Maryland Pesticide Network

Study Links Household Pesticide Use to Childhood Cancer

(Beyond Pesticides, December 6, 2007) A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives this month finds that children born to mothers living in households with pesticide use during pregnancy have over twice as much risk of getting cancer, specifically acute leukemia (AL) or non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The study, Household Exposure to Pesticides and Risk of Childhood Hematopoietic Malignancies: The ESCALE Study (SFCE), 115:1787-1793 (2007) , investigates the role of household exposure to pesticides in the etiology of childhood hematopoietic malignancies, using the national registry-based case-control study ESCALE (Etude sur les cancers de l'enfant) that was carried out in France over the period 2003-2004.

The researchers evaluated maternal household use of pesticides during pregnancy and paternal use during pregnancy or childhood which was reported by the mothers in a structured telephone questionnaire. Insecticides (used at home, on pets or for garden crops), herbicides and fungicides were distinguished. The researchers estimated odds ratios (ORs) using unconditional regression models closely adjusting for age, sex, degree of urbanization, and type of housing (flat or house).

The researchers included a total of 764 cases of acute leukemia (AL), 130 of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), 166 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) , and 1,681 controls. Insecticide use during pregnancy was significantly associated with childhood AL [OR = 2.1 ; 95% confidence interval (CI) , 1.7-2.5], both lymphoblastic and myeloblastic, NHL (OR = 1.8 ; 95% CI, 1.3-2.6) , mainly for Burkitt lymphoma (OR = 2.7 ; 95% CI, 1.6-4.5) , and mixed-cell HL (OR = 4.1 ; 95% CI, 1.4-11.8).

The researchers conclude that the study findings strengthen the hypothesis that domestic use of pesticides may play a role in the etiology of childhood hematopoietic malignancies. The consistency of the findings with those of previous studies on AL raises the question of the advisability of preventing pesticide use by pregnant women.

Hematopoietic malignancies are the most common childhood cancers, with world age-standardized incidence rates of 43.1, 6.7, and 8.9 per million children in France for leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), respectively (Clavel et al. 2004). The etiology of those malignancies remains largely unknown. Some epidemiologic studies have suggested that pesticides might increase the risk of childhood hematopoietic malignancies (Daniels et al. 1997; Infante-Rivard and Scott Weichenthal 2007; Jurewicz and Hanke 2006; Nasterlack 2006, 2007; Zahm and Ward 1998). Furthermore, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified the occupational spraying of insecticides as probably carcinogenic to humans (group 2A); adult lymphoma is one of the main cancers suspected (IARC 1991). Children can be exposed to pesticides in utero or during childhood through their parents' work, domestic use, or the general environment (residues in food, water, air, and soil). It is not clear which sources of pesticide exposure are the most important for children, and household pesticide exposure may be a major exposure for children (Bradman and Whyatt 2005; Grossman 1995). No French survey on household pesticide use is available, but surveys conducted in North America and the United Kingdom reported high rates of household use or storage of pesticides (Adgate et al. 2000; Grey et al. 2006).

This study supports numerous other studies that have for years linked household use of pesticides with elevated rates of childhood cancers. See [viii] Gold, E. et al., "Risk Factors for Brain Tumors in Children," American Journal of Epidemiology 109(3): 309-319, 1979 and [ix] Lowengart, R. et al., "Childhood Leukemia and Parent's Occupational and Home Exposures," Journal of the National Cancer Institute 79:39, 1987.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801451_pf.html

High Weedkiller Levels Found in River Checks

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A06

Atrazine, the second most widely used weedkiller in the country, is showing up in some streams and rivers at levels high enough to potentially harm amphibians, fish and aquatic ecosystems, according to the findings of an extensive Environmental Protection Agency http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Environmental+Protection+Agency?tid=informline database that has not been made public.

The analysis -- conducted by the chemical's manufacturer, Syngenta Crop Protection -- suggests that atrazine has entered streams and rivers in the Midwest at a rate that could harm those ecosystems, several scientific experts said. In two Missouri http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Missouri?tid=informline watersheds, the level of atrazine spiked to reach a "level of concern" in both 2004 and 2005, according to the EPA, and an Indiana http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Indiana?tid=informline watershed exceeded the threshold in 2005.

Much of the data on atrazine levels has remained private because Syngenta's survey of 40 U.S. watersheds was done in connection with the EPA's 2006 decision to renew its approval of the pesticide. The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline obtained the documents from the Natural Resources News Service, a District-based nonprofit group focused on environmental issues.

Atrazine has been linked to sexual abnormalities in frogs and fish in several scientific studies, but the EPA ruled in September that the evidence was not sufficiently compelling to restrict use of the pesticide. EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said the agency "has concluded that atrazine does not adversely affect gonadal development in frogs, based on a thorough review of 19 laboratory and field studies, including studies submitted by [Syngenta] and others in the public literature."

The pesticide is popular among corn and sorghum farmers despite the controversy because it is inexpensive and blocks photosynthesis, thus killing plants to which it is applied.

"It works and it's inexpensive, and that's what farmers love," said Tim Pastoor, head of toxicology at Syngenta. "It's magic for them. It's like the aspirin of crop protection."

EPA officials and independent experts spent last week in meetings in Arlington http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Arlington?tid=informline , debating the "ecological significance" of atrazine water contamination, according to agency documents. The results of the deliberations -- the monitoring data was plugged into computer models to estimate the effects on ecosystems -- will be published in several weeks and will help determine how EPA officials regulate the pesticide in the future.

The federal government first approved atrazine in the 1950s, but it came under increased scrutiny in the late 1990s after Tyrone B. Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/University+of+California-Berkeley?tid=informline , did a series of studies -- first for chemical companies and then on his own -- that indicated that tiny amounts of the pesticide de-masculinized tadpoles of African clawed frogs. The European Union http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/European+Union?tid=informline declared it a harmful "endocrine disrupter" and banned it as of 2005, but the EPA decided to allow its continued use after determining that the agency lacked a standard test for measuring the hormone-disrupting effects of chemicals.

Instead, EPA officials and company representatives agreed on a plan to monitor atrazine levels in "40 of the most vulnerable watersheds in the country," said Jim Jones http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Jim+Jones?tid=informline , deputy assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances.

Syngenta has collected more than 10,000 samples since 2004, Pastoor said, taking readings at least every four days at each site.

Jones said there are limits on what details of the Syngenta survey can be released to the public -- the company claims some of the data is proprietary information, and anyone who requests the information must pledge not to share it with competing pesticide companies -- but the monitoring system is protecting the public's health.

Nancy Golden, a biologist and toxicologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Fish+and+Wildlife+Service?tid=informline who studies how chemicals affect aquatic creatures, said fish exposed to as little as 0.5 parts per billion of atrazine in the lab demonstrate behavioral problems. At higher levels, they experience stunted growth. The levels of atrazine in 2004 in the two Missouri sites were more than 100 times the 0.5 parts per billion concentration, the Syngenta data show.

Golden said the data documented "atrazine levels that are sustained at pretty high levels for several weeks. That's definitely a cause for concern."

Peter L. deFur, a biologist at Virginia Commonwealth University http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Virginia+Commonwealth+University?tid=informline , said "chronic low-level exposure" to atrazine can harm aquatic life. "I don't think low levels of atrazine exposures are safe," deFur said.

Charles Scott, field supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service's Missouri Ecological Services Field Office, said high levels of atrazine in northeastern Missouri could potentially affect several endangered and threatened species, including the pallid sturgeon, the Higgins' eye mussel, the fat pocketbook mussel and the decurrent false aster, a wetland plant. "It has a lot of biological impacts," Scott said of the pesticide.

The EPA has asked Syngenta to do additional monitoring at the two sites in northeastern Missouri where atrazine concentrations significantly exceeded 10 parts per billion, the level at which the agency believes it can impact aquatic systems. In these two watersheds, concentrations reached more than 50 parts per billion for days at a time.

Wood, the EPA spokeswoman, said the Indiana watershed did not trigger the agency's level of concern in 2006 and the company will be monitoring it for another year.

Pastoor, who noted that atrazine's effect of stunting plant growth is reversed as soon as the pesticide is taken away, said the fact that two watersheds showed high levels of exposure "doesn't mean there's a problem there. It just means there's a yellow flag that says you should take a look."

The two sites in question, he added, were prone to excessive runoff because they have an impervious clay soil that channels runoff into waterways, the land is sloped, and one of the farmers working the land had cleared much of the vegetation. Syngenta sales agents and local corn growers are trying to reform the practices of the farmer in question.

"We anticipate that site will significantly improve," Pastoor said, adding that the computer models Syngenta ran suggest there has been no ecological damage to the watersheds the company has monitored.

Hayes, who stopped working as a contractor for a coalition of chemical companies years ago and is now one of atrazine's most vocal opponents, said he does not think the federal government is surveying the pesticide enough in light of its pervasive influence.

"What's most disturbing about the information you're talking about is all that EPA requires Syngenta to do is monitor atrazine in a few key sites," Hayes said. "Industry's been allowed to have such a huge hand in the regulation of atrazine."

Maryland Farming Subsidies Mitigate Fertilizer Damage

(Beyond Pesticides, December 5, 2007) The state of Maryland, in an effort to stem the extensive pollution of the Chesapeake Bay, has developed a cost-share program that pays farmers to plant winter cover crops, beginning with a pilot program in 1992. Farmers plant a variety of crops, wheat being the most popular, which in turn absorb excess nutrients in the soil and reduce the amount that is washed into the bay. In spring, famers will harvest the cover crops (sometimes with an herbicide) and plant for the regular growing season.

