(Beyond Pesticides, February 16, 2007) Changing Course in a Changing Climate: Solutions for health and the environment, the 25th National Pesticide Forum, will be held June 1-3 at Loyola University (Water Tower campus) in Chicago’s Magnificent Mile neighborhood. This exciting environmental health conference is convened by Beyond Pesticides and co-sponsored by Safer Pest Control Project, Nutrition for Optimal Health Association and others. The Forum begins Friday afternoon with a Chicago City Hall green roof tour and ends Sunday at noon. A Pesticide Working Group meeting will follow. See details below. Register online or call 202-543-5450 to register by phone.

Forum topics include Global warming: Consequences and the organic connection; Environmental justice; Elevated risks of pesticide mixtures; The hazards and fate of common antibacterials; The truth about nanotechnology; Asthma and the pesticide link; New legislative opportunities; Passing local policies; Great Lakes/water contamination; Sustainable agriculture, nutrition and urban gardens; Scientific integrity; Safer pest management strategies; and more.

Featured Speakers (see updated list with bios): Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. (2007 Dragonfly Award recipient), author of The Politics of Cancer, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; Rolf Halden, Ph.D., P.E., professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California Berkeley; Paul Hepperly, Ph.D., Rodale Institute’s research and training manager; Peter Orris, M.D., associate director of the Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health of the University Of Illinois School Of Public Health and director of its Occupational Health Service Institute and Global Toxics Policy Program; Lisa Madigan (invited), Illinois Attorney General; Jennifer Sass, Ph.D., Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) senior scientist and director of NRDC’s scientific integrity project; Peggy Shepard, executive director of West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT); and, Cynthia Willard-Lewis (invited), New Orleans City Councilmember.

Rates: Members: $65; Non-members: $75 (includes one-year membership); Business: $175 (includes one-year membership for non-members). Forum registration includes a welcome reception, breakfast and lunch on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday, plus all panel sessions, keynotes and workshops. All food will be organic. Register online.

Lodging: Hotels in Chicago are very expensive and extremely limited this time of year, so we highly recommend that you take advantage of our on-site university housing. On-site lodging (price is per person for two nights, including tax): “Single” (private bedroom, every two bedrooms share common space and bathroom, 2 people per bath): $232; “Double” (shared bedroom, every two bedrooms share common space and bathroom, 4 people per bath): $170. Book online. If you would prefer other lodging options, hotels listed on the lodging page may have vacancy.

Coming Clean Pesticide Working Group Meeting: The Pesticide Working Group (PWG) of Coming Clean will meet on Sunday, June 3rd at Loyola University (Water Tower Campus) immediately following the Forum. If you would like to attend this invitation-only meeting or would like more information on PWG, please contact co-chairs John Kepner ([email protected]) of Beyond Pesticides or Kristin Schafer ([email protected]) of Pesticide Action Network North America. All activists are encouraged to attend.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 14, 2007) Connecticut State Representative Livvy R. Floren (R-149th District) and a bi-partisan coalition of co-sponsors introduced a bill in January 2007 to extend the ban on the use of pesticides at day care and elementary schools to middle and high schools. House Bill 5234, An Act Banning Pesticide Use in Middle And High Schools, has been referred to the General Assembly’s Environment Committee.

Rep. Floren co-sponsored the initial law in 2005, which restricts the use of lawn care pesticides at public and private preschools, elementary schools, child day care centers and group day care homes. This law went into affect January 1, 2006, except for emergencies and completely bans their application starting July 1, 2008.

Rep. Floren said, “Pesticides are known to be detrimental to humans of all ages, and I do not want to see them used in areas that affect our young people. Future generations of children should be able to learn and play at school without threat of breathing in pesticides.” By extending the ban, Rep. Floren said more than 260,000 children attending sixth through 12th grade would be affected.

Rep. Floren told the Greenwich Post that she was first introduced to the problem of pesticides being used on school grounds by Greenwich resident Neil Lubarsky, an attorney who started researching the negative effects of pesticides while attending Harvard Law School.

“I have two small daughters and I was concerned about their health,” Mr. Lubarsky told the Post. “I’ve been involved in groups helping children with leukemia and lymphoma and I wanted to be able to do more than help them get their last wishes granted. I wanted to try and get their exposure to these diseases cut down. Kids spend their time at school and that’s where they were getting exposed to these chemicals.” Mr. Lubarsky said he feels the original ban has been effective and would be happy to see it extended.

“By impacting just a small percentage of the land in the state you’re cutting the exposure of children to cancer by half,” Mr. Lubarsky said. “This doesn’t come at a real cost to anyone in the lawn care industry and it has a real health benefit. There’s no reason not to expand it to other schools. This is where children spend their time. All it means is that there might be a few more dandelions on the school lawns, but when it comes to children’s health that’s not even something that should be an issue.”

Rep. Floren says that critics have now been won over by the original ban’s success.

TAKE ACTION: If you live in Connecticut, contact your state representative and ask them to support House Bill 5234. For information on passing a bill in your state, visit Beyond Pesticides Children’s Health program page.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 13, 2007) As Valentine’s Day approaches, dozens of roses and bouquets are being stocked at stores nationwide. The intentions may be sweet but many of the flowers are not — most of them have been treated with toxic chemicals.

Pesticides are used on most conventionally grown flowers. A good portion of this use takes place in the waterlogged savannah surrounding the capital of Colombia, which has the world’s second-largest cut-flower industry after the Netherlands, producing 62 percent of all flowers sold in the United States.

With 110,000 employees — many of them single mothers — and annual exports of US$1 billion, the industry provides an important alternative to growing coca, source crop of the Andean nation’s better known illegal export: cocaine. But these economic gains come at a cost to workers’ health and Colombia’s environment.

Colombia’s flower exporters association has attempted to respond by launching the Florverde program, but with limited success; its members have reduced pesticide use by 38 percent since 1998, to an average of 97 kilograms (213 pounds) of active ingredient per hectare (2.4 acres) per year. However, 36 percent of the chemicals used by Florverde farms in 2005 were still listed as “extremely” or “highly” toxic by the World Health Organization.

The low level of government regulation of these chemicals and accidents has negatively affected workers’ health. On Nov. 25, 2003, some 200 workers at Flores Aposentos were hospitalized after fainting and developing sores inside their mouths. Authorities determined this mass poisoning could have been caused by any number of pesticide-handling violations, but fined the company just US$5,770.

Carmen Orjuela began suffering dizzy spells and repeated falls in 1997, while working at a flower farm outside Bogota. During the peak season before Valentine’s Day, she said her employer forced workers to enter greenhouses only a half-hour after they had been fumigated. “Those who refused were told they could leave — that 20 people were outside waiting to take their job,” said Ms. Orjuela, who quit in 2004.

