workers, wildlife, and waterways. Beyond Pesticides has compiled a list of 25 pesticides commonly used or recommended for use by state agricultural extension services, including: 2,4-D, bifenthrin, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, esfenvalerate, glyphosate, simazine and more.

Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Washington, New York, and Virginia are the nation’s top Christmas tree producing states, and together account for more than half of the trees grown in the U.S. The Cooperative Extension Service of North Carolina reports that glyphosate -a pesticide linked to increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other health issues- was applied to nearly 90 percent of the state’s trees in the 2006 season, the most recent data collected by the state.

Because of concerns about household exposure, Christmas tree growers have been advised by North Carolina officials to use only pesticides “labeled for spraying in the home” after the trees have been harvested. However, the law establishes no such restriction and these pesticides are linked to respiratory and neurological effects. Many of the pesticides registered for Christmas trees have been banned or have always been prohibited in residential settings. While continuing to be used on Christmas trees, chlorpyrifos (Dursban), for example, was taken off the market in 2000 for home use because of its neurotoxic effects.

A Sense of Wonder: Rachel Carson’s love of the natural world and her fight to defend it, written by and starring Kaiulani Lee, is now available on DVD. Using many of Ms. Carson’s own words, Kaiulani Lee embodies this extraordinary woman in a documentary style film, which depicts Rachel Carson in the final year of her life. Struggling with cancer, Ms. Carson recounts with both humor and anger the attacks by the chemical industry, the government, and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people.

The film is an intimate and poignant reflection of Rachel Carson’s life as she emerges as America’s most successful advocate for the natural world. A Sense of Wonder was shot in HD by Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler at Ms. Carson’s cottage on the coast of Maine.

Rachel Carson has been called the “patron saint” of the modern environmental movement. The Atlantic has listed her as one of the 40 most influential figures in American history. Praising Ms. Carson and her work, Al Gore wrote that, “Without [Silent Spring], the environmental movement might have been long delayed or never developed at all.”

As a scientist, a writer, and a woman, Rachel Carson has inspired generations. As an activist she fought governmental negligence and unbridled corporate interest. Through her scientific integrity and elegant prose she became one of the 20th Century’s most prescient scientific authors. And as an individual she battled economic adversity, family tragedy, and gender stereotyping. Ms. Carson reminds us that we each have not only the ability to make a creative difference in this world””we also have the responsibility to do so.

Rachel Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College), worked several summers at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and then earned her Master’s in zoology from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Carson worked for what was to become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a writer and biologist for nearly 16 years. In 1962, she delivered her seminal work, Silent Spring, which alerted the world to the dangers of chemical pesticides and launched our modern environmental movement.

The stage version of A Sense of Wonder, written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, has been touring the United States for sixteen years. The play has been the centerpiece of regional and national conferences on conservation, education, journalism, and the environment. She has performed it at over one hundred universities, the Smithsonian Institute, the Albert Schweitzer Conference at the United Nations, the Sierra Club’s Centennial in San Francisco, the Department of the Interior’s 150th anniversary celebration, and in May 2007 Ms. Lee performed the play on Capitol Hill, bringing Miss Carson’s voice, once again, to the halls of Congress.

From 1998 to 2005, a total of 3,271 cases of acute occupational pesticide-related illness/injury among agricultural workers were identified in ten states. According to EPA, the Worker Protection Standards are designed to reduce the risk of injury or illness to agricultural field workers resulting from exposure to pesticides. Although the WPS was expanded in 1995 and in 2005 EPA developed a new WPS How to Comply (HTC) Manual, the NIOSH findings indicate that agricultural workers continue to have an elevated risk for acute pesticide poisoning. Furthermore, female agricultural workers experienced nearly twice the risk of pesticide poisoning of male agricultural workers. The most common factors that contributed to pesticide exposure included off-target drift, early reentry into a treated area, and use in conflict with the pesticide label. The study concludes that “[T]he rates provided should be considered low estimates of the magnitude of acute pesticide poisoning among agricultural workers.”

According to the lead author of the report, Geoffrey Calvert, MD, MPH, “The NIOSH findings reinforce the need for heightened efforts to better protect farmworkers from pesticide exposure. EPA is currently in the process of revising the Worker Protection Standard. The findings in this paper can help inform EPA about the most problematic risk factors that need to be targeted by the WPS.”