According to a 2005 report by the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA), "Excess nutrients and sediments entering the Chesapeake Bay from urban, agricultural, and forested nonpoint sources [NPS] within the Bay region have been shown to cause degradation of both water quality and living resources." The report continued by acknowledging, "Excess loading of nutrients in the Chesapeake Bay region has been attributed to runoff and potential nitrate leaching from agricultural practices . . . agriculture has been its most frequent cause."

Cropland in Maryland accounts for 1.7 million acres of 6.3 million total acres in the state. The MDA report states, "As in other agricultural areas nationwide, crop yields are linked to the amount of fertilizer applied to the soil." So with a surplus of fertilizer applied under this theory, MDA argues, "the use of winter cover crops has been recognized as an efficient and cost effective practice to reduce NPS pollution."

The current cover crop program is over-enrolled for MDA's budget, which pays 1,529 farmers as much as $50 per acre to plant in winter. Participation demand has risen 54 percent in the last year, forcing Maryland to look for additional funding to continue the program. The $50 million Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund was passed this fall, but designates the money for he Department of Natural Resources and not the MDA, which cover crop advocates will try to change in the new year. The Environmental Defense, in a recent report, stated, "Farms are the largest and most indispensable part of the solution [to the Bay's pollution]. We must help farmers, who already are taking steps to help the bay, deliver even greater benefits."

Of course, part of the solution should be reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers in the first place, eliminating the need to harvest cover crops with herbicides. State and federal incentives for organic farming would both protect the bay in the short term and the health of Maryland's farmland in the long term. For more on organic farming, including the proposed amendment to the 2007 Farm Bill, click here.

Sources: The Baltimore Sun (November 13, November 23), Lancaster

TOXINS FILL OUR HOMES : A DAILY STAR INVESTIGATION

THE DAILY STAR, TUCSON, ARIZONA
Fri, November 30, 2007
By Toni Davis
Arizona Daily Star

Worst pollution risks increasingly indoors

Not so sweet home: Toxins lurk in air, dust, even cleaning supplies
We clean with them. We build them into our walls and cabinets. We spray them on bugs, weeds and gardens.
We drag them into the house on our shoes and we stir them up when we walk on our carpets.
They're in our toys, our shower curtains, our clothes, the water bottles we use for hiking and the baby bottles we use for breast milk and formula. They're in the televisions we watch and some of the computers that entertain us.
More and more chemicals and unhealthful substances are embedded in our daily lives. And they swirl together inside our tightly built personal spaces to create new, and very personal, toxic hot spots: our homes.
Before even stepping outside in the morning, we are exposed to more severe pollution than we get from landfills, hazardous waste sites or smokestacks, say many scientists, including retired Environmental Protection Agency officials.
The health risks from these indoor pollutants are also much greater than the risks outdoors - perhaps 100 to 1,000 times greater, scientists concluded. That's especially troubling because people tend to spend 90 percent of their time indoors, 65 percent of it at home.
An Arizona Daily Star investigation finds that:
* Household chemicals are linked to various diseases, including cancer, in a growing number of studies of laboratory animals, but experts disagree on their safety.
* Arid Arizona is considered one of the riskiest states in the country for toxic mold inside the home, even though mold is caused by water.
* The United States has regulated chemicals fairly lightly, far less strictly than Europe. In this country, for instance, companies don't have to label the toxic ingredients they put in consumer products.
* Consumers are left in the dark about the safety of conventional chemical cleaners and other popular products, including a controversial chemical commonly used in hard plastic water bottles and baby bottles.
* People can try to minimize their own exposure at home, but industrial solutions are elusive. For example, it's been hard for authorities to find and put in place a safe, viable alternative to a cancer-causing solvent used by 85 percent of dry cleaners.
The health risks are a concern for many Tucsonans - ranging from a mother who switched to a different type of bottle for her infant daughter, to a woman who wonders if chemical exposures have kept her from getting pregnant, to a mom who slashed her use of chlorine bleach because she feared it was making her kids sick.
"We have a number of chemicals in our indoor air that weren't there 50 years ago," said Charles Weschler, an expert in environmental and occupational medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.
"We know why we are using them - to make our plastics perform better, to reduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint last longer, to make our cleaning products smell good.
"But we often don't know their long-term health consequences."
Endocrine disruptors a concern
As the number of studies about chemical risks reaches into the thousands, the toll of diseases they are suspected of causing is also mounting.
Asthma, attention deficit disorder, autism, increasing infertility in women and declining testosterone levels and sperm counts in men all may be caused or aggravated by household toxic exposure.
What bothers many scientists is that the federal government hasn't put nearly as much energy into combating indoor air pollution as it has put into cleaning outdoor air.
"We've spent a tremendous amount of societal resources on studying and cleaning our water and working on outdoor air pollution," said Glenn Morrison, an engineering professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla. "Frankly, the real known hazard from exposure to air indoor pollution is so much higher that a lot of the time and effort has been misdirected.''
For many years, scientists' biggest indoor air quality concerns lay in conventional poisons such as tobacco smoke, asbestos, volatile organic chemicals, carbon monoxide, lead, pesticides, formaldehyde and radon. Indoor air levels of many of those have declined since the 1970s.
But today, those toxins are joined by a class of common but not totally understood chemicals called endocrine disruptors or environmental estrogens.
They're found in plastic bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flame retardants, food, toys, cosmetics and pesticides. They're in circuit boards in computers, game stations and home audio systems, environmental professor Weschler said.
Many have been used for decades. But unlike lead and tobacco, whose health effects are well-established, numerous problems associated with these compounds have come to light only in the past decade.
As their name implies, endocrine disruptors can adversely affect hormone balance or disrupt organ function and cause developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune effects in humans and wildlife.
Jill Martinez, a Northeast Side mother of four, has a house full of plastic toys - Legos, Star Wars light sabers, a microscope and a piano, to name just a few.
Plasticizers in toys and other products generally aren't labeled, so consumers don't know which ones have the controversial chemicals.
Martinez hadn't heard about health controversies involving plastics, but said if the chemicals turned out to be unsafe, "I would definitely be inclined to slow down on buying them. I would only buy them if I thought they would be educational somehow."
Similarly, Tucsonan Hector Esquer, 52, has amassed many perks of the modern good life: two big-screen TVs, an Apple TV, PlayStation 3, four computers and more. "I got all the toys, I guess you could say," said Esquer, who manages an automotive warehouse.
"There's been a lot of talk that there are lead items made in China, but I wasn't aware of fire retardants" in household electronics, he said. "I'm not real concerned about it, but maybe we should be."
If they were proven to be unsafe, "You bet I'd would want to replace the TVs," Esquer said. "I'd be willing to pay half again as much to make sure they were safe."
Risk relationships chronicled
In the case of many chemicals and compounds, the risks for humans are inconclusive, and disagreements are heated.
One reason: The vast majority of research comes from animal studies. It's considered unethical to deliberately feed or inject people with chemicals, although many studies have compared people known to have been exposed to certain chemicals with those who haven't been exposed. Not all scientists and government officials accept the idea that chemicals have the same effect on humans as on animals.
Beyond that, chemical industry officials say the safety of their products has been affirmed over and over by federal agencies and, in some cases, other countries. They say the studies raising questions about the products aren't valid, had weak results at best, and didn't prove cause and effect.
They also say advocates for regulation have distorted the significance of their results to push a political agenda.
Federal officials, for their part, say they lack authority to regulate indoor air safety but are making some strides.
But concerns about our household chemical stews keep mounting. In the past year, scientists from Massachusetts to Denmark to Australia have released studies saying:
* Laser printers release ultra-fine particles that can cause heart and lung disease.
* Three organic hazardous chemicals released into indoor air present a cancer risk to the general population about 100 times greater than the EPA considers acceptable: formaldehyde, found in some building materials; chloroform, related to chlorinated water in many cities; and naphthalene in mothballs.
* As household dust gets heavier, the risk that residents will get asthma doubles.
* PFOSes and PFOAs - ubiquitous man-made chemicals used to coat non-stick pans, textiles and carpets and to manufacture insecticides - have a statistical association with decreased birth weight and head size in newborns.
* Flame retardants called PBDEs commonly used in television sets increase the risk of undescended testicles in newborn boys and of feline hyperthyroidism, a leading cause of death in cats.
Together, various kinds of environmental exposures could be one reason that the percentage of children and adolescents in the United States with chronic illnesses lasting more than three months has risen from 1.8 percent in 1960 to 7 percent in 2004, the Journal of the American Medical Association says.
Other factors playing a role could be very low birth weights, diet, obesity, lack of exercise and increased television and other media viewing, the journal recently reported.
Tucson alternatives growing
The costs of indoor pollution are skyrocketing, several studies show.
It costs about $15.9 billion and perhaps up to $20 billion annually nationwide to prevent and clean up indoor air pollution, says a 2005 EPA study.
In California alone, crummy indoor air costs the state's economy $45 billion annually due to premature deaths, medical costs, lost worker productivity and other impacts, says the state's Air Resources Board.
Nationwide, just taking care of childhood asthma caused by indoor pollution costs about $2.3 billion a year.
If society could come up with ways to improve indoor air quality, the savings would reach $125 billion annually, said the federally financed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
"We need to pay attention to pollution sources that are right under our nose," said William Nazaroff, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC-Berkeley.
Some states have banned some of the most controversial compounds in consumer products. Various federal agencies, prodded by public concern, are looking at them more closely.
For consumers in Tucson and elsewhere, choices are growing.
"Green" commercial home cleaners are becoming a big business, although sorting through their claims and hype isn't easy.
Some Southern Arizonans are finding ways to build less-chemicalized homes. They're painting those homes with non-toxic paints, and cleaning them with natural concoctions.
But one public health professor says she has learned to live with the uncertainty of the risks even though she's studied the products in her work and takes the health warnings seriously.
"I use pesticides, eat non-organic food and buy all the cleaning products on the cleaning products aisle," said the University of Arizona's Mary Kay O'Rourke. "I follow the directions, make sure the house is well-vented."
Like many, she does what she can, a little here and there in her busy life, and hopes it's enough.