Such problems apparently aren’t isolated: a survey of 84 farms between 2000 and 2002, found only 16.7 percent respected Florverde’s recommendation that workers wait 24 hours before re-entering greenhouses sprayed with the most toxic of pesticides.

Growers apply a wide range of fertilizers and pesticides, some of which have been linked to elevated rates of cancer and neurological disorders and other problems. The Harvard School of Public Health examined 72 children ages 7-8 in a flower-growing region of Ecuador whose mothers were exposed to pesticides during pregnancy and found they had developmental delays of up to four years on aptitude tests (Pediatrics, March 2006).

Producers say they would love to go organic, especially given the high costs of pesticides. But their risks include infestations and stiff competition from emerging flower growers in Africa and China.

The good news is that U.S. consumers bought US$16 million in organic flowers in 2005, and demand is growing by 50 percent a year, according to the Organic Trade Association. That growth has been helped by “VeriFlora,” a certification and labeling program launched by U.S. consumers, growers and retailers. Some 32 farms in Colombia and Ecuador have earned the VeriFlora label, which requires a transition to organic production and, unlike the industry-backed Florverde, bans more than 100 chemicals outright.

Chocolate faces a similar set of problems with workers’ rights and pesticide use. Chocolate is conventionally grown in the sun. Since the canopy of shade that controls pests and weeds naturally is often destroyed to make way for sun grown crops like cocoa and coffee, the use of toxic pesticides is prevalent.

Source: Associated Press

TAKE ACTION: This Valentine’s Day, show your love for not only your friends and family, but also the earth and the global community. Buy organic and fair trade flowers and chocolate, both of which are more readily available than ever. Here are some resources of suppliers of organic flowers and chocolates:

Flowers

• Organic Bouquet
• California Organic Flowers
• Local Harvest
• Veriflora – check their list for third-party certified suppliers and distributors.
• Network for Good — your organic flower purchases help support charity.
  

Chocolate

• Lillie Belle Farms
• Dean’s Beans Java Drops — for the coffee lover, Vienna-roasted beans enveloped in rich dark chocolate.

If you don’t have access to organic flowers or chocolate, try other creative ways of expressing your love. A homemade card or picture collage, a poem, or a special homemade, organic dinner are all ways to show someone you care while spreading the love to the environment and society. Happy Valentine’s Day!

(Beyond Pesticides, February 12, 2007) John E. Franz, Ph.D., inventor of the toxic herbicide Roundup (active ingredient is glyphosate), is to be inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, along with inventors of the MRI, the automotive airbag, vaccines, and various medicines. The honor is being awarded under the false claim that glyphosate is nontoxic.

The 2007 class of inductees was announced at an event Thursday, February 8, on Capitol Hill, and the induction ceremony will take place on May 5 in Ohio. The statement released by the National Inventors Hall of Fame says of Dr. Franz: “In 1970, while working at Monsanto, Franz discovered the glyphosate class of herbicides, later marketed under the brand name Roundup ®. Glyphosate herbicides eliminate more than 125 kinds of weeds and are nontoxic to animals.”

In fact, Roundup has been found to be harmful to animals and may pose a threat to humans as well.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is the number one most commonly used pesticide in U.S. agriculture, and the second most commonly used in non-agricultural settings in the U.S. According to a Beyond Pesticides literature review (GATEWAY), glyphosate is linked to cancer, reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, kidney/liver damage, and asthma.

A study published by the American Cancer Society (1999) finds that people exposed to glyphosate are 2.7 times more likely to develop Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Further, four peer-reviewed studies demonstrate the ability of glyphosate-containing herbicides to cause genetic damage to DNA (mutagenicity), even at very low concentration levels (source: Journal of Pesticide Reform). A 2005 study published in the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, found damaging endocrine effects of glyphosate and Roundup to fetal growth at levels 10 times lower than used in agriculture. The product formulation Roundup was shown to be at least twice as toxic as the active ingredient alone.

Glyphosate use directly impacts a variety of nontarget animals including insects, earthworms, and fish, and indirectly impacts birds and small mammals. A study conducted by the International Organization for Biological Control found that exposure to Roundup killed over 50 percent of three species of beneficial insects — parasitoid wasps, lacewings and ladybugs. Repeated applications of glyphosate significantly affect the growth and survival of earthworms. Studies have also shown that glyphosate, and in particular, the inert ingredients in the formulation of Roundup are acutely toxic to fish.

TAKE ACTION: Send a letter to the National Inventors Hall of Fame telling them that it is inappropriate to honor the inventor of a toxic chemical among the ranks of great medical inventors. Using the above points, write a letter to the editor/opinion responding to articles about Dr. Franz’s induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (See list of newspapers covering the story: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1113440420), including ABC News, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Wyoming News, and others.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 8, 2007) Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have shed new light on the suspected role of pesticides in the development of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The study, “GST expression mediates dopaminergic neuron sensitivity in experimental parkinsonism” appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (January 31, 2007), illustrates the mechanism of nerve cell damage by pesticide exposure.

The enzyme that prevents damage to the substantia nigra, the part of the brain where nerve cell damage associated with PD occurs, is called GST pi (“pie”). This enzyme stands like a sentry at the crossroads of several biochemical pathways, any one of which can lead to PD. GST pi protects the nerve cell from death caused by either environmental toxics, such as pesticides, or a self-destruction process called apoptosis (cell suicide), triggered by certain stressful conditions in the cell. If GST pi levels are reduced or this enzyme is overwhelmed by toxics, these nerves are at increased risk of death, according to studies in mouse models.

GST pi is one of a family of similar enzymes that eliminate free radicals generated by pesticides and other chemicals. Two members of this family are present in the brain, but only one of them, GST pi, is found in the dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra. When nerve cells in the substantia nigra region of the brain die, it results in a loss of dopamine, the nerve-signaling molecule that helps control muscle movement. The absence of dopamine from these cells, called dopaminergic neurons, causes the loss of muscle control, trembling and lack of coordination exhibited in PD.

The study explains the cause of most cases of PD. “The majority of these cases of Parkinson’s disease appear to arise because individuals who have a genetic susceptibility to the disease are exposed to environmental toxins such as pesticides and herbicides, which trigger the formation of free radicals that kill dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra,” according to Richard Smeyne, Ph.D., an associate member of the Department of Developmental Neurobiology at St. Jude and the report’s senior author.

In conducting the investigation, which led to these findings, the scientists treated mice with the substance MPTP, a by-product of a heroin substitute, in order to determine if levels of GST pi changed. MPTP is a mitochondrial complex 1 inhibitor as is the pesticide rotenone, a naturally occuring material used in organic production and products, that is also implicated in PD (Beyond Pesticides, November 8, 2004). Rotenone is used in common household garden products such as Garden Dust for insect control, for lice and tick control on pets, and for fish eradication. MPTP’s chemical structure also resembles that of the restricted-use herbicide paraquat. (Beyond Pesticides, January 22, 2002).