The study findings show that more than half of the pesticide poisoning incidents are attributed to insecticides, either by themselves or in combination with other pesticides) and just barely over half of incidents involved exposure to the most toxic category of pesticides by EPA, Toxicity Category I.

The 17 pesticides most commonly implicated in the study data include: sulfur, metam-sodium, glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, sodium hypochlorite, methamidophos, abamectin, imidacloprid, methomyl, myclobutanil, propargite, spinosad, methyl bromide, dimethoate, malathion, and diazinon.

The data was pooled from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and NIOSH’s Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks-Pesticides (SENSOR-Pesticides) program, which collects information from ten state health departments. According to the study, 87 percent of poisoning incidents were of low severity illness, 12 percent were of medium severity, less than one percent was of high severity and one case was fatal. The criteria for each definition are stated in the study: “Low severity illness/ injury consist of illnesses and injuries that generally resolve without treatment and where minimal time (<3 days) is lost from work. Such cases typically manifest as eye, skin and/or upper respiratory irritation. Moderate severity illness/injury consists of nonlife-threatening health effects that are generally systemic and require medical treatment. No residual disability is detected, and time lost from work is less than 6 days. High severity illness/injury consists of life threatening health effects that usually require hospitalization, involve substantial time lost from work (>5 days), and may result in permanent impairment or disability.”

This past summer, Beyond Pesticides reported that EPA, which has long been criticized for its abysmal record of instituting and enforcing even the most basic human health protections from pesticides for those who are responsible for planting and harvesting much of the nation’s food, announced that, “Through recent settlements with four Puerto Rico farms, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sending a message to farm owners that protecting their workers must be their first priority.” On January 19, 2007, EPA assessed the second highest penalty for violating worker protection provisions of U.S. pesticide laws to an agricultural company based in Puerto Rico. According to the EPA, Martex Farms has been ordered to pay a total penalty of $92,620 by EPA’s Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).

The study, “Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810 fed in long term reproduction studies in mice,” was sponsored by the Austrian Ministry of Health, Families, and Youth, and led by Dr. Jürgen Zentek, Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Vienna.

Three series of experiments were done. The first was a multigeneration feeding trial in which the mice were fed and bred for four successive generations, beginning with the parents that were fed the diets from birth. The second was a multi-cycle breeding trial lasting 20 weeks in which breeding pairs of mice were fed beginning one week prior to co-habitation until the end of experiment, and allowed to go through four breeding cycles in the same generation. The third was a life-term trial involving feeding the mice without breeding from conception (via the pregnant mothers) to their eventual death.

The researchers report that it was not possible to obtain a GE test crop plus parental line from the agro-business companies, which was why the test diets consisting of 33 percent GE corn had to be compared with a non-GE corn variety (also at 33 percent) that was closely related to the GE corn. Both were grown under identical conditions. The GE corn was the transgene hybrid NK603 x MON810 containing three gene cassettes, two conveying glyphosate herbicide tolerance and one insect resistance coding for endotoxin Cry1Ab. The transgenic protein was estimated to be 0.11-0.24 microgram per gram of fresh grain.

In the multigeneration study, the parental generation was fed since birth with either GE or non-GE corn diet, and four generations were bred. Less pups were born in successive generations in both control and GE-fed mice. But the controls tended to do better than GE fed. The average litter size and weight as well as number of weaned pups were greater in the non-GE corn group, although the difference was not statistically significant.

Over all generations, about twice as many pups were lost in the GE group as compared with the control group (14.59 percent vs. 7.4 percent). More litters with eight or more pups were seen in the control compared with GE group. And a greater number of pups were lost at weaning in the GE fed.

Comparison of organ weights did not indicate direct dietary effects in the multigeneration study, except for the kidneys. Kidney weight of females in the GE-fed group were significantly lower in the F2, F3 and F4 generations than controls; and males in the GE-fed group also had significantly lower kidney weight than controls in the F2 generation

The electron microscope investigations revealed differences in the liver cells indicative of reduced core metabolism in the GE-fed mice. In addition, DNA microarray analyses showed important differences in gene expression between both groups fed non-GE corn and the group fed GE corn.

In the multi-cycle breeding trial, the same differences between GE-fed and controls were evident and reached statistically significant levels in the 3rd and 4th litters. There were clearly fewer and smaller litters in the GE-fed mice.

