Dr. Landrigan continues, “Based on lab studies that track children exposed to
these chemicals in early development, there is clear indication of brain damage.
The brain damage is not gross, meaning these children are not walking around
stumbling and having convulsions, but when they are properly tested in a good
pediatric center, they are found to have loss of IQ and learning problems as a
consequence of their exposure in the womb to these chemicals. The stakes are
very high.”
Dr. Charles Benbrook, chief scientist of The Organic Center and an expert on
agricultural policy, science and regulatory issues, explains that although the EPA
is moving toward eliminating organophosphates, many are still prevalent in our
food supply chain. Numerous recent scientific studies correlate organophos-
phates with disrupting development, resulting in ADHD, autism, obesity, im-
paired intelligence, metabolic impairment and type II diabetes.
In the United States, nearly 3 million people have been diagnosed with
autism. While in 1994, 1 in every 1,000 children was diagnosed with the disease,
today there is 1 for every 110. Jeff Sell at the Autism Society says numbers around
the world are similar. “Genetics alone cannot explain that type of increase in
prevalence.”
An unsettling example of how dangerous chemicals remain in our products is
chlorpyrifos, a high-risk organophosphate. It was due to be banned. Facing regu-
latory action by the EPA, Dow Chemical who markets it as Lorsban and Dursban
withdrew it for home use. Yet they continue to sell it for agricultural use. So is the
EPA saying, “Keep it out of your home, but it is fine to eat”?
Nowhere to Hide
Another “bad player” that Benbrook estimates Americans are exposed to up to
twice a day is endosulfan, a member of the most toxic agricultural chemical family, persistent organic pollutants (POP), which includes DDT, the chemical featured in Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring. Endosulfan, like all POPs, has
the characteristic of disrupting development at levels below detection and being
persistent, meaning it does not break down quickly and therefore accumulates in
our bodies.
POPs are lipophilic, which means they attach to fatty tissue. So as the cattle
that we depend on for our dairy products are ingesting endosulfan-treated
feed, they are building it up in their
fat stores, which wind up concentrated in cream-based products such
as butter.
The EPA has imposed a voluntary
ban on the use of endosulfan in U.S.
agriculture, but the phaseout will not
be complete until 2016. Benbrook describes this as the “Circle of Poison,” a
phrase coined in the 1980s for banned
toxins sold to other regions that are
then imported back into the U.S. via
the global food network. The risk of
exposure in the U.S. will continue
after the bans go into effect. The majority of endosulfan is sold to India,
Latin America and Asia, where the exposure levels are much higher. Until
the EPA cancels the tolerances for this
pesticide, the American public will still
be exposed through reliance on imported food.
Today, according to a study done by
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), a typical holiday dinner
menu of 11 food items can deliver 38
“hits” of exposure to POPs, where a
“hit” is one persistent toxic chemical
on one food item. Kristin Schafer of
PANNA, who co-authored the study,
warns that even though these chemicals have since been banned in the
Stockholm Convention that took
effect in 2004, due to their persistence,
these POPs are still in the food supply
today.
What is even more disturbing, according to Dr. Benbrook, is that POPs
including endosulfan are present in
mother’s milk. “No doubt they have
been found in mother’s milk on all
continents of the world,” he says. The
Environmental Working Group has already reported on the growing number of studies that have found
industrial chemicals in human breast
milk. Dioxin, PCBs, flame retardants
and pesticides such as DDT tend to
concentrate in the rich, fatty fluid, giving vulnerable infants a dose of chemicals associated with cancer and
hormone malfunction.