According to the British Medical Journal (January 22, 2007), many studies have found an association between pesticides and PD, but no one agent has been consistently identified. Those implicated include organochlorine insecticides (dieldrin), maneb and paraquat. Other researchers have documented low-dose effects of the insecticide permethrin, doses below one-one thousandth of a lethal dose for a mouse, on those brain pathways involved in PD. The effects are consistent with a pre-parkinsonsian condition, but not yet full-blown parkinsonism (Beyond Pesticides, March 31, 2003).

While researchers point to this discovery as helpful in risk assessment and therapeutic remedies, the medical community should equally promote reducing your exposure to pesticides as a preventative method.

Sources: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, British Medical Journal

(Beyond Pesticides, February 7, 2007) On January 19, 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (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).

Martex has been found liable for 170 alleged violations of EPA’s worker protection standards. The farm owners also failed to display specific pesticide application information for its agricultural workers and pesticide handlers, failed to provide them with decontamination materials, and failed to provide handlers with personal protective equipment.

The recent decision, rendered by the ALJ, underscores EPA’s position that failing to provide agricultural workers and pesticide handlers with specific pesticide application information on the same application constitutes separate, independent violations. In addition, this ruling reaffirms the requirement that every handler applying pesticides must be provided with personal protection equipment.

In January 2005, EPA filed a complaint against Martex for improperly using pesticides and endangering worker safety. Martex Farms grows, processes, packs and ships tropical fruits and plants. The family-owned business was established in 1989, and employs hundreds of people at its numerous facilities in Puerto Rico.

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. Agricultural workers may be injured from direct spray, drift, or residue left by pesticide applications. Pesticide handlers face additional risks from spills, splashes, inhalation, and inadequate protective equipment.

In 2005, national and state farm worker organizations called upon Washington State Governor Gregoire and the Bush Administration to take immediate action to protect farm workers in light of disturbing medical monitoring results. The groups co-released the report Messages from Monitoring, which discusses the results and other studies bearing on exposures experienced by farm workers and their children. The report criticized state and federal agencies for failing to protect the farm worker community, and it identified several Washington State actions that rolled back protections (see Daily News).

TAKE ACTION: Write to U.S.EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and demand adequate protection for farm workers from the dangers of pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 6, 2007) Conservation groups have challenged a government plan that would allow six more years use of a deadly pesticide it admits needs to be banned. The groups, represented by Earthjustice, have reopened a lawsuit in federal district court aiming at speeding up the removal of azinphos-methyl, commonly called AZM or guthion. The legal actions also takes aim at getting rid of two other deadly pesticides, phosmet and chlorpyrifos.

All three pesticides were developed from World War I-era nerve toxins. AZM is used primarily to kill insects on orchard crops such as apples, cherries, pears, peaches, and nectarines. The highest uses occur in Washington, Oregon, California, Michigan, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Chlorpyrifos is used widely on corn and orchard crops. Use of phosmet on orchard crops and blueberries poses particularly serious risks to workers.

In November 2006, EPA decided that AZM poses unreasonable adverse effects and must be banned but allowed its continued use on fruit crops for six more years — until 2012 — and on nut crops for three more years — until 2009. “With safer alternatives already in widespread use, EPA has betrayed the trust of the men, women, and children whose health it is duty bound to protect by allowing this extremely hazardous pesticide to remain in use for six more years,” said Shelley Davis, attorney for Farmworker Justice. “It is time to make that shift now.”

The conservation groups contend this phase-out period is too long because of the immediate and severe risks it poses to farm workers and their families. EPA found that phosmet and chlorpyrifos pose “risks of concern” to workers for poisonings and to the environment in the form of water contamination and fish kills. However, it did not adopt sufficient mitigation measures to reduce or eliminate these risks.

“These pesticides put thousands of workers at risk of serious illness every year,�? said Erik Nicholson of the United Farm Workers of America. “It is inexcusable for EPA to allow AZM to continue poisoning workers for six more years.”

Between 1987 and 1998, between 21 and 24 million pounds of chlorpyrifos was applied to more than eight million acres of crops in the U.S. The largest use is on corn. Both AZM and chlorpyrifos have led to violations of water quality standards.

All three pesticides are highly neurotoxic organophosphate insecticides. Organophosphate insecticides attack the human brain and nervous system. Exposure can cause dizziness, vomiting, convulsions, numbness in the limbs, loss of intellectual function, and death. New alternatives have emerged that cost only slightly more and produce the same amount and quality of food crops. Farmworker families and communities are exposed to organophosphates through take-home exposures on clothing, contamination of cars and drift onto outdoor play areas. In the case of phosmet, residue in sprayed fields poses dangers to workers up to four weeks after application, but EPA allows workers to reenter most fields a week or less after application. Chlorpyrifos is commonly showered on fields from open cab tractors, yet EPA did not require closed cabs, which could eliminate severe poisonings risks.

In 2001, EPA found that AZM poses unacceptable risks to workers, but it allowed continued use of the pesticide for four more years because less toxic alternatives cost more to use. Farmworker advocates challenged that decision in federal court because EPA failed to take into account the costs of poisoning workers, exposing children, and polluting rivers and streams. To settle the lawsuit, EPA agreed to reconsider whether to ban AZM and announced its six-year phase-out last November. In January, EPA added some mitigation measures for phosmet, but far less than what it had previously deemed necessary to reduce worker risks. EPA has added no additional safeguards for workers applying chlorpyrifos.

“It is outrageous that EPA allowed continued use of AZM knowing that it would expose farmworkers to unacceptable risks of pesticide poisonings,” said Patti Goldman, an attorney for Earthjustice. “Since growers have already had five years to shift to other pest controls, there is no reason to subject workers and their communities to more poisonings for another six years.”

The groups bringing the lawsuit are the United Farm Workers of America, Sea Mar Community Health Centers, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, Beyond Pesticides, Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Binacional, and Arnulfo Lopez, a farmworker in California.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 5, 2007) Due to opposition from Beyond Pesticides and citizen activists, EPA has withdrawn a rule that would have weakened the regulation of pesticide-treated food packaging. The rule sought to exempt from the definitions of “pesticide chemical” and “pesticide chemical residue�? under section 201(q) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) food packaging (e.g., paper and paperboard, coatings, adhesives, and polymers) that is treated with a pesticide.

Many consumers took the opportunity to voice outrage at the notion that pesticides are allowed in food packaging products. Pesticide-treated food packaging is a potential threat to the public’s health. The average consumer is unaware of the potential dangers associated with pesticide food residues from packaging and will not be alerted if labeling is not required.