The average number of pups born was always lower in the GE fed but did not reach statistical significance before the 3rd and 4th deliveries. The number of pups at weaning was also always smaller in the GE-fed group. Over all the deliveries, more pups were born in the controls than in the GE group (1035 vs. 844).

Consistent with these findings, the life-term feeding trial showed no significant differences in the average life-span of the GE-fed mice compared with controls.

“This meticulous study suggests that a popular type of genetically engineered corn may harbor fertility-reducing substances,” said Bill Freese, Science Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety and co-author of a peer-reviewed study on GE crop regulation. “It’s no surprise to us that U.S. regulators did not catch this. None of our regulatory agencies require any long-term animal feeding trials before allowing genetically engineered crops on the market.”

The Center notes that the GE corn used in the study (NK603 x MON810) was developed by the Monsanto Company, and is sold under the brand names YieldGard (Plus)/Roundup Ready. Monsanto’s figures show that U.S. plantings of this GE corn have exploded in recent years, from just 2.2 million acres in 2002 to 38.2 million acres in 2008[2]. The corn is a so-called “stacked” variety with two traits: the Roundup Ready trait allows the corn to survive direct spraying with Roundup herbicide, while a built-in insecticide kills certain above-ground insect pests.

The Center further notes that U.S. regulators allow biotech companies to cross GE crops at will to develop “stacked” crops with virtually any combination of traits without any regulatory oversight, despite expert warnings that stacked crops may pose special risks.

“This study should serve as a wake-up call to governments around the world that genetically engineered foods could cause long-term health damage,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “The Center calls upon national and international authorities to place a moratorium on the distribution of GE products for human consumption unless or until their safety can be undeniably established.”

“We hope this study will finally persuade the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to completely overhaul its ”˜rubber-stamp’ regulatory process,” added Mr. Freese. “The FDA must stop letting biotech companies self-certify their GE crops as safe, and instead establish strict, mandatory testing requirements, including long-term animal feeding trials, for every GE crop,” he added.

For more information on GE crops, see Beyond Pesticides Genetic Engineering program page

The study, entitled, “Determinants of Health Insurance Status for Children of Latino Immigrant and Other US Farm Workers,” documents the findings of the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey which was administered to a total of 3136 parents with children younger than 18 years. The objective of the study was to characterize the health insurance status of farm workers’ children, which is currently an understudied topic. Researchers found that thirty-two percent of all farm worker parents, including 45% of migrant-worker parents, reported that their children were uninsured.

Farm workers’ children are uninsured at roughly 3 times the rate of all other children and almost twice the rate of those at or near the federal poverty level. Children were more likely to be uninsured if their parents were older, had less education, had spent less time in the U.S. and lived in the Southeast or Southwest, the study found. Researchers also noted that Mexican-American migrant children who travel across the U.S. with their parents are two to three times more likely to be in poor or fair health than non-migrant Mexican-American children.

“Health insurance improves children’s access to and use of health care services, making children’s health insurance an important proxy for children’s health care access,” wrote co-author Dr. Roberto L. Rodriguez, of the University of Texas Medical Branch, Austin and Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, and colleagues.

“Our findings highlight the particular vulnerability of U.S. farm workers’ children regarding health insurance coverage,” the study authors wrote. “These findings have important policy implications. They suggest that the low parental education among many farm workers as well as more recent immigration, which may in part reflect acculturation, negatively affect their children’s health insurance status.”

The authors recommend that programs aimed at extending insurance coverage for children should consider the unique social barriers that characterize this vulnerable population of US children. Moreover, there is significant regional variation that may reflect varying levels of insurance resources and eligibility from state to state.

“These social disadvantages may warrant increased efforts to enroll and retain eligible children in health insurance programs. Outreach efforts would need to consider other barriers that impede insurance enrollment and retention, such as the complexity of applications, language barriers, the inaccessibility of enrollment sites in rural areas and parents’ fear of using services or misunderstanding of eligibility guidelines,” Rodriguez and colleagues concluded.

