Harmful pesticides found in everyday food products

Government promises to rid the nation's food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren't doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of children in Seattle, WA. The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II. When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found. "The transformation is extremely rapid," said Chensheng Lu, the principal author of the study published online in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. "Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets," said Lu, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children. Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing. The subjects for his testing were 21 children, ages 3 to 11. The study has not yet linked the pesticide levels to specific foods, but other studies have shown peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, nectarines, strawberries and cherries are among those that most frequently have detectable levels of pesticides. "[T]he amount of these pesticides used on kids' foods [has undergone] a 57 percent reduction," said Jonathan Shradar, the EPA's spokesman. But that's not nearly enough to prevent birth defects and neurological problems, said Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist of the Organic Center, a nationwide, nonprofit, food research organization. "The pesticide limits that EPA permits are far, far too high to say they're safe. And, the reduction that EPA cites in the US has been accompanied by a steady increase in pesticide-contaminated imported foods, which are capturing a growing share of the market," he said. Yet the EPA continues to insist that "dietary exposures from eating food crops treated with chlorpyrifos are below the level of concern for the entire US population, including infants and children." That statement is "not supported by science," Benbrook said. "Given the almost daily reminders that children are suffering from an array of behavioral, learning, neurological problems, doesn't it make sense to eliminate exposures to chemicals known to trigger such outcomes like chlorpyrifos?" he asked. Chlorpyrifos, made by Dow Chemical Co., is one of the most widely used organophosphate insecticides in the United States and, many believe, the world. For years, millions of pounds of the chemical insecticide were used in schools, homes, day care centers and public housing, and studies show that children were often exposed to enormously high doses. Just as the EPA was ready to ban the product, which analysts said would have damaged Dow's overseas sales, the company "voluntarily" removed it from the home market. Yet, with few exceptions, the agricultural uses continued. Benbrook said the EPA has refused orders from Congress to study the cumulative developmental risk to children from low-dose exposures. "Perhaps we can rest assured that EPA has protected us adults from acute insecticide poisoning risk, but our kids are on their own," Benbrook said.