Pesticides Linked to Rising Autism Rates

(Beyond Pesticides, November 13, 2007) Autism is on the rise, both in prevalence and incidence, and there is growing evidence that environmental insults, such as pesticides, are linked to this developmental disability. According to the latest study, published in the October issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, children born to mothers living near fields where pesticides are applied are more likely to develop autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The authors of "Maternal Residence Near Agricultural Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorders among Children in the California Central Valley" compared maternal pesticide exposure for 465 children with ASDs and 6,975 children without ASDs living in the same area. The research reveals that mothers who lived within 500 meters of fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides, specifically endosulfan and dicofol, during their first trimester of pregnancy had a six times higher chance of having children with autism compared to mothers who did not live near the fields. Mark Horton, M.D., director of the California Department of Health, said the findings are exploratory and indicate that more research of the relationship between organochlorines and ASDs is needed. (See Daily News Blog posting from July 31, 2007 for further reactions from health care officials and more details about this study.)

ASDs include a range of developmental disabilities that are characterized by substantial impairments in social interaction and communication and the presence of unusual behaviors and interests. The symptoms range from mild to very severe, appearing before the age of 3 and lasting throughout a person's life. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of every 150 eight-year old children has an ASD, a prevalence rate of almost 7 per 1,000 children that is the same across multiple areas of the US. ASD prevalence shot up in 1990s, reaching levels of 2.0-7.0 per 1,000 children, greater than a tenfold increase from the prevalence rates identified in the 1980s, 0.1-0.4 per 1,000 children. There are indications that the rates, while still rising, may be leveling off at present, but this may reflect improvements in diagnostic screening and increased parental awareness as much as changes in the underlying factors. ASDs were first identified as a specific disorder in 1943, and since then the criteria for diagnoses have changed many times. Comparisons of rates over time may not be entirely consistent or thoroughly systematic, but the prevalence has reached a point where it is a condition of concern for parents and school officials.

Federal health authorities believe that ASDs probably result as an interaction between genetics and environmental factors. Despite the high degree of heritability of ASDs, genetic factors cannot completely account for the incidence of autism. After extensive genetic testing, researchers have not been able to pinpoint a specific genetic locus or set of genes linked to autism. Among identical twins, if one child has autism, there is a 75% chance that the other child is affected, but there can be significant differences in the symptoms displayed in twins. Because the concordance rate among identical twins is not 100% and the number of autism cases is rising, it seems likely that environmental causes are key factors. A 2000 report by the National Academy of Sciences indicates that as many as 25 percent of all developmental disabilities in children may be caused by environmental factors.

The relative rarity of autism in the Amish community around Middlefield, Ohio, where only one per 15,000 children has an ASD, provides promise for uncovering environmental factors that cause the disorder. One explanation for the lower prevalence was that Amish children, who are religiously exempt from immunizations, were not exposed to thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in vaccines. While the CDC acknowledges the possibility of a link between thimerosal and autism, they point out that there have been studies that discredit this causal relationship. (See Daily News from June 13, 2005 for more on Amish rates of autism).

Other substances that have been implicated as risk factors for autism include viruses, industrial chemicals and electromagnetic radiation. A few individual cases of ASDs have been linked to prenatal exposure to valproic acid, as well as to infectious agents such as the rubella and influenza viruses. Some drugs taken by mothers during pregnancy are also linked to a higher risk of autism in children, especially the prescription drug thalidomide, which in the past was administered as a sleeping pill and used to treat morning sickness. Yet, for all these factors, there is less than perfect concordance, which suggests that a genetic predisposition is necessary for the chemical or microbial factors to lead to autism.

However, the role of environmental insults in the development of autism has been documented and cannot be ignored in future research. Research of autistic children in the San Francisco Bay area, "Autism spectrum disorders in relation to distribution of hazardous air pollutants in the San Francisco bay area", found a potential association between autism and concentrations of mercury, cadmium, nickel, trichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride in ambient air around birth residence. A 1998 article in Toxicology and Industrial Health, "Autism: xenobiotic influences", looked at 18 autistic children and found that 16 of these children had levels of toxic chemicals in their blood that exceeded the adult maximum tolerance. Similarly, the authors of "Porphyrinuria in childhood autistic disorder: implications for environmental toxicity" describe how urninary levels of porphyrin, a biomarker of environmental toxicity, were elevated in autistic children relative to control groups. Porphyrin levels were not significantly different in children with Asperger's disorder, distinguishing it from autism.

"Men, Boys and Environmental Threats", a 2007 report by the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment, highlights how boys are more susceptible to environmental risks than girls, which is especially relevant to autism. Boys are four times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with autism, in addition to outnumbering girls in the incidence of learning disabilities overall, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy and dyslexia. For several reasons, boys' brains may be more vulnerable during development to damaging substances found in the environment, including lead, mercury, arsenic, radiation, dioxins, PCBs, solvents and some pesticides, and (See Daily News from July 16, 2007 for more information on why boys are more prone to environmentally related health conditions.)

Gustavo C. Román, M.D., suggests that substances that interfere with thyroidal activity may produce morphological brain changes leading to autism, in a 2007 article, "Autism: transient in utero hypothyroxinemia related to maternal flavonoid ingestion during pregnancy and to other environmental antithyroid agents". Scientists have identified specific changes to brain cells during development that are particular to autism, and these processes are regulated by hormones produced by the mother's thyroid gland. Dr. Román notes that environmental contaminants interfere with thyroid function, including 60% of all herbicides, in particular 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), acetochlor, aminotriazole, amitrole, bromoxynil, pendamethalin, mancozeb, and thioureas. Other antithyroid agents include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), perchlorates, mercury, and coal derivatives such as resorcinol, phthalates, and anthracenes. Mercury acts as an antithyroid substance by causing inhibition of deiodinases and thyroid peroxidase. A leading ecological study in Texas, "Environmental mercury release, special education rates, and autism disorder: an ecological study of Texas", correlated higher rates of autism in school districts affected by large environmental releases of mercury from industrial sources.

Warren Porter, Ph.D. argues that the connections among the nervous, endocrine and immune systems need to be looked at when asking how do pesticides affect learning and behavior. "Studies show that pesticides can function as nerve poisons and as pseudo hormones, modify hormone levels, and/or impact immune system function," he writes. Learning is dependent on immune system processes & hormonal changes, so any changes to these systems could lead to developmental disabilities. Dr. Porter was first drawn to the relationship between pesticides and learning when he looked at a 1997 survey of student disabilities in the Madison Metropolitan School District (WI). From 1990-1995, the number of children in Madison with learning disabilities increased 70%, children that were emotionally disturbed increased 87%, and children with birth defects increased 83%. Dr. Porter writes that similar changes are seen globally, and that the data from Madison are indicative of a worldwide phenomenon of increasing behavioral and learning disabilities among children, who face more and more contaminants and toxic chemicals in the environment.

To address the public health concern that autism has become and explore the potential environmental factors related to the developmental disorder, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created four new children's environmental health research centers in 2001. Over the past five years, twelve such research centers nationwide were funded $1 million a year. Additionally, CDC's Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology (CADDRE) have teamed up on a large, population-based study, the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), to uncover the risk factors for and causes of autism. If successful, researchers will better know how to develop strategies to prevent this complex disorder.

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) panel, believes that the government's proposed projects can provide some answers, but not a definite cause for autism. "I'm optimistic that we will have identified some environmental risk factors, and may have excluded a few others, between 2008 and 2010–but by no means will we have the final word. The genetics and the gene-environment interactions may be even tougher. Unfortunately, I don't see enough groups working on the environmental contribution to autism, so it may be slower than projected," she says. Mark Blaxill, vice president of SafeMinds, a parent-led advocacy group, also thinks that more attention should be paid to environmental risk factors. "The CDC has not addressed the crisis in autism responsibly," he says. "They should be raising the alarm, and they have failed to do so. They should be asking why so many children are sick. Instead, they've tried to suggest a degree of doubt about the increases, and that diverts attention and funding from environmental causes."

European Union Takes First Step To Decrease Pesticide Usage

(Beyond Pesticides, October 29, 2007) European Parliament members voted in favor of tighter pesticide legislation Tuesday, passing the first hurdle to enacting laws that would protect the EU's most vulnerable communities, ensure high quality food, and prevent residues from accumulating in the environment. The European Commission's proposal places a general ban on aerial spraying, heavily restricts the usage of pesticides in public areas, and plans to cut the use of "active substances of very high concern" by at least half by 2013. A majority of EU Member States need to approve the changes before the package can come into effect, and government representatives will meet on November 26 to debate the proposals."This is something consumers want. They don't want poison on their plates, they don't want poison in their environment," said German Green Party MEP Hiltrud Breyer. By targeting the most toxic chemicals and the areas that face the highest risk from pesticide exposure, the proposed measures would cut total usage by 5 or 6 percent in the EU, where 300,000 tons of pesticides are sold each year. The EU produces one quarter of the world's supply of pesticides, 230,000 tons each year, despite it only accounting for 4 per cent of agricultural land worldwide. Growers, farmers and park and forestry applicators will be weaned off pesticides and encouraged to adopt alternate practices.