Farm workers are among the groups most at risk for pesticide poisoning and long term impacts from these chemicals. Their families can be exposed to pesticides through contact with them and their clothing. Pregnant women working in the fields unwittingly expose their unborn babies to toxic pesticides. Farmworkers’ children are exposed to pesticides and often do dangerous agricultural work themselves. Statistics on poisoning drastically underestimate the true number of poisonings, since many cases are never reported for a myriad reasons including lack of insurance, rising health care costs that have heightened reluctance to seek medical attention, misdiagnosis from medical professionals and failure of workers to report incidences due to their legal status. Nevertheless, many have taken up the fight to protect the health of farmworkers.

For more on the health risks farm workers face, read Baldemar Velasquez’s article in Pesticides and You entitled “Oppression and Farmworker Health in a Global Economy.”

The resolution does not set specific quotas for areas to be set aside as safe havens for bees, but its main proponent, British Member of Parliament Neil Parish, says he hopes European governments promote the creation of enough recovery zones within their borders to transform at least 1 percent of the continent’s cultivated areas into havens for bees.

“They are just grassy lands left uncultivated and unfertilized, where flowers can grow freely, to the benefit of insects who feed on them,” says Raffaele Cirone, president of the Federation of Italian Beekeepers. “Leaving areas uncultivated is part of the farming and beekeeping tradition in Italy and many other European countries.”

The resolution also promotes the idea of “compensation zones,” which would be cultivated with protein-rich flowers. Poor nutrition from monoculture crops is believed to be one factor contributing to bee population decline. The use of pesticides in many modern agricultural practices has also reduced the amount of bee-friendly landscapes, according to scientists. Switzerland already has a law setting mandatory quotas of “environmental compensation zones,” ranging from 1 to 2 percent of cultivated areas.

“In the past two decades, the improper use of pesticides has forced most of us to leave the areas close to cultivated fields and to move to the hills,” says Mr. Cirone, who is also a beekeeper. He welcomed the EU measure because it would encourage farmers to go back to traditional practices that benefit bees. “It’s the least we can do if we want to stop this emergency.”

The rapid decline of bee populations, also known as colony collapse disorder or CCD, continues to baffle scientists. Discovered by U.S. beekeepers two years ago, CCD has since spread across much of Western Europe. The causes of the disorder are not thoroughly understood but several suspects have been named including pesticides, mites, pathogens and even climate change. Some studies have pointed to a lack of nutritional food for bees. Certain kinds of flowers, including white clover and wild mustard, produce nectar that is particularly rich in protein and other nutrients that are useful to the well-being of insects, according to research. However, the cultivation of crops and vegetables that are favored by humans, but poor in nutritious nectars has deprived bees of a major protein source.

Europe-wide, an estimated $1.25 billion in agriculture has already disappeared with the bees. Many fruit and vegetable crops — from almonds and pears to soybeans and cucumbers — depend on bees for pollination. In fact, about three-quarters of all food grown in Europe is somehow dependent on bees. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that one out of every three mouthfuls of food is dependent on bee pollination, and globally up to two-thirds of all major crops relies on pollination, mainly by bees.

For more on CCD and the plight of the bees, read “Pollinators and Pesticides” published in the Fall 2008 issue of Pesticides and You.

Tributyltin affects sensitive receptors in the cells of animals, from water fleas to humans, at very low concentrations–a thousand times lower than pollutants that are known to interfere with sexual development of wildlife species. Tributyltin and its relatives are highly toxic to mollusks, causing female snails to develop male sexual characteristics, and it bioaccumulates in fish and shellfish. Recent research has found it in deep-sea squids and octopods, and it has been banned for maritime use by an international treaty.

The harmful effects of the chemical on the liver and the nervous and immune systems in mammals are well known, but its powerful effects on the cellular components known as retinoid X receptors (RXRs) in a range of species are a recent discovery. When activated, RXRs can migrate into the nuclei of cells and switch on genes that cause the growth of fat storage cells and regulate whole body metabolism; compounds that affect a related receptor often associated with RXRs are now used to treat diabetes. RXRs are normally activated by signaling molecules found throughout the body.

The BioScience article, by Taisen Iguchi and Yoshinao Katsu, of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan, describes how RXRs and related receptors are also strongly activated by tributyltin and similar chemicals. Tributyltin impairs reproduction in water fleas through its effects on a receptor similar to the RXR. In addition, tributyltin causes the growth of excess fatty tissue in newborn mice exposed to it in utero. The effects of tributyltin on RXR-like nuclear receptors might therefore be widespread throughout the animal kingdom.