The proposed rule comes at a time when the agency has received increased applications for a wider variety of pesticide treated food packaging products. Due to this trend, Beyond Pesticides feels weaker regulation is inappropriate, citing existing gaps in the pesticide regulatory system, and has asked EPA and the Food and Drug Administration to require full reviews for pesticidal action of packaging, residues on food, and non-toxic strategies for food packaging.

The withdrawal of rule was announced February 2, 2007, in the Federal Register (72 FR 4963). While EPA has withdrawn the rule, it has declared it may repromulgate the rule provisions, but in doing so, EPA would address the adverse comments it has received.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 2, 2007) Joshua Grabowsky, a chef and CEO of busypeople inc., a suburban organic catering firm serving the Chicago area, is starting a business serving organic school lunches. Max’s Organic Planet, which he’ll run from within busypeople, is an effort to provide healthy, organic lunches to public and private schools in the city and on the North Shore. Mr. Grabowsky and busypeople, inc. will also be providing 100% certified organic meals at the upcoming 25th National Pesticide Forum convened by Beyond Pesticides in Chicago and co-sponsored by the Chicago-based Safer Pest Control Project.

For many children, including Mr. Grabowsky, school lunch was a thing of dread, often reviled and discarded by unappetized students. With two kids of his own, Mr. Grabowsky is turning his long-lived school-lunch fear into a business that he hopes will help both parents and kids banish the concept of cafeteria mystery meat from their collective memories.

Mr. Grabowsky is gearing up for the 2007—08 school year, gauging interest and offering pilot programs and weeklong taste tests, so that school administrators, parents and students will sign on for organic eats in September. One such test at Lake Forest Montessori resulted in kids eating double their average amount of food, he says.

“The difference was that the middle-elementary kids, who despised the traditional lunch and brought their own bagged lunches, caught wind of the organic offerings and starting eating like a pack of hyenas,” Mr. Grabowsky says. While the program can be adapted for kids ranging in age from 2 to 18 years old, Mr. Grabowsky thinks these middle schoolers may be the best audience for Max’s Organic Planet. “These kids are more picky than the five-and-unders, and they love to learn about food.” His response to picky eaters is what he calls the “three-ingredient rule,” simplifying dishes so they have as few ingredients as possible.

“People try to hide [vegetables] and make weird-looking concoctions. No way! Kids like to be able to recognize each ingredient on its own. If they have to ask ”˜What’s in that?,’ forget about it.” Mr. Grabowsky’s goal is to contract with schools for hot lunch every day, but the company is offering alternatives for communities that need more flexible plans. Those include a Monday, Wednesday, Friday plan; TGIOF (Thank God It’s Organic Friday); and Organic Week, providing one week of organic meals per month.

Cost varies based on the schools’ needs. Larger schools will be able to negotiate volume discounts, but lunches will average between $3 and $6 per student per day. Healthy cooking and gardening classes, as well as yoga and meditation, are add-ons to help give kids an integrated approach to healthy eating.

Down the road, Mr. Grabowsky hopes kids will grow most of the vegetables used in the lunches through the gardening classes. When schools sign on for a yearlong program, 20 weeks of cooking classes (one every other week during the school year) are included at no extra cost. Mr. Grabowsky has no fears of kids being served healthier lunches opting to trade them with others who brown-bag junk food. Meals will include chicken tenders baked (not fried) with olive oil, pasta with meat sauce (made from grass-fed sirloin) and salad with raspberry vinaigrette. Every menu includes a protein, starch, vegetable and fruit. “We’re trying to provide foods that are normal foods, that they’re used to,” he says, “but set the tone for the next ten years.”

Source: Timeout Chicago

TAKE ACTION: For more information on organic school lunches, school gardens, and getting organic food into your school, sign up for the School Pesticide Monitor or visit the archives. For more info on busypeople inc., visit www.busypeopleinc.com.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 1, 2007) Thirty-five years after the banning of DDT, extremely high concentrations of the pesticide are being found in fish caught in California’s Los Angeles county waters. According to a newly released federal survey by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the fish caught in the area contain the world’s highest-known DDT concentrations.

The survey was conducted in order to update health advisories on which fish are unsafe to eat and to help EPA decide whether to attempt a costly operation to reduce continued contamination from a deposit of DDT on the ocean floor. The findings contradict the belief held by some scientists that DDT on the ocean floor has been breaking down into less-toxic compounds and would soon disappear from marine life.

The contamination, most severe in the middle of San Redondo Bay, stems from a 100-ton deposit of DDT released by the Montrose Chemical Co. beginning in the late 1940s, which still covers several square miles of the ocean floor. The pesticide manufacturer had a plant near Torrance, California, from 1947 to 1971, releasing about 2,000 tons of DDT into county sewers that subsequently emptied into the ocean. The banned pesticide, classified as a probable human carcinogen and linked to liver disease, reproductive damage and altered hormones in lab animals and wildlife, adheres to sediment and continues to seep into marine creatures. EPA must now decide whether to attempt to seal off the ocean deposit with a thick cap of sand, which could cost tens of millions of dollars.

The survey looked at data from 2002, and identified the bottom-feeding white croaker the most contaminated fish, especially when caught in the middle of San Pedro Bay, about 1.5 miles offshore in an area called Horseshoe Kelp. Also highly contaminated were kelp bass, barred sandbass, scorpionfish and rockfish, some containing above half a part per million (ppm) of DDT. The average at Horseshoe Kelp was 3.2 ppm of DDT, with one fish reaching almost 13 ppm. Waters at the southern end of Santa Monica Bay, between Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes Estates, also had some highly contaminated croaker and barred sandbass. Pacific mackerel, opaleye and jacksmelt had the lowest concentrations.

In the past, the state of California has used 100 parts per billion of DDT as the threshold for acceptable cancer risk from eating fish, indicating that one of every 100,000 people who regularly eat such fish could contract cancer. The amount found in the average San Pedro Bay croaker was 30 times higher than this threshold. In response to the new federal findings, California’s environmental health agency is reevaluating the risks of eating locally caught fish, which could result in updates to a health advisory and a commercial fishing ban that have been in effect since 1991. Robert K. Brodberg, chief of fish and water quality evaluation at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said the agency will launch a reevaluation of the health risks this year, as soon as a federal report detailing the new data is complete. The aim is to develop new fish consumption recommendations and advise the Department of Fish and Game in updating its commercial no-fishing zone.

The data from the federal survey suggest that there has been no improvement in DDT contamination since the late 1980s, when the last regional fish survey was conducted. “Things have not changed a whole lot in the last decade or so,” said David Witting, a NOAA fish biologist who directed the survey. “The biggest concern is still lower Santa Monica Bay, Palos Verdes Shelf and much of San Pedro Bay. The species that is consistently the most highly contaminated is still white croaker.”