Farmers and the chemical and agriculture industries were critical of the package even though many measures of the Commission's initial plan were made less stringent and some altogether dropped. For instance, the ban on aerial spraying grants special exemptions, including wine-growing areas. While pesticide applications will not be allowed or restricted to a minimum in schools, playgrounds, parks, and hospitals; the MEPs rejected a plan to set up ten meter pesticide-free buffer zones around rivers, lakes and waterways to prevent chemical run-off from reaching water supplies. Instead Member States will be given discretion as to how wide the buffer zones they want to implement will be.

"A [ten meter pesticide-free] buffer zone is perceived to be a too large burden on farmers. But there are enough possibilities to compensate farmers that lose arable land because of a spray-free zone by providing subsidies," said Dutch Green Party MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg. "It's going to take a lot of money to purify the drinking water contaminated with agricultural poison," she added.

MEPs took out a rule that would make it obligatory for farmers to inform neighbors before spraying. Parliament decided not to split Europe into three zones for pesticide approval as proposed, choosing a single EU-wide mutual recognition system that will give Member States flexibility for pesticide registration. Parliament also voted on a report on a draft regulation on the authorization of new "plant protection products", i.e. pesticides. Under the regulation, the EU will create a positive list of "active substances", the key ingredients of pesticides, and new plant protection products will then be authorized at national level on the basis of the active substances list.

The Commission proposed that most new substances should be approved initially for 10 years, though low-risk ones would be approved for 15 years. To encourage non-chemical alternatives, Parliament voted to approve substances that can be replaced by less toxic substances for only 5 years, down from the 7 years suggested by the Commission.

Parliament supported the Commission's proposed ban on substances that are genotoxic, carcinogenic, toxic reproductively or endocrine-disrupting, and it added substances with neurotoxic or immunotoxic effects to the banned category. The proposed rules state that substances must not have harmful effects on human health, including vulnerable groups, to be approved.

Sources: Reuters, EU Observer, Farmers Guardian, Royal Society of Chemistry, European Parliament

Centers for Disease Control Links School Environment to Academic Achievement

(Beyond Pesticides, October 25, 2007) In a report it releases every six years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) and for the first time considered "the extent to which schools have health-promoting physical school environment policies and programs." The report's consideration of environmental health issues suggests a breakthrough in public policy at the federal level. In Part II of the report, in its section on pesticides, the authors cite the work of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Beyond Pesticides' report, The Schooling of State Pesticide Laws.

In its introduction the report says:

The toll that environmental hazards take on children's health is not completely understood, nor has it been quantified. Nonetheless, environmental exposure to air pollution, lead in paint and drinking water, tobacco smoke, radon, asbestos, and many pesticides and other chemicals in and around school environments is known to be hazardous to children's health.

The report acknowledges and cites the scientific literature on the special vulnerability of children to environmental hazards during developmental stages of life. The report cites the literature on the elevated exposure to chemicals in the environment relative to their body weight, metabolic rate, and relative consumption of food, as well as exposure patterns and elevated breathing rate. "Damage to the lungs during development through exposure to indoor or outdoor air pollution may interfere with proper lung development and may lead to chronic lung disease later in life," the report says. The report continues, "Furthermore, the brain is not fully developed until adolescence, and thus, children's brains are more vulnerable than adults' brains to such toxins as metals, solvents, insecticides, and certain gases."

SHPPS found the following:

One third (35.4%) of districts and 51.4% of schools had an indoor air quality management program; 35.3% of districts had a school bus engine-idling reduction program; most districts and schools had a policy or plan for how to use, label, store, dispose of, and reduce the use of hazardous materials; 24.5% of states required districts or schools to follow an integrated pest management program; and 13.4% of districts had a policy to include green design when building new school buildings or renovating existing buildings.

The report makes important linkages and citations to the scientific literature and clearly states that environmental hazards "that sometimes are found in schools. . .can adversely affect the health, attendance, and academic success of students, as well as the health of teachers and other staff." For those who advocate the precautionary principle of taking pesticides out of school (replacing chemical-reliant practices with prevention and non-chemical practices), this report clearly supports the notion that what we do know is suggestive of problems that impede the safety of students and their ability to learn and develop to their full potential. These same advocates maintain that what we do not have full information on undermines the very chemical industry and EPA risk assessments on which hazardous pesticide product registrations rely.

Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Disease/Health Effects, Children/Schools by: Beyond Pesticides

720,000 Ladybugs Imported As Pest Control at NYC Apartment Complex

Ladybugs released in NYC

(Beyond Pesticides, October 23, 2007) On October 18, 2007, groundskeepers at one of New York City's largest apartment complexes released 720,000 ladybugs over its 40 acres of landscaping as an alternative to spraying insecticides to control mites and other insects that feed on its flowers, shrubs and trees. The bugs, hippodamia convergens, were harvested in Bozeman, MT, shipped in bags of straw and released by hand at the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex in Manhattan's East Side.

The complex's owner, Tishman Speyer, purchased the ladybugs from Planet Natural, an online retailer, for just under $6,000 and is expected to save money over the cost of the insecticides. The ladybugs are available to the public through the Planet Natural website at $16.50 for 2,000 (shipping included).

Eric Vinje, owner of Planet Natural, explained to the Associated Press that he buys from ladybug collectors working the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Oregon, California and Montana. In Bozeman, he keeps the ladybugs alive in large refrigerators where the temperature is kept to about 35 degrees. Under these conditions, they go "dormant,", using up their fat stores without eating anything, and staying alive for about five months.

In the shipping boxes, they slowly awaken while flying to a buyer's destination. By the time they reached Manhattan, "they were lively and ready to eat anything that was not too quick for them," said Mr. Vinje. Buying the bugs means Mr. Speyer can avoid using chemical insecticides. "In most cases, we reach for a can of pesticide ¿ and we kill not only the 'bad guys,' but the 'good guys,"' Mr. Vinje told the AP. "All we're doing here is putting more of the 'good guys' to tip the scale, to get some kind of pest population control."

Mr. Vinje says 720,000 ladybugs are about the right number to clean up the 40-acre New York complex. Each insect can take care of a piece of land measuring about 19-by-19-inches. A ladybug can eat up to 50 pests a day, plus insect eggs. As they reproduce, "they'll do their thing out there!" Mr. Vinje promises. Even the ladybug larvae will keep eating.

Apartment residents and nearby neighbors need not worry about confronting swarms of ladybugs. The species known as a seasonal nuisance pest is the Asian lady beetle, Harmonia axyridis. In their native habitat, large aggregations of these lady beetles often hibernate in cracks and crevices within cliff faces. Unfortunately, when cliffs are not prevalent, they seek overwintering sites in and around buildings. The ladybugs native to the U.S. prefer to stay outdoors.

Posted in Alternatives/Organics, State/Local, New York by: Beyond Pesticides

With Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria on the Rise, Study Confirms Risks of Antibacterial Soaps

(Beyond Pesticides, October 18, 2007) Antibacterial soaps show no health benefits over plain soaps and, in fact, may render some common antibiotics less effective, says University of Michigan public health professor Allison Aiello, Ph.D. The study, "Consumer Antibacterial Soaps: Effective or Just Risky?" appears in the August edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

In the first known comprehensive analysis of whether antibacterial soaps containing triclosan work better than plain soaps, Dr. Aiello of the University of Michigan School of Public Health and her team found that washing hands with an antibacterial soap was no more effective in preventing infectious illness than plain soap. Moreover, antibacterial soaps at formulations sold to the public do not remove any more bacteria from the hands during washing than plain soaps.

Because of the way triclosan, the main active ingredient in many antibacterial soaps, reacts in the cells, it may cause some bacteria to become resistant to commonly used drugs such as amoxicillin, the researchers say. These changes have not been detected at the population level, but e-coli bacteria bugs adapted in lab experiments showed resistance when exposed to as much as 0.1 percent weight/volume triclosan soap.

"What we are saying is that these e-coli could survive in the concentrations that we use in our (consumer formulated) antibacterial soaps," Dr. Aiello said. "What it means for consumers is that we need to be aware of what's in the products. The soaps containing triclosan used in the community setting are no more effective than plain soap at preventing infectious illness symptoms, as well as reducing bacteria on the hands."

The University of Michigan team looked at 27 studies conducted between 1980 and 2006, and found that soaps containing triclosan within the range of concentrations commonly used in the community setting (0.1 to 0.45 percent wt/vol) were no more effective than plain soaps. Triclosan is used in higher concentrations in hospitals and other clinical settings, and may be more effective at reducing illness and bacteria in the hospital setting, according to the researchers.

With the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria responsible for an increasing number of hospitalizations, deaths and school closures, public health advocates are concerned over the rampant overuse of antimicrobial products and antibiotics. Triclosan is found in hundreds of common everyday products, including nearly half of all commercial soaps. In addition to soaps, triclosan is found in deodorants, toothpastes, cosmetics, fabrics and plastics.

Triclosan works by targeting a biochemical pathway in the bacteria that allows the bacteria to keep its cell wall intact. Because of the way triclosan kills the bacteria, mutations can happen at the targeted site. Dr. Aiello says a mutation could mean that the triclosan can no longer get to the target site to kill the bacteria because the bacteria and the pathway have changed form.

The analysis concludes that government regulators should evaluate antibacterial product claims and advertising, and further studies are encouraged. The FDA does not formally regulate the levels of triclosan used in consumer products. Other antiseptic products on the market contain different active ingredients, such as the alcohol in hand sanitizers or the bleach in some antibacterial household cleaners. Dr. Aiello's team did not study those products and those ingredients are not at issue.

Additionally, researchers at Virginia Tech have found that triclosan reacts with chlorine in tap water to form significant quantities of chloroform. Chloroform is classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a probable human carcinogen. The research also suggests that the reaction of triclosan with chlorine could produce highly chlorinated, and thus dangerous, dioxins in the presence of sunlight.

