Organic Processing Vol.6 #3

working for or supported by pesticide manufacturers conclude that the levels are far too low to pose any significant risks. Many research scientists working for government agencies and universities, however, are deeply concerned about these risks, especially those stemming from exposures to pregnant women, infants and children. Nearly every monthly issue of the country’s leading journal on toxic chemicals, Environmental Health Perspectives, contains a new research report on the mechanisms through which low levels of pesticide exposure can disrupt normal development. Some issues have three or more new studies.

One topic that has become the focus of intense research is exposure to metals and pesticides during pregnancy and its link to autism. A recent study found that mothers who used pet shampoos containing pesti-

cides were twice as likely to give birth to children afflicted by autism. ⁶Consider then how much more of a risk there may be when mothers actually ingest these same pesticides. Despite growing consensus that environmental factors, and in particular chemicals, are pushing autism rates higher, the government is spending 10 to 20 times more money on assessments of possible genetic factors leading to autism. ⁷

In addition, it’s well known that expo-
sure to pesticides during pregnancy in-
U.S. pesticide law allows
creases the risk of premature delivery and
pesticide manufacturers to low birth-weight babies. Low birth-weight is
not disclose the identity a major risk factor for diabetes ⁸and prob-
lems with neurological and reproductive
of so-called “inert”
development. ⁹ingredients. Adding yet another risk factor for dia-
betes, a 2008 study found that children

whose mothers were exposed to hexachlorobenzene (a fungicide) during pregnancy had a higher risk of being overweight at 6 years of age. ¹⁰Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences also reported that brief exposure early in life to environmental endocrine-(hormone) disrupting chemicals (especially diethylstilbestrol - DES) resulted in increases in body weight as mice aged. ¹¹

In a 2008 study on parathion, an organophosphate (OP) pesticide, scientists observed that, “It is increasingly evident that exposures experienced during fetal or neonatal life, including chemical exposures such as those studied here [parathion] can lead to misprogramming of metabolism, appetite and endocrine status, contributing ultimately to morbidities such as obesity and diabetes.” ¹²In a separate study, fetal and neonatal rats exposed to chlorpyrifos (another OP pesticide) had excessive weight gain and leptin dysfunction (leptin is a hormone that helps regulate appetite). ¹³

In yet another 2008 study on parathion, the pesticide was found to alter brain development in rats in several ways and regions at doses below those that cause observable systemic toxicity. The team reported that low-level exposures to parathion at critical stages of development impair the role of the brain in sexual differentiation, and as a result, adult males become more female-like in their behaviors, and vice versa. Curiously, they found that female rats had greater ability to repair the damage caused by early-life exposures to parathion in terms of sexual differentiation and behavior, compared to male rats exposed to the same levels of parathion. ¹⁴

Other pesticides have also been shown to affect sexual development as well. The fungicide vinclozolin caused transgenerational effects in a rat study. Pregnant rats ex-

posed at the critical window for sexual differentiation gave birth to males that suffered from impaired sexual development, effects that were transferred through genes of the male rats to nearly all males born in the next four generations. ¹⁵

Roundup: What We Don’t Know May Hurt Us. While the use of the OP pesticide parathion has declined sharply compared to a decade ago, the use of glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide has risen several-fold since 1996 in the wake of much wider planting of cropland to genetically modified (GM) “Roundup Ready” soybeans, corn and cotton varieties. Indeed, glyphosate is now the most heavily used pesticide active ingredient in the world. Manufacturers of herbicides containing glyphosate typically mix the active ingredient with one to four so-called “inert” ingredients. It turns out that some of these inert ingredients might not actually be so inert after all.

Scientists in Ecuador found increased DNA damage in people exposed to glyphosate herbicides that had been sprayed on cocoa plants by helicopters and planes. ¹⁶Work by a team of French scientists offers an explanation why. They explored the toxicity of four glyphosate-containing herbicides, each with different combinations of inert ingredients, as well as glyphosate alone, in three different human cell types. According to the team, concentrations tested were comparable to levels expected in food or feed treated with Roundup herbicides.

All four Roundup herbicide formulations caused total cell death in 24 hours in the human cell experiments. The team concluded that the toxicity of various Roundup formulations was not a function of the level of glyphosate, the active ingredient, but instead was related to the adjuvants and other “inert” ingredients in the formulations. According to the team, the adjuvants in Roundup formulations are not inert and, in fact, can cause cell damage and even death at expected exposure levels, based on contemporary herbicide use patterns. ¹⁷