Mark Gold, executive director of the Santa Monica-based environmental group Heal the Bay, said the scope of the contamination revealed by the new fish data was worse than he thought. “Not only have things not improved for contaminated fish off Palos Verdes, but this data shows that the concern is more far-ranging than we originally thought,” Gold said. “Hot fish [highly contaminated fish] off Palos Verdes is no surprise, but we’re finding hot fish all the way from the Redondo Pier throughout San Pedro Bay, and it’s for a wide variety of species, not just the bottom-dwelling ones.”

An annual test of fish by the county sanitation department off the Palos Verdes Peninsula indicate conditions may have improved at the DDT deposit in the four years since the federal survey was conducted. David Montagne, supervising environmental scientist at the Los Angeles County Sanitation District, said that at least another year of data is needed before officials could be confident that the drop was permanent and not a temporary flux. “The trend we see ”” and we don’t know if it’s real or not ”” suggests that concentrations over the area of greatest DDT contamination are dropping,” he said. If that proves to be true, Mr. Montagne said, it supports the theory that the pesticide is degrading into less toxic compounds. For the past two years, average DDT concentrations in white croaker there declined substantially, from 33 ppm in 2002 to 4 ppm in 2005 ”” still a worldwide high.

In September 2006, the World Health Organization announced a new policy to support indoor application of DDT for malaria control in developing countries, despite the fact that it is classified as a class B “probable human carcinogen” by EPA and numerous studies have shown other adverse effects, such as endocrine disruption. Beyond Pesticides went on record disputing the logic behind continuing its use despite its known adverse health effects and persistence in the environment.

Source: Los Angeles Times

(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2007) On January 29, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) concluded a month-long review of the Department of Agriculture’s (NJDA) petition to waive the state’s ban on aerial-spraying of broad-spectrum pesticides. The state will uphold the ban, effectively blocking widespread use of the chemical Dimilin.

The ban affects towns seeking to reduce rising gypsy moth populations. Roughly 125,000 acres of trees suffered defoliation in the state as a result of gypsy moths, one of the worst years in recent memory. Gypsy moths have been in New Jersey since the 1920s, and their destruction peaking in 1981, with 800,000 acres defoliated.

Dimilin is a restricted-use pesticide (available only to certified applicators) that has been unavailable for broadcast use for decades. For the past 20 years, in lieu of aerial spraying of Dimilin — also known as diflubenzuron — the pesticide specified in NJDA’s request, New Jersey towns have used bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) , a bacterial agent. With gypsy moth populations expected to be higher in 2007 than in recent years, NJDA argued that Bt would be insufficient to protect hardwood trees across the state.

In a letter to NJDA, Marcedius T. Jameson, DEP’s administrator for pesticide control wrote, “The case for Bt being ineffective was not made since the municipalities in New Jersey are being offered Bt as a viable option for control in 2007.” NJDA also argued that the gypsy moth situation in the state could be categorized as an environmental emergency. Mr. Jameson responded, “The variable potential for tree loss and the nuisance that gypsy moth caterpillars pose do not rise to the level of an environmental emergency.” With the prohibition on aerial spraying of Dimilin still intact, towns have the options of spraying Bt, applying Dimilin in smaller amounts, or individuals can hire private applicators to treat their property with Bt as well.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies Dimilin as “moderately toxic” to humans. Jane Nogaki, of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, added, “The breakdown product is a probable carcinogen and it can rob blood cells of oxygen.” In addition, as a broad-spectrum herbicide, Dimilin affects both gypsy moths and beneficial organisms, such as aquatic crustaceans and other molting insects. “We’re pleased that the governor and the DEP weighed in on the side of the public and the environment,” said Ms. Nogaki.

See Beyond Pesticides’ January 16, 2007 story on New Jersey’s Dimilin.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 30, 2007) Breast cancer groups across the country have a new issue to add to the repertoire of risk factors: Pesticide use. A study published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology has found a strong link between residential pesticide use and breast cancer risk in women. Responding to the study, Susan Teitelbaum, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of community medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, says the options are simple”” “Stop using pesticides.”

The study, published December 13, is the first to examine the relation between breast cancer and pesticides through self-reported residential pesticide use. Using women from New York, the study looks not at one or two incidents of pesticide contact, but at the impact of lifelong pesticide use in the home, lawn and garden. Using a sample of 1,508 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1996 and 1997, the study compares these women to 1,556 control subjects who were randomly selected.

The results show that those women whose blood samples had higher levels of organochlorines are at an increased risk of breast cancer. Organochlorines are a broad class of chemicals, including DDT, dieldrin, and chlordane, and were found in a variety of insecticides, as well as some rodenticides and fungicides. The report also found that nearly all women use lawn and garden pesticides to some degree.

Although this study was the first to find an association through self reported use, the link between breast cancer and pesticides has been previously documented. In 2002, California officials focused on pesticides as a source of the rapid increase in breast cancer. A study from 2003 shows an increase in breast cancer risk from consuming fish contaminated with DDT (an organochlorine), PCBs, and PBDEs. In 2006, a study found that women who have been employed in agriculture are at a higher risk for breast cancer. Additionally, pesticides like dieldrin, DDT, heptachlor, and triazines have either been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer or are linked to the disease.

Although pesticides are used to control everything from ants and termites to weeds and garden pests, and are even found in products such as treated wood and hygiene products, alternatives do exist. An integrated pest management (IPM) program, which focuses on the root of the problem, is a safe and effective way to ward off unwanted creatures. IPM uses a more comprehensive approach, looking to prevent and control pest problems with non-toxic alternatives.

Source: United Press International

(Beyond Pesticides, January 29, 2006) A new state law, Assembly Bill 2865 (AB 2865-Torrico), went into effect in California, on January 1, 2007, requiring private child day care facilities to comply with new pesticide use record keeping and notification requirements. The bill also includes provisions to encourage less toxic pest management.

Assembyman Alberto Torrico (D-CA) introduced AB 2865 as an extension of the Healthy Schools Act of 2000 to day care facilities. The bill requires the facilities to notify parents about pesticide applications and to post notices in areas treated with pesticides. In addition, licensed pest control businesses are required to submit detailed reports of their pesticide applications at private child day care facilities. It is important to know however, that these requirements do not apply to family child day care homes. The bill also provides day care providers with information and trainings on least-toxic Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques to help them create a safer environment in which to care for our most vulnerable population.

According to Rachel Gibson, staff attorney for Environment California””the sponsor of the bill, “Children ages zero to five are particularly sensitive to the potentially harmful effects of pesticide exposure.” Ms. Gibson continued, “The more parents know about the pest control practices of their child’s day care, the more they can protect their kids from unnecessary pesticide exposure. Likewise, the more child care providers know about safer pest control practices, the more likely they are to use them and the safer children under their care will be.”