The researchers discovered the mechanisms by which the UPS is impaired, showing that ziram and structurally related dithiocarbamates inhibit E1 ligase (a protein activating enzyme). Ziram is also found to increase alpha-synuclein (a protein expressed in the central nervous system) levels and selectively damages dopaminergic neurons in vitro. The study also cites unpublished data from a population-based study in central California that is determining pesticide exposure using state application registry, finding that individuals living within 500 meters of where ziram is applied are at three times the increased risk of developing Parkinson’s compared to those with lower exposure.

The second most common neurodegenerative disease affecting more than one million people in the U.S., Parkinson’s occurs when nerve cells in the substantia nigra region of the brain are damaged or destroyed and can no longer produce dopamine, a nerve-signaling molecule that helps control muscle movement. Individuals exposed to chemicals that have a particular affinity for the substantia nigra region of the brain are at risk for developing the disease.

This study builds on the existing body of evidence of animal data and epidemiological studies that links exposure to pesticides, as well as gene-pesticide interactions, to Parkinson’s. Published case-control studies show a statistically significant association and elevated odds-ratio (that determine the elevated disease rate above the norm of 1.0) for the disease and exposure to pesticides. A Harvard School of Public Health study of more than 140,000 adults found that those exposed to long-term, low levels of pesticides had a 70 percent higher incidence of Parkinson’s. Rural residency, well water consumption, and farming are all correlated with an increased incidence of developing Parkinson’s. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds a 70 percent increased risk of developing Parkinson’s for individuals that use pesticides in their home and a 50 percent increased risk for garden insecticides.

The United Nation’s World Health Organization report on children’s heightened vulnerability to chemical exposures at different periods of their growth and development states that “neurotoxic insults during development that result in no observable phenotype at birth or during childhood could manifest later in life as earlier onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as [PD].” Several studies show that exposure in utero, post-natal or in childhood affect the substantia nigra causing direct damage or increasing the susceptibility to additional exposures and neurodegenerative damage in adulthood. In addition, a number of genes are linked to Parkinson’s as they interact with toxic chemicals in such a way that they may not cause the disease directly, but cause subtle changes in the genes that can make individuals more or less likely to develop the disease later in life.

Although implicating specific pesticides is difficult in epidemiological studies, toxicological lab studies have been better apt to identifying specific pesticides linked to Parkinson’s. These studies have identified the mechanisms by which pesticides lead to Parkinson’s, such as protein aggregation (alpha-synuclein), effects on the striatal dopminergic system and altered dopamine levels, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress.

This new UCLA study builds on existing data that shows that exposure to dithiocarbamates are linked to Parkinson’s disease. For example, Wang et al. found that ziram shows inhibitory effects on proteasome activities at low concentrations. Other dithiocarbamates, such as the fungicides mancozeb and maneb and the herbicide diethyldithiocarbamate, are implicated as well in published studies.

Besides being a neurotoxin, ziram is listed by the U.S. EPA as a likely human carcinogen, and is linked to reproductive effects and is a suspected endocrine disruptor. Ziram is mainly used on agriculture (mostly on almonds, peaches, nectarines, pears and grapes) but is also used on ornamentals and in landscape management. Ziram can be found in dog and cat repellents and microbiocides. Earlier this year, EPA was seeking public comments on a proposed list of 104 possible drinking water contaminants, one of which is ziram, that are currently unregulated and are known or anticipated to occur in public water systems and may require regulation (See Daily News Blog.)

Lea Brooks, assistant director of communications, stated in an article in The Fresno Bee highlighting the study that “The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has placed a high priority on assessing the risk of ziram.”

Take Action: Now let’s hold them accountable. Let the U.S. EPA Administrator and Deputy Administrator know that they have a duty to alert the public to the scientific findings that link pesticides with Parkinson’s. Urge these U.S. EPA officials to initiate an urgent and expedited review of pesticides’ link to Parkinon’s. Also let your elected members of Congress know how you feel. In addition, learn how you can protect your family, community and environment from the effects of pesticide sin food and water, at home, on lawns, parks and gardens, in schools, hospitals and other public buildings through resources available from Beyond Pesticides.

For more information on pesticides’ link to Parkinson’s disease, see Beyond Pesticides report Pesticides Trigger Parkinson’s Disease.