TAKE ACTION: When used in hospitals and other health care settings, or for persons with weakened immune systems, triclosan represents an important health care and sanitary tool. Outside of these settings, it is totally unnecessary, and the constant exposure to triclosan becomes a health and environmental hazard. The best solution to preventing infections is good old soap and water. Make sure you read all labels when buying soaps and other toiletry products to ensure that triclosan is not included. Also be on the lookout for Microban and Irgasan, which are other names for triclosan. Consult our Triclosan factsheet for a list of products containing triclosan (some, like Teva sandals and kitchen knives, may surprise you) and for more detailed information on alternatives to triclosan.

Posted in Disease/Health Effects, Triclosan by: Beyond Pesticides

Scientists Cite Pesticides' Multigeneration Effects, Call for Regulation

(Beyond Pesticides, October 18, 2007) In a scholarly review written by Theo Colborn, Ph.D. and Lynn Carroll, Ph.D., the authors point to the multigenerational effects of some pesticides that they say demand improved regulation to protect human and environmental health. The review, "Pesticides, Sexual Development, Reproduction, and Fertility: Current Perspective and Future Direction," appears in the international journal Human and Ecological Risk Assessment (13:5, 1078 ¿ 1110), September, 2007. The study points out a major deficiency in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of pesticides under current health reviews and risk assessments. The authors call EPA's pesticide registration system "outmoded" and one that has "almost completely missed the low-dose and endocrine system-mediated effects of pesticides." The study reviews both epidemiological and laboratory data. In the abstract, the authors state the following:

Improvements in chemical analytical technology and non-invasive sampling protocols have made it easier to detect pesticides and their metabolites at very low concentrations in human tissues. Monitoring has revealed that pesticides penetrate both maternal and paternal reproductive tissues and organs, thus providing a pathway for initiating harm to their offspring starting before fertilization throughout gestation and lactation. This article explores the literature that addresses the parental pathway of exposure to pesticides. We use DDT/DDE as a model for chemicals that oftentimes upon exposure have no apparent, immediate health impacts, or cause no obvious birth defects, and are seldom linked with cancer. Their health effects are overlooked because they are invisible and not life threatening¿but might have significant health, social, and economic impacts at the individual and population levels. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the necessity to develop new approaches for determining the safety of pesticides and the need for innovative regulatory policy to protect human and environmental health.

The authors cite an article, "DDT and DDE exposure in mothers and time to pregnancy in daughters", Cohn BA, Cirillo PM, Wolff MS, et al. 2003, Lancet 361:2205¿06) a pesticide effect in the third generation, saying,

This study exposed heretofore occult activity of DDT and DDE where their effects are manifested in the second generation¿and not until adulthood¿and with an ultimate effect at the population level in the third generation. These cryptic and confusing findings provide insight into the complexity and insidious nature of a pesticide that is not acutely toxic and has been considered safe by some (Attaran et al. 2000) for more than 60 years. This study points out the need for multigenerational testing of pesticides, especially those that are persistent and may have degradation products that have different health impacts than the parent compound.

The authors conclude that:

The lesson learned from DDT and the other studies cited earlier is that developmental, transgenerational testing is critical to protect public health and future generations from widely dispersed chemicals. Certainly we cannot wait for prospective studies that could resolve the uncertainties. . . It is apparent that although there are adequate scientific data available to make sound public health decisions about certain pesticides, neither the political will nor the correct vehicle are available to translate that knowledge into policy to protect human health.

The authors can be reached at The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), PO Box 1407, Paonia, CO 81428.

Posted in Disease/Health Effects, Children/Schools, Chemicals, DDT, Endocrine Disruption by: Beyond Pesticides

Bt Corn Could Hurt Aquatic Ecosystems

(Beyond Pesticides, October 16, 2007) Corn, genetically engineered (GE) to tolerate the pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), has been found to harm non-target aquatic insects and disrupt the connected food web. A new study by researchers at Indiana University, funded by the National Science Foundation and published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, suggests that the crop, which has been licensed for use since 1996, poses an unforseen risk to aquatic ecosystems.

According to the study, roughly 35 percent of American corn acreage is Bt corn. Pollen and other parts of the plants are travelling much farther than the fields in which they are planted, carrying Bt toxins through watersheds and being consumed by close relatives of the corn's targeted pests. Caddisflies experience high mortality and stunted growth as a result of exposure. As researcher Todd V. Royer observed, they "are a food resource for higher organisms like amphibians and fish. And, if our goal is to have healthy, functioning ecosystems, we need to protect all the parts. Water resources are something we depend on greatly."

This effect went unnoticed for ten years because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in its registration trials, tested Bt on a crustacean, rather than the aquatic insects that are being affected. "Every new technology comes with some benefits and some risks," said Royer. "I think probably the risks associated with widespread planting of Bt corn were not fully assessed."

This risk to aquatic life increases as the demand for corn grows. James Raich, a National Science Foundation program director, warned that "increased use of corn for ethanol is leading to increased demand for corn and increased acreage in corn production. Previous concerns about the nutrient enrichment in streams that accompany mechanized row-crop agriculture are now compounded by toxic corn byproducts that enter our streams and fisheries, and do additional harm."

Bt corn, along with other genetically GE crops like soybeans and rice, has been controversial in some states and studies, whether over its environmental impact or economic value. In addition to this study's findings among non-target species, it raises fears of pesticide resistance in target species, contamination of non-GE crops, and corporate monopolies on seed. For more on genetic engineering, click here.

Sources: Science Daily, The Student Operated Press, Brownfield (including audio interview with researcher Todd Royer)

Posted in Genetic Engineering, Water, Bt by: Beyond Pesticides

Canada's Ontario Premier Calls for Ban of Cosmetic Pesticide Use

(Beyond Pesticides, September 27, 2007) In a call for sweeping reform in Canada, the Ontario Liberal Party, lead by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, has called for the banning ban of all cosmetic use of pesticides across the province as part of their commitment to healthier Ontario families. Twenty five municipalities, covering about 30 per cent of the province, have already introduced local bans or restrictions on the cosmetic use of pesticides, those typically used on lawns and landscapes. Just as the Ontario Liberals replaced a patchwork of local bylaws when they banned smoking provincewide, this new pesticide and herbicide ban would create a single, comprehensive law for all Ontario communities. "There is growing concern about the potential harmful effects of these products on human health," Mr. McGuinty said. "When there is such widespread concern, why would we take a chance with our health, and our children's health, just for the sake of a few dandelions, or a bit of crabgrass?"

The Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario College of Family Physicians, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario and the Ontario Public Health Association have all expressed concerns about the cosmetic use of pesticides and the potential to cause harm.

The Premier met with Dr. Trish Van Boekel and Dr. Kristen Blaine in Stratford, Ontario. They started a petition among physicians calling for a ban on pesticides in parks and on lawns and gardens here in Stratford. "I wanted to bring these physicians and Dalton together because they share a concern for families' health, and especially children's health," John Wilkinson, Liberal candidate for Perth-Wellington, said.

"A provincewide ban is an important step that makes a lot of sense," Mr. Wilkinson said. "Just as Ontario Liberals successfully banned smoking in public places in Ontario, we'll also protect Ontario families by banning these chemicals in each and every community."

The ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides will focus on towns and cities. Farmers and managed forests will be exempt as they are already governed by strict rules for pesticide use.

"We are committed to public health, protecting our shared environment and protecting the public interest," Mr. McGuinty said.

"Our campaign is about positive ideas that will help families, and this ban is one of them."

See Backgrounder.

For more information: Ontario Liberal Party Media Relations, 416 961-3800 Ext. 386

Members of Congress Push EPA To Act on Endocrine Disruptors

(Beyond Pesticides, September 24, 2007) Seven representatives wrote to the EPA last Thursday, urging the government agency to act promptly to identify and screen products for dangerous endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The letter asks EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to provide definite deadlines in the testing and control of endocrine disruptors, which are substances that interfere with the normal functioning of the endocrine system, responsible for hormonal and developmental processes. EPA's regulation of these substances that mimic or alter natural hormonal processes has been slow and lacks direction to meet set goals promptly, according to the U.S. Representatives. "To date, EPA's efforts in this area have been characterized by missed deadlines, prolonged delays, and inadequate incorporation of public input," according to the letter from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California). Ranking Minority Member on the Committee Tom Davis (R-Virginia); Representatives Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland), and Jim Moran (D-Virginia); and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) also signed the letter to EPA.

Advocates say that EPA's lack of urgency on endocrine disruptors leaves the American population and future generations at risk for adverse health effects from exposure to these substances through food and drinking water. Dioxins, PCBs, and DDT are notable chemicals known to be endocrine disruptors, but "[m]any other chemicals, particularly those used in pesticides and plastics, are suspected endocrine disruptors based on limited animal studies," according to the Committee's letter.

The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) set a 1999 deadline for EPA to develop a battery of assays with which pesticide manufacturers will be required to screen their products as possible endocrine disruptors, similar to tests required to determine whether chemicals cause cancer, birth defects, genetic mutations, or other problems. The manufacturers' rapid-result tests are the first part of a two-tier testing system, after which chemicals flagged by the "Tier 1" tests will then undergo more intensive "Tier 2" tests to confirm that they are endocrine disruptors, determine how they interfere with the endocrine system, and identify the dose levels that may trigger such effects. Yet the Representatives say that EPA has not completed a single step of this multi-stage process to date.

More than 10 years after being directed to do so by Congress, the EPA announced this June that it will test 73 pesticides for their potential to damage the endocrine system and disrupt the normal functioning of hormones in the body. "This initial list of 73 chemicals is only a small fraction of the universe of 1,700 chemicals that the agency has identified for screening under the FQPA mandate, and a minute percentage of the 75,000 chemicals currently listed on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. EPA apparently has no internal deadline for identifying subsequent sets of chemicals for testing, and no plan whatsoever for ensuring that all chemicals of potential concern will be tested," according to the Committee's September letter. The congress members gave EPA twenty working days to respond to the letter, which includes questions as to when certain steps will be completed. Source: OMB Watch

The Perfect Time for Lawn Care Is Now

(Beyond Pesticides, September 21, 2007) As temperatures drop and the leaves start to fall, it is quickly becoming the perfect season for organic lawn care. Whether you want to transition a chemically-maintained lawn or keep your organic turf looking healthy, the work you do now will pay off next spring. From television networks to national newspapers to lawn care companies, making residential lawns ready for winter is the topic du jour, and for good reason: the healthy soil you promote this fall will better support healthy and weed-resistant grass in the future. As David Miller, owner of Nature's Way Pest Control in Florida, said, "It's all about soil health and you shouldn't treat your soil like dirt. Test your soil. Knowing what balance of nutrients exists will help you plan what to apply, and when, to your lawn.

Aerate your lawn. Soil compaction fosters weed growth and makes it harder for fertilizers and water to penetrate to your lawn's roots. Aerators can be rented; once microorganisms return to your soil, they will help aerate it for you.
Fertilize moderately - and according to what a soil test says you need. Look for slow-release fertilizers that do not overload your soil, altering the pH and running off into nearby waterways. Leaving grass clippings on your lawn after mowing is an easy way to supply 58% of the nitrogen added by fertilizers.
Add organic matter. Compost and compost tea can be added after aeration, by spreading a quarter-inch layer over your lawn. They suppress pathogens and feed your lawn.
Overseed your lawn. Choose a native and pest-resistant type of seed (free from pesticides) that will offer the best ability to thrive in your area.

Lawn care trends are starting to move this way. According to the National Gardening Association, the number of people caring for all-organic lawns is expected to double in the next five years, and the sale of organic products is rising 27 percent each year. It is a trend with resources growing steadily, making it easier to convert.

As Murray Goff, a customer of Mr. Miller, said, "I have a daughter and a granddaughter. They can walk out on my lawn. I don't have to worry about it. None of those things. It's all organic and it makes so much sense." Mr. Miller concurred. "We simply can't keep polluting our earth. What I'm trying to do is a first step in one small way." Todd Harrington, another business owner, agreed, "With chemicals, you're not really doing anything beneficial; you're polluting and you're taking risks. With organics, you're creating a sustainable environment."

If you would like to convert your lawn to organic but are unable to maintain it completely, check Beyond Pesticides Safety Source for Pest Management for lawn care providers in your area.

Sources: Washington Post, Greenwich Time, First Coast News, The Philadelphia Enquirer, HeraldNet

Turf Wars: Organic Advocates Strive To Mow Down Chemicals

By Adrian HigginsWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 20, 2007;

For half a century or more, we have used synthetic chemicals to feed and medicate that universal icon of the American home, the lawn.

But in nurturing our own environments, many believe we damaged the broader world by relying on fertilizers and pesticides.

America's lawns receive 90 million pounds of herbicide each year, according to the environmental group Beyond Pesticides.

Paul Tukey, who ran a lawn-care business in the early 1990s, said he developed nosebleeds and shortness of breath after a spring of applying fertilizer and herbicides to his customers' lawns in Maine. This guided him to a path of organic gardening, and he has become, as an author and host of a gardening show on cable TV, a high-profile advocate for organic lawn care.

In this season of lawn repair, Tukey wants people to throw away the chemicals and switch to organic methods of establishing and maintaining turf grass. Not that he's alone.

Three years ago, the National Gardening Association polled consumers on their use of chemicals in gardening and found that although only 5 percent said they used strictly organic fertilizers and pesticides, 13 percent said they probably would go organic, according to Bruce Butterfield, the association's research director. About 35 percent used both organic and nonorganic products, he said. He plans to revisit the topic next year and expects to see at least a doubling of organic-only gardeners.

Meanwhile, organic products have become mainstream, with widespread retail distribution of such things as liquid seaweed and fish emulsion, and granular feeds made from livestock manure, poultry feathers and alfalfa meal. Even Scotts Miracle-Gro, which grew into a huge corporation selling bags of chemical fertilizers and herbicides, has moved into the organic arena. Among its many organic products is a new lawn feed, Scotts Organic Choice Lawn Food, made from feather meal and other animal byproducts.

Tukey, in his book "The Organic Lawn Care Manual" (Storey, $19.95), says that traditionally maintained lawns are chemically dependent, that it takes three years to transition to a sustaining organic turf and that the first step is changing the way we think about grass.

The organic farmer's mantra of feeding the soil, not the plant, applies to turf as well. Tukey and other critics of chemical lawn care contend that synthetic fertilizers, fungicides and insecticides damage soil structure and suppress the teeming microbial life in the soil. As a result, the thatch level at the crown of each grass clump builds up to such a level that moisture and nutrients are blocked and root development is diminished. The thatch layer becomes a breeding ground for insect pests.

He recommends rebuilding the soil life by top-dressing the lawn with screened compost and giving four yearly applications of compost tea, an organic brew made by placing organic solids and sugars in a mesh bag, immersing the bag in a large covered bucket and aerating it for a day.

Many of the steps in the manual are sound practices that are recommended whether or not you go organic:

* Get a soil test so you know how much feeding and liming is needed.

* Dethatch and aerate the lawn (see sidebar).

* Top-dress with compost and over-seed with the best grass varieties (in our area, generally, turf-type tall fescues developed for the hot, humid climate).

* Observe correct mowing heights (no shorter than 2 1/2 inches) and watering regimens (in summer, that means weekly soakings, not daily sprinkling).

It is in the feeding, weeding and pest killing that the differences introduced by an organic approach are most pronounced.

Feeding

Lawns need feeding to remain thick enough to suppress weeds (and look good). For most of us, that means spreading a granular chemical fertilizer in the spring and fall. Whatever damage these fertilizers do, cumulatively, to the health of the soil, they are made in a process that involves burning large amounts of natural gas.

Natural alternatives include plant-derived nutrients such as alfalfa meal and seaweed, animal byproducts such as feather meal and fish emulsion, minerals such as greensand and rock phosphate, and livestock manures.

In these organic nutrients, the levels of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus are generally lower than in synthetic feeds. Organic fans argue that the natural products release their nutrients over a longer period and that plants growing in microbially rich soil need fewer nutrients. The natural fertilizers cost as much as 50 percent more than the synthetics.

Weeding

In organic treatment, weeds are either hand dug, mowed to prevent annual seeding, or spot-sprayed with organic herbicides. Citrus- and vinegar-based products are available. Household vinegar is not concentrated enough to work well, and some horticulturists also question the effectiveness of the more potent herbicide formulations.

Natural lawn-care companies use corn gluten to inhibit crabgrass seed germination in the spring, but Tukey acknowledges that it is only 65 percent as effective as synthetic pre-emergent herbicides. (A study by the University of Maryland found that corn gluten provided fair crabgrass control where weed pressure was low or moderate but was ineffective in heavily infested lawns.) Corn gluten, however, also acts as a nitrogen fertilizer.

For spot weeding, gardeners can get a propane-fueled flamer that vaporizes the offending plant. Tukey recommends one with an ignition switch because "I've scorched the hairs on my hand more than once by lighting a flamer with matches."

Pesticides

Burrowing white grubs of various beetle species, especially the Japanese beetle, can destroy turf by eating grass roots. One common systemic pesticide, imidacloprid, is highly toxic to honeybees. Organic controls include beneficial nematodes, tiny eel worms that eat the grubs, or milky spore, which is a bacterium that attacks the grubs. Tukey says other turf-destroying insects can be managed with nematodes and insecticidal soap and by dethatching.

Rich Martinez, chief environmental officer with Scotts Miracle-Gro, said the company makes organic lawn-care products and its lawn-care division provides organic services because consumers want the choice. As for the environmental benefits of organics, "we believe most of that is perception," he said.

David Clement, a home landscape expert with the University of Maryland, is skeptical of the claims of organic turf-grass advocates.

"Organic lawn care is fine, and you can do that, but when you have problems, very few of the organic solutions are as effective," he said. Following basic lawn-care practices such as mowing at the right height and over-seeding with superior varieties of grass seed will make most of the chemical tools unnecessary, he said.

"It's like any good gardening: If you do the right cultural things at the right time, you don't have a lot of problems," Clement said.

"I'm not sold that organic would be that much better than the regular regime," he said. "I know there are a lot of people who feel otherwise. It almost comes down to your belief values."

Todd Harrington, who runs an organic lawn-care company in Windsor, Conn., is among those who feel otherwise. "With chemicals, you're not really doing anything beneficial; you're polluting and you're taking risks," he said. "With organics, you're creating a sustainable environment."

Pesticides can 'double' the risk of asthma.

Exposure to pesticidal chemical sprays doubles the risk of developing asthma, researchers have found.
Daily Mail, United Kingdom. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=482212&in_page_id=1774
Pesticides can 'double' the risk of asthma By DAVID DERBYSHIRE - Daily Mail, England 17th September 2007

Exposure to pesticidal chemical sprays doubles the risk of developing asthma, researchers have found.

In the first study of its kind, scientists discovered adults who come into contact with pesticides are at a higher risk of developing respiratory problems. The findings will further heighten concerns about the impact of chemical sprays on food and the proximity of schools and homes to farms where they are used.

Danger: Chemical sprays could cause breathing problems in adults

Last week, an official report showed 2 per cent of food sold in Britain contains illegal levels of chemical pesticides. Traces were also found in a third of fruit, vegetables, milk and meat. Five million Britons suffer from asthma and the number is growing. The condition afflicts nearly a million children, around one in ten.

Past studies have linked asthma to second-hand tobacco smoke, poor diet and obesity. Traffic fumes and smoke have also been shown to worsen symptoms.

The study of 20,000 American farmers was presented yesterday at the European Respiratory Society's annual congress in Stockholm.

It found farmers who used the most pesticides were at the highest risk, even after their age, weight and smoking history were taken into account.

During the study, 452 farmers aged 30 and over developed asthma. Farmers in Iowa and North Carolina, who used around 16 chemical sprays, were found to be most at risk.

Although some of the sprays being used at the time have been withdrawn on U.S. and British farms, others - including the fungicide captan and the insecticide lindane - are still sprayed on crops.

Exposure to the pesticide coumaphos doubled the risk of a farmer suffering from asthma, the study added.

A spokesman for the researchers said: "The possible scope of the link between pesticides and adult-onset asthma raises a problem of broader interest, given the considerable quantities of pesticides used in the domestic and urban environments.

"Their impact on a population which, while less exposed, has a greater risk of allergies and a higher prevalence of asthma, remains to be determined."

Dr Noemi Eiser, of the British Lung Foundation, said: "Understanding what triggers someone's asthma attack can be immensely helpful when it comes to managing the condition.

"But it also emphasises how important it is for farmers to get themselves checked out and, if they have asthma, to always carry any necessary medication with them."

Lord Melchett, of the Soil Association, said: "There is something very rotten with the state of pesticide safety regulation.

"The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recently criticised the regulators for overstating the certainty of safety and ignoring the wide variety of scientific views."

New WHO Report Focuses on Children's Susceptibility to Chemicals

(Beyond Pesticides, August 8, 2007) For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report in July on children's heightened vulnerability to chemical exposures at different periods of their growth and development. The organization cites over 30% of the global burden of disease in children can be attributed to environmental factors, including pesticides.

The report, Principles for Evaluating Health Risks in Children Associated with Exposure to Chemicals, is a new volume of the WHO's Environmental Health Criteria series. It highlights the fact that for children, the stage of their development when chemical exposure occurs may be just as important as the magnitude of the exposure. In respect to pesticides, the report cites several studies that tie pesticide exposure during key periods of development to neurobehavioral problems, Parkinson's disease, and immunotoxicity, including respiratory diseases.

"Children are not just small adults," said Dr. Terri Damstra, Ph.D., WHO's team leader for the Interregional Research Unit, in WHO's press release. "Children are especially vulnerable and respond differently from adults when exposed to environmental factors, and this response may differ according to the different periods of development they are going through."

Air and water contaminants, pesticides in food, lead in soil, as well many other environmental threats may cause or worsen disease and induce developmental problems. The report notes that children have different susceptibilities during different life stages, referred to as "critical windows for exposure" or "critical windows of development," due to their dynamic growth and developmental processes, as well as physiological, metabolic, and behavioral differences. Exposure can occur:

In utero through transplacental transfer of environmental agents from mother to fetus or in nursing infants via breast milk.

Through diet - children consume more food and beverages per kilogram of body weight than do adults, and their dietary patterns are different and often less variable during different developmental stages.

Through inhalation and absorption - children have a higher inhalation rate and a higher body surface area to body weight ratio, which may lead to increased exposures.

Through behavior - children 's normal behaviors, such as crawling on the ground and putting their hands in their mouths, can result in exposures not faced by adults.

Other physical factors - children's metabolic pathways may differ from those of adults, and children have more years of future life and thus more time to develop chronic diseases that take decades to appear and that may be triggered by early environmental exposures.

Also, children are often unaware of environmental risks and generally have no voice in decision-making.

Some examples of health effects resulting from developmental exposures prenatally and at birth include miscarriage, still birth, low birth weight and birth defects; in young children, infant mortality, asthma, neurobehavioral and immune impairment; and in adolescents, precocious or delayed puberty. Evidence also suggests that an increased risk of certain diseases in adults such as cancer, chronic respiratory disease and heart disease can result in part from exposures to certain environmental chemicals during childhood.

Traditional risk assessment approaches and environmental health policies have focused mainly on adults and adult exposure scenarios, utilizing data from adult humans or adult animals. The report highlights there is a need to expand risk assessment paradigms to evaluate exposures relevant to children from preconception to adolescence, acknowledging each developmental stage.

The study, while pointing out risk assessment is flawed and encouraging new and improved research, also states "A lack of full proof for causal associations should not prevent efforts to reduce exposures or implement intervention and prevention strategies."

Real world exposure is indeed complicated and makes it difficult to conclusively draw causal associations, especially taking into account synergistic effects, etc., leaving a clear and vital need to exercise the precautionary principle. The easiest and safest solution regardless of risk assessment methods is to avoid chemical use and exposure by using alternative, non- and least-toxic management methods for species that can cause economic and health problems, being more tolerant of species that are solely a nuisance or aesthetically displeasing, and using organic products, especially foods.

PREADOLESCENTS EXPOSED TO DDT MORE LIKELYTO DEVELOP BREAST CANCER

Beyond Pesticides, August 7, 2007) In a study that examines the influence of age of exposure on the magnitude of the association between DDT and breast cancer risk finds that women who were exposed to DDT before the age of 14 are five times more likely to develop breast cancer later in life. In contrast, the study finds exposure after adolescence does not increase risk.

The data used in the study targets the age of a woman in 1945 as an indicator for the youngest possible age for a woman to be exposed to DDT, since DDT was first introduced to the U.S. for mosquito control in 1945. The researchers, from the Center for Research on Women's and Children's Health, Public Health Institute at Berkeley, California and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, analyzed blood that had been collected from women between 1959 and 1967 - years during which the use of DDT was at its highest.

"DDT and breast cancer in young women: New data on the significance of age at exposure," published last week in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, is "the first study specifically designed, a priori, to consider whether age at exposure may modify DDT effects on breast cancer."

The health records for the women studied were collected from the California Cancer Registry and the California Vital Status Records. The researchers identified those who were diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50, or those who had died because of breast cancer before age 50. Of the women whose blood was stored, 129 cases were used to measure three forms of DDT: p,p'-DDT, o,p'-DDT, and p,p'-DDE. These cases were divided into groups based on what their age would have been in 1945 and included groups younger than 4 years old, 4-7 years, 8-13 years and >13 years old, and paired them with control groups.

After analysis, DDT was found to be present in all subjects. However, for those that developed breast cancer, DDT was at much higher levels than for those who did not. Those younger than 14 in 1945 with the highest levels of exposure were 5.4 times more likely to have breast cancer. In contrast, there was no relationship between exposure level and breast cancer for women who were 14 years and older in 1945. The researchers also found that those exposed at the youngest age had the highest risk for developing breast cancer.

These findings add to the growing number of studies that show exposure to chemicals that are hormonally active can lead to diseases such as cancer.

The recurring message is that exposure to these chemicals at critical periods in the body's development, in this case pre-adolescent breast development, has long terms effects that manifest as adult onset of disease, such as cancer, later in life. Also important to note is that women who would have been exposed to DDT during the 1950s and 1960s have not yet reached the age of 50 - the age of greatest breast cancer risk is around age 60. This means that the significance of these findings may be larger.

According to Barbara Brenner, executive director of San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action, "We have to start paying very close attention to what we put in our environment. This is an example of doing something to our environment where we did not understand the long-term consequences. I don't know how many times this story has to be told."

However, the study does not account for other known risk factors that may have predisposed the women toward cancer. Researchers also don't know when the women were exposed to DDT. Co-author of the study Dr. Mary Wolff, Ph.D., a professor of oncology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine remarked, "I don't think it's just early life exposures. Most cancers are an accumulation of a lot of factors."

Their conclusion is carefully worded: "It is too soon to decide that DDT exposure has little public health significance for breast cancer risk. We based this conclusion on 1) the long latency of possible effects on breast cancer, 2) the large numbers of women exposed world-wide, and 3) the evidence that we provide here which suggests that women exposed when young may be most strongly affected."

They also note "the public health significance of DDT exposure is potentially large."

This is important because the costs and benefits of DDT in respect to public health are still being weighed. DDT, or dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane, while highly persistent in the environment, was initially found to be effective against mosquitoes and the diseases they carry such as malaria. However, insect resistance to the chemical has been documented since 1946, DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972 after it was linked to the decline of the bald eagle and other raptors, and it continues to be linked to health problems. The benefits of the use of DDT for mosquito control are still debated, especially in developing nations that are plagued with high infection rates of malaria. Some countries are continuing to use DDT to prevent malaria, while others insist that the health and environmental risks are too great citing alternatives and an international agreement to phase-out the remaining uses of the persistent chemical.

Sources: Environmental Health News, The Oakland Tribune

Study: Early life exposures impact breast cancer risk decades later

By Douglas Fischer, Staff writer
08/01/2007

Susan Lydon, a Bay Area author and journalist, never forgot the DDT fog trucks that rumbled through the Long Island, New York, neighborhood where she grew up.

She was her block's fastest kid. The mist was cool. The trucks slow. Her speed allowed her to stay longer than any other pals in that comforting, pesticide-laced mist the sprayers left in their wake.

Lydon died of breast cancer at age 61 in 2005, going to her deathbed certain those carefree runs decades ago sealed her fate.

Her concern, it appears now, was justified.

A breakthrough study of Oakland women suggests exposure early in life to DDT significantly increases a woman's chances of developing breast cancer decades later, according to a new study published last week in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The findings bolster the controversial notion that exposure to low doses of hormonally active compounds at critical developmental stages in this case, as the breast is developing load the gun, so to speak, priming the body to develop cancer years later.

It also makes clear the final chapter of DDT's legacy is not yet written. The young girls most heavily exposed to the pesticide women born in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when use of the pesticide peaked in the United States have not yet reached age 50, let alone the age of greatest breast cancer risk, typically sometime after menopause and around age 60.

The findings further suggest society is destined to relearn the lesson of DDT many times over. Myriad synthetic chemicals in our environment today interact with our bodies, with unknown consequences. Government regulators have little power to take precautionary action against compounds that appear problematic.

Reports like this, said Barbara Brenner, executive director of San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action, show the fallacy of that approach.

"We have to start paying very close attention to what we put in our environment," she said. "This is an example of doing something to our environment where we did not understand the long-term consequences. I don't know how many times this story has to be told."

The study probed a unique database of some 15,000 Kaiser Permanente Health Plan members who participated in a longitudinal study tracking their health over decades.

Researchers with the Berkeley-based Public Health Institute selected 129 women within that study who developed breast cancer before age 50, then analyzed their archived blood samples taken between 1959 and 1967, while they were much younger.

Every sample from a woman with cancer was matched as a control with a sample from a woman of the same age without cancer.

Researchers found women who developed cancer later in life had far higher concentrations of DDT in their blood as youths.

More significantly, women who were 14 years old or older in 1945, when DDT first hit the market, saw no increased breast cancer rates, suggesting exposure while the breast is developing is critical.

The study has its limits. Researchers don't know about other known risk factors that may have predisposed the women toward cancer. They don't know when the women were exposed to DDT. And the study size is small.

For those who, like Lydon, have memories of chasing DDT sprayers as a child, researchers involved in the study preached caution against drawing any firm conclusions.

"I don't think it's just early life exposures," said Mary Wolff, a professor of oncology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a report co-author. "Most cancers are an accumulation of a lot of factors."

Even among women most at risk those with the so-called "breast cancer gene" 30 percent live to age 70 and beyond without cancer, for reasons unknown, Wolff said. "It's a complex disease even when we know one of the biggest risk factors.

DDT, or dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane, was banned in the United States in 1972 amid concerns it was concentrating in the food chain and killing off bald eagles and other raptors.

But the report goes far beyond the pesticide. It indicts widely held ideas and common practices concerning minute amounts of chemicals ubiquitous in our environment.

"The work that needs to be done to identify whether there are environmental risk factors (with any particular compound) is very complicated," said Barbara Cohn, a senior researcher at the Health Institute and the report's lead author. "But it's very important. We need to look deeply at that."

The report suggests, for instance, that society is heading down the same path with atrazine, one of the world's most widely applied pesticides, said Breast Cancer Action's Brenner.

The most cutting-edge drugs in the fight against breast cancer are known as aromatase inhibitors. Post-menopausal women only produce estrogen in their adrenal glands, using the enzyme aromatase to convert the glands' androgen hormones to estrogen. Because estrogen stimulates some breast cancers, doctors attempt to curb cancer growth by blocking the body's production of aromatase.

Atrazine is an aromatase stimulator.

Despite this and other concerns about the pesticide's impact on wildlife, federal regulators say the science is too inconclusive to curb its use.

"We start using chemicals as if the only thing they're going to affect is the plant," Brenner said. "We have to start doing business a different way."

Equally worrisome, the authors say, is that many of the women most heavily exposed to DDT have not yet reached age 50. DDT production peaked in the United States in 1965, and while most studies to date have concluded such exposure wasn't meaningful, this new evidence suggests those assurances may be premature.

The most strongly affected women those exposed when young are just now reaching age 50.

Said Cohn: "It's a caution that maybe there might be other types of evidence that need to be considered before that conclusion can be reached."

Contact Douglas Fischer at dfischer@angnewspapers.com or at (510) 208-6425.

Pesticide link to autism suspected

A state study suggests two farm sprays may raise chances of having a child with the disorder.
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2007

Women who live near California farm fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides may be more likely to give birth to children with autism, according to a study by state health officials to be published today.

The rate of autism among the children of 29 women who lived near the fields was extremely high, suggesting that exposure to the insecticides in the womb might have played a role. The study is the first to report a link between pesticides and the neurological disorder, which affects one in every 150 children.

But the state scientists cautioned that their finding is highly preliminary because of the small number of women and children involved and lack of evidence from other studies.

"We want to emphasize that this is exploratory research," said Dr. Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health. "We have found very preliminary data that there may be an association. We are in no way concluding that there is a causal relationship between pesticide exposure of pregnant women and autism."

The two pesticides implicated are older-generation compounds developed in the 1950s and used to kill mites, primarily on cotton as well as some vegetables and other crops. Their volumes have declined substantially in recent years.

Examining three years of birth records and pesticide data, scientists from the Public Health Department determined that the Central Valley women lived within 500 meters, or 547 yards, of fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides during their first trimester of pregnancy. Eight of them, or 28%, had children with autism. Their rate of autism was six times greater than for mothers who did not live near the fields, the study said.

Susan Kegley, senior scientist of Pesticide Action Network North America, a San Francisco-based advocacy group, said the report adds to an existing body of evidence that endosulfan and dicofol, already banned in some countries, are harmful.

"This is one of the first papers that links use of pesticide to incidence of a disease, and autism in particular," she said. "The findings are very strong. This is a sixfold risk factor in comparison to someone who is not exposed. There aren't too many studies that come out like that."

Even though small numbers of children were involved, "it is still one of those things that make you sit up and pay attention," she said.

The findings suggest that 7% of autism cases in the Central Valley during the years studied ‹ 1996 through 1998 ‹ might have been connected to exposure to the insecticides drifting off fields into residential areas. Births during those years were analyzed because children born later might not yet be diagnosed with autism.

Children with autism spectrum disorders have impaired social and communication skills. The causes are unknown, but because diagnoses have been increasing, scientists have been exploring various environmental factors, including children's vaccines and chemical pollutants.

"The good news is we've used a new research technology to generate hypotheses and possible associations, so we are making progress in the battle to get more information" about the cause of autism, Horton said.

The goal of the study was to "systematically explore the general hypothesis that residential proximity to agricultural pesticide applications during pregnancy could be associated with autism spectrum disorders in offspring," the authors wrote in their study, published online today in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The scientists collected records of nearly 300,000 children born in the 19 counties of the Sacramento and San Joaquin river valleys. Of those children, 465 had autism. The scientists then compared the addresses during pregnancy to state records that detailed the location of fields sprayed with several hundred pesticides.

For most pesticides, no unusual numbers of autism cases were found, but the exception was a class of compounds called organochlorines. Most, including DDT, were banned in the United States several decades ago because they were building up in the environment. Only dicofol and endosulfan remain.

The autism rate was highest for children of those mothers who lived the closest to the fields and it declined as the distance from the fields increased.

There is no other human or animal evidence that the two chemicals can cause autism. But both affect nerves and the brain ‹ and cause reproductive effects and alter hormones in animal tests. In addition, dicofol is a possible human carcinogen.

The scientists concluded that "the possibility of a connection between gestational exposure to organochlorine pesticides and autism spectrum disorders requires further study."

A July report by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation said endosulfan can spread far from fields via the air and expose the public, based on air monitoring in Fresno, Monterey and Tulare counties. The agency is likely to designate endosulfan as a toxic air contaminant soon, and dicofol could follow. That designation triggers a review by the agency to see whether steps should be taken to minimize the chemicals drifting off fields into nearby communities.

Glenn Brank, spokesman for the pesticide agency, said officials there are "very interested" in the new autism data but say that "more work" on the potential link is needed before it can carry much weight in assessments of the chemicals' risks.

The two insecticides are now used much less often than in the years in which the possible connection to autism was found. As a result, there is less likelihood that pregnant women are exposed today. Nearly 774,000 pounds were applied in 1996, compared with 277,000 pounds in 2005, down nearly 64%, according to state records.

"In the past couple years, the bottom has dropped out of these two," Brank said.

Insects have built up resistance and cotton farmers have switched to new compounds.

The two chemicals are not found in household or yard pesticides. Traces are found in food, but the study looked only at possible exposure from the air. The chemicals are used most extensively in Fresno, Kings, Imperial and Tulare counties. Dicofol is mostly used on cotton, oranges, beans and walnuts. Endosulfan is used primarily in tomato processing and on lettuce, alfalfa and cotton crops.

Widespread Toxic Chemical Use Allowed by States on Public Property

State laws regulating pest management allow broad dependency on toxic pesticides, while four states call for pesticide reduction and alternatives

StateIPMReport Washington, DC, July 25, 2007 - With increasing public concern about the use of toxic and polluting pesticides because of adverse impacts on people and the environment, a national study finds that states are lagging behind on "green" standards for managing their state lands and buildings. The report, Ending Toxic Dependency: The State of IPM, to be published in the Summer issue of Pesticides and You, finds that statewide integrated pest management (IPM) laws do not exist in 40 states and the District of Columbia, and existing laws in only 10 states are limited and mostly inadequate.

Only four states call for pesticide reduction and alternatives that do not rely on toxic chemicals in their IPM law. Six of the 10 states adopt the definition most promoted by the chemical and pest control industry ¿ a combination of methods without priority being given to non-chemical practices and absent toxic reduction or elimination goals and least-toxic chemicals.

"While people are increasingly concerned about pollution, global warming, and fossil fuel use, state legislatures have a responsibility to ensure that pest management practices on state property are environmentally sound," said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, and co-author of the report. "The toxic and petroleum-based pesticides are not needed and it's wrong for states to do nothing or fall short of their responsibility to health and the environment," Mr. Feldman said. The report cites 195 million acres of state land that would be affected by statewide laws requiring environmentally