After learning that the vast majority of California’s children spend significant time in day cares and about the impacts of pesticides on young children, California schools activists and legislators felt the need to expand the bill to protect those most vulnerable. Among working families, 83 percent of children ages zero to five spend thirty-five hours per week on average in day care. The unique behaviors and activities of small children place them at greater risk for heavier exposure to contaminants, including pesticides, compared with adults in the same environment. Robina Suwol, executive director of California Safe Schools said that AB 2865 will provide better protection for California’s most vulnerable population.

Based on the findings of the first nationwide study recently released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, A Pilot Study of Children’s Total Exposure to Persistent Pesticides and Other Organic Pollutants (CTEPP), published in 2005, millions of children are exposed to pesticides while attending day care. This confirms that a large portion of children are being exposured to pesticides, which may have permanent, irreversible effects, during critical stages of development. The CTEPP findings include: children exposed to any pesticide or herbicide in their first year of life were more than twice as likely to suffer from persistent asthma before the age of five and that the risk of childhood leukemia increased more than six times when garden pesticides were used at least once per month. Numerous other studies show linkages of pesticides to a wide range of other adverse health effects, including altered social skills, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, nervous system disorders, immune deficiency, and several types of cancer.

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has prepared a downloadable informational handout to assist day care facilities make the switch. For a free downloadable copy of “How IPM Can Help Child Day Care Facilities,” visit their website. Information is also available at California Safe Schools.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 26, 2007) With an annual introduction of 200 to 300 new anti-microbial products, scientists are saying that the most effective way to fight germs is the old fashioned way””soap and water. Amid a national trend of increasing germophobia, experts are saying soap and water are a better option than alcohol-based disinfectants and antibacterial soaps.

In 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration led a panel of experts and industry representatives to weigh and analyze different germ killing methods. The panel found “no firm scientific evidence that the flood of antimicrobial products we observe has any discernible benefit over the use of regular soap and water.“

Few people are aware that plain soap is an anti-microbial. It kills bacteria by making their cell membranes leak fluids. This coupled with the motion of scrubbing the hands together””which loosens microbes and makes them fall into the soapy solution and wash away””creates “one of the most critical control strategies” for germs, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to Mike Richardson, an industry analyst at the Freedonia Group in Cleveland, consumers spend more than $200 million on anti-microbial products every year. With sanitizers being used on shopping carts and on gym floors, and distributed in schools and on airlines, some have suggested that the amount used is starting to be overkill.

Despite this increased compulsion to use antibacterials, Rolf Halden, Ph.D., an environmental scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that the introduction of so many new anti-microbial products has not affected the rates of infectious disease in the United States. He points out that antibacterials don’t even kill the cold, flu, or intestinal illness viruses. Also, alcohol-based products don’t kill bacteria with protective spores, including bacteria that cause a life-threatening type of diarrhea and colitis. “The money’s been spent, but the benefit is doubtful, or absent,” said Dr. Halden.

More than ineffective, these products may be outright dangerous. Two common antibacterial ingredients””triclosan and its analog triclocarban””have been linked to numerous health and environmental effects. Triclosan depresses the central nervous system and is hypothermic. It is disposed into residential drains and is carried to streams and rivers, where it destroys aquatic ecosystems. Dr. Halden says that they [triclosan and triclocarban] may kill beneficial organisms in soil and waterways. Both of these chemicals have been found in breast milk, fish, and waterways.

Compounding the danger of using antibacterial products, laboratory evidence suggests that use of these products could cause a stronger strain of bacteria to emerge””one that could resist conventional antibiotics.

Perhaps what is needed is the public to realize that some bacteria are beneficial to human health. Kimberly Thompson, Sc.D., a professor of risk analysis and decision science at Harvard University says that nowadays “the goal is to annihilate all germs”¦it’s not necessary or desirable.” She continues, “We rely on bacteria and viruses as part of our environment.” In fact, the use of antibiotics has also been shown to decrease levels of healthy bacteria in the human digestive system, making people more apt to infection and indigestion.

It seems an easy choice to make when keeping clean, but companies keep pushing to sell more and more anti-microbial products. Says Dr. Halden on the issue, “The flood of antimicrobial products is driven by monetary profits, and not by scientific evidence.”

Source: Baltimore Sun

TAKE ACTION:You can stay healthy and put pressure to phase out antibacterials by not using products with triclosan or triclocarban. Stay hygienic the most effective way, by using plain soap and water.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 25, 2007) The commonly used herbicide atrazine has been found to have negative biological effects on phytoplankton-free-floating algae that forms the base of the food chain for aquatic animals. The study, published in the January 2007 issue of the journal Pesticide-Biochemistry and Physiology, indicates that protein levels in phytoplankton significantly decrease as a result of atrazine exposure, possibly having a negative affect on the nutritional levels of all aquatic species.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science researchers exposed five algal species to atrazine levels within the range of concentrations measured in the estuarine environment. In the majority of the species tested, the amount of energy converted into protein from photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert water and carbon dioxide into organic materials using solar energy, significantly decreased with increased exposure.

Atrazine is one of the most heavily used herbicides in the United States, applied to a wide variety of crops including corn, sorghum, sugarcane, pineapple, and Christmas trees, as well as turf. It acts as an inhibitor of photosynthesis by preventing the transfer of energy in certain plant species. NOAA researchers observed significant decreases in the size of phytoplankton species exposed to atrazine, decreasing its nutritional value for those species for whom phytoplankton are a crucial food source.

“Many aquatic animals such as clams and oysters rely on phytoplankton as a food source,” said Marie DeLorenzo, Ph.D., NOAA research ecologist. “Disruption to the cellular composition of phytoplankton species may negatively affect nutritional levels of the plant, resulting in decreased growth rates for those animals that consume phytoplankton.”

“The use of atrazine as a growth inhibitor in broadleaf and grassy weeds is an accepted practice,” said Mike Fulton, Ph.D., a NOAA research fishery biologist. “But it is equally important to gain an understanding of the potential effects of this herbicide on non-target aquatic plant species.”

This finding adds to a growing body of literature documenting the widespread presence and subsequent danger of pesticides on water quality and aquatic organisms. For more information, see Beyond Pesticides’ new report Threatened Waters: Turning the Tide on Pesticide Contamination.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 24, 2007) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the display of promotions for causes or charities on labels of pesticides, disinfectants and other commercial poisons, according to agency documents released on Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, these products may now feature tie-ins with charitable organizations and marketing slogans, including the Red Cross symbol, on their labels. Pesticide and disinfectant labels are intended to be devoted primarily to consumer safety and usage information.

The policy change came in response to a request from the Clorox Company to advertise a pledge that it will donate a small percentage of the retail purchase price of its bleach products to the Red Cross. EPA dropped earlier objections following a meeting in July between top agency and corporate officials, according to an EPA briefing provided in early December to state pesticide agency officials.

At Clorox’s urging, EPA will allow placement of the phrases “Dedicated to a healthier world” and “Help Clorox raise $1M for the Red Cross,” as well as the use of the Red Cross logo on both the front and back panels, on five Clorox products.

“Thanks to EPA, even the most dangerous chemical can now wrap itself in a cloak of wholesomeness, featuring claims that it helps the planet, benefits sick children or even saves the whales,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the new agency cause marketing option will be open to every manufacturer of regulated products. “EPA is squandering its limited regulatory resources to referee promotional slogans rather than protecting consumer health.”

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), EPA regulates the content of labels on registered pesticides, rat poisons, fungicides and anti-microbial agents, such as bleach. Agency guidelines emphasize safety and usage information and discourage any “symbols implying safety or nontoxicity, such as a Red Cross or a medical seal of approval (caduceus).”

“EPA’s concession to Clorox appears to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of its own consumer protection guidelines,” Mr. Ruch added. “Critical safety warnings may be drowned out by purely promotional visual clutter.”

Under the emerging policy, “cause marketing” labels would not be permanent but would be limited “to a specific time interval negotiated between the charity and the registrant,” according to the EPA briefing. In addition, EPA would police the legitimacy of charities involved and would require chemical makers to “certify that all references to the donation plan and any charity participation will be consistent with Better Business Bureau guidelines.” EPA would also prohibit any “direct or implied statement that the charity sponsors or endorses the product” and require “a disclaimer to this effect on the label.”

“EPA has embarked on a slippery slope that enmeshes the federal government in policing the details of commercial speech in ways that yield little or no public benefit,” Mr. Ruch concluded. “If a chemical company sincerely wants to foster good works, it can simply make a donation, perhaps anonymously, to the charity of its choice.”

Source: PEER

(Beyond Pesticides, January 22, 2007) When the staff at The Cornucopia Institute, an organic watchdog group, surveyed Wal-Mart stores around the country last September, analyzing the giant retailer’s announcement that they would begin selling a wide variety of organic food at just a 10% mark-up over similar conventional products, they were surprised to discover widespread problems with signage misrepresenting nonorganic food as “organic.”

Now, four months after informing the company of the problems, which could be interpreted as consumer fraud, and two months after filing a formal legal complaint with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), many of the deceptive signs at Wal-Mart stores are still in place. “It is unconscionable that rather than correct these problems, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. instead responded to our concerns by attacking our comparatively modest public interest group in an effort to discredit our organization in the media,” said Mark Kastel, co-director of the Wisconsin-based Institute. “It is not as if a product recall or store remodeling would have been required to correct Wal-Mart’s deceptive consumer practices. They could have simply sent out an e-mail to store managers and corrected the problem instantly.”

New store inspections throughout Wisconsin have found that Wal-Mart stores are still selling nonorganic yogurt and sugar identified as organic, and designated organic produce sections continue displaying many nonorganic items, among other widespread abuses. The Cornucopia Institute again contacted USDA about the ongoing problem but the agency could not confirm that any enforcement action was imminent on the federal level. Cornucopia then filed a consumer fraud complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection on January 13, 2007.

“We were very impressed with the immediate and professional response we received from the Wisconsin regulators,” stated Will Fantle, Cornucopia’s research director. “Within hours officials from the state contacted us to confirm some of the information we submitted and we verified our past interactions with the USDA for them.”

USDA’s organic program has been widely criticized for, among other management problems, not attending to questions of improprieties in a timely manner. In one case, a Florida orange grower who could not document that the oranges and orange juice he was selling were produced organically. More than two years later, pending USDA action, the products were still on the market and being purchased by unsuspecting consumers.

“The vast majority of all organic farmers and food marketers operate with a high degree of organic integrity. These abuses, and the lack of responsible enforcement by the USDA, endangers the credibility of the organic label for all of us,” said Tom Willey of T & D Willey Farms of Madera, California, an organic fresh market vegetable producer.

“Wal-Mart cannot be allowed to sell organic food ”˜on the cheap’ because they lack the commitment to recruit qualified management or are unwilling to properly train their store personnel. This places ethical retailers, their suppliers, and organic farmers at a competitive disadvantage,” Mr. Kastel said.

A number of other organic food retailers throughout the country, including Whole Foods Markets and many of the nation’s member-owned grocery cooperatives, have gone to the effort to become certified organic in terms of the handling of their products and have invested heavily in staff training to help them understand organic food production and merchandising concerns.

“Our management and our employees know what organic means,” said Lindy Bannister, general manager at The Wedge Cooperative in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “If Wal-Mart intends to get into organics, they can’t be allowed to misidentify ”˜natural’ foods as organic to unsuspecting consumers.” The Wedge, the largest single store food cooperative in the nation, was one of the first retailers to go through the USDA organic certification process.

Cornucopia’s complaints ask USDA and Wisconsin regulators to fully investigate the allegations of organic food misrepresentation. The farm policy organization has shared their evidence, including photographs and notes, from multiple stores in Wisconsin and in many other states, with the agency’s investigators. Fines of up to $10,000 per violation for proven incidents of organic food misrepresentation are provided for in federal organic regulations.

“The business practices at Wal-Mart are quite disturbing and certainly incompatible with the values that have transformed the organic food industry into a lucrative marketplace,” said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association. “We have called today for a boycott of Wal-Mart by organic shoppers until such time as the integrity of their merchandising and product line can be ascertained.”

This past September, The Cornucopia Institute also accused Wal-Mart of cheapening the value of the organic label by sourcing products from industrial-scale factory-farms and developing countries, such as China.

The Institute released a white paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic Products””Market Expansion or Market Delusion?, that concluded Wal-Mart was poised to drive down the price of organic food in the marketplace by inventing a “new” organic””food from corporate agribusiness, factory-farms, and cheap imports of questionable quality.

“If unchecked, Wal-Mart’s alleged misrepresentation of organic food, along with their procurement practices, and cheapening the meaning behind the organic label, could endanger the livelihoods of many farmers and family business owners who have labored to build organics into a lucrative $16 billion a year industry,” Mr. Kastel lamented.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 19, 2007) A recent study conducted in Manitoba, Canada, has found that residents in communities in which agricultural pesticides have been applied heavily are at a higher risk for eye disorders and for giving birth to children with abnormalities or birth defects. Significantly, these results are not confined to those who work with pesticides directly””such as farmers””but are relevant among entire populations.

“Often studies are done on a particular people like, let’s say, the group of farmers who have direct contact with pesticides,” says Patricia Martens, Ph.D., director of the Manitoba Center for Health Policy. “This study was looking at the entire population.”

Jennifer Magoon, a graduate student from the University of Manitoba, looked at Manitoba’s database of public health records, comparing records from areas of intensive agricultural pesticide use with areas that use little. She studied 323,368 health records from the years 2001 to 2004, which included pharmaceutical files, physician claims, and hospital separations. What she has found are “statistically significant” links between higher pesticide use and health problems.

She has found that, compared with areas of average pesticide use, the chance for abnormalities in babies born in high-use areas rose four percentage points for males and three and a half percentage points for females. Abnormalities include low birth weight, jaundice, and respiratory ailments. Additionally, the chance for eye disorders increased nearly two percentage points and the risk for mild to severe birth defects rose a percentage point in males.

Although the abstract of the study says “regular pesticide use in crop farming, especially insecticides, may be adversely affecting the health of the rural residents of Southern Manitoba,” Ms. Magoon also points out the problem with establishing a causal relationship between pesticide use and health effects. “Too many factors exist that can govern a person’s health to be able to draw such cause-and-effect conclusions, even in a study of considerable scope,” she says. However, despite the care with which scientists must choose their words, public health officials find the results compelling. One rural health official says the study continues “the work of understanding how chemicals might be adversely connected to rural life.”

Of particular concern are insecticides. “It was really insecticides that were what stood out,” says Ms. Magoon. Insecticide use is highest in Manitoba’s southwest corner; they are used often on potato, spring wheat, and canola crops. Some common agricultural insecticides include chlorpyrifos, which is linked to ADHD and delayed peripheral neuropathy, and permethrin, which is a neurotoxin and immunotoxin.

Public health officials hope that this information will help them to continue to make connections between environmental exposures and health endpoints.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

(Beyond Pesticides, January 18, 2007) A new study conducted in Costa Rica’s mountain forests indicates that surprisingly high concentrations of pesticides are accumulating far above the low altitudes at which they are used. Previously thought to be safe from pesticides applied to distant agricultural areas, some remote mountain forests of Costa Rica were found to have pesticide levels almost ten times greater than those in low-lying areas closer to farms and plantations.

The study, led by University of Toronto, Scarborough professor Frank Wania, Ph.D., measured air and soil pesticide levels at 23 sites across Costa Rica in order to produce a model to predict potential accumulation of chemicals at high altitudes. The insecticide endosulfan and the fungicide chlorothalonil were found in the largest concentrations, with up to 1 part per billion (ppb) of chlorothalonil and 3 ppb endosulfan in soil.

The high concentrations can be explained by a process in which polluted air above the farms and plantations is pushed up into the mountains, where it then cools and becomes polluted rainwater or fog. The hydrophilic nature of modern pesticides makes the occurrence of this phenomenon much more likely; as Crispin Halsall, Ph.D., of Lancaster University (U.K.) explains, “Most currently used pesticides are quite soluble, unlike some of the older organochlorine pesticides. So they will dissolve into rain more readily than the hydrophobic pesticides of the past.”

The significance of high concentrations of pesticides at high altitudes is manifold. For one, the headwaters for water reservoirs often begin at high altitudes, meaning higher pesticide levels in the water supply. For another, there will be (and already are) negative affects on biodiversity. This study has helped to shed light on shrinking amphibian populations at high altitudes, which previously had been explained by a combination of climate change, parasitic chytrid infection, and chemical use. Scientists could not understand why areas with little human intervention would experience higher amphibian extinction rates. “There tends to be a pattern of more extinction at high elevations, which is tricky to explain because most of the human activity is at low elevations. We might have an explanation, because pesticide concentrations are higher at high altitude,” Dr. Wania says.

These issues are by no means exclusive to Costa Rica. “There is a whole series of mountain environments which are going to be susceptible to transport of pesticides,” Dr. Halsall adds, citing sensitive ecosystems in the Himalayas, Alps, and the Sierra Nevadas.

This research is consistent with a previous study of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains by Southern Illinois University’s Don Sparling. His research team’s 2001 paper in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry reported on residues of endosulfan and organophosphates in amphibians and found increasing pesticide concentrations with higher altitudes.

The hope is that these studies will expand our general understanding of how localized pollution may have far-reaching effects. “With currently used pesticides, most risk assessment is focused on the local environment and fails to take into account the subsequent evaporation or transport of the chemicals” to distant, sensitive locations, Dr. Halsall says. Dr. Wania agrees, “We tend to think if we set land aside and leave it alone, that this protects it. But that may not be enough if we can’t prevent contaminants from depositing or accumulating.”

Source: Environmental Science & Technology Online News

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will be able to step up pesticide regulation this year due to a significant increase in its 2007 budget, resulting in the largest availability of funding in fifteen years and more resources to direct to enforcement and education of pesticide laws.

DPR’s 2007 budget grew by $3 million, thanks to a law passed last year allowing the collection of fees from wholesale pesticide sales. DPR’s $69 million budget is fully funded by fees imposed on pesticide sellers and similar funds, rather than the state’s general fund. Until last year’s law included large-scale commercial sellers like Wal-Mart, Costco, and Home Depot, revenues were mostly derived from agricultural sellers. This is DPR’s largest budget since it’s inception in 1991, and is comparable to the inflation-adjusted budget from 2001, before California’s severe budget cuts.

Among other specific uses for the new funds will be the hiring of six new enforcement officials, and a four percent increase in enforcement funds to county agricultural commissioners. Grants will be renewed for the first time since 2003, potentially helping growers find alternatives to methyl bromide, an internationally phased-out fumigant of which the United States is annually granted usage by members of the Montreal Protocol (for more on this, click here).

DPR will also focus new funds to “develop mitigation measures, adopt statewide rules, develop better worker and physician outreach programs, and take pesticide product registration actions. Reducing farmworker illnesses, long a priority of California’s pesticide regulatory program, has also taken on new urgency with imposition of environmental justice requirements.”

“This budget will put us in the best position that we’ve been in for some time to help protect the public, the environment and the regulated community. We’re now getting to the point that we have the resources to enforce the laws,�” said DPR director Mary-Ann Warmerdam. “With this support, we’ll aim for zero — no more major pesticide incidents on the farm or in urban settings.” Roughly 50 major incidents are reported annually in the state.

Ms. Warmerdam went on to say that the department’s aim is to avoid bans on common and dangerous chemicals like pyrethroids and fumigants, and instead control usage to reduce the risks associated with them. To facilitate that goal, the new budget includes a new position to “evaluate mitigation measures for chlorpyrifos and pyrethroids pesticides.”

Environmental groups are reacting positively to DPR’s recent actions. “They are doing a pretty good job of putting the money where people think there is the most need for it,” according to Susan Kegley, senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA). However, “Some things need to change in the way that people are applying pesticides if we are to get to zero incidents. We think the best way is to reduce pesticide use overall.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

For DPR’s press release on its “Zero Major Incidents” plan, click here. To see the 2007-2008 Budget Highlights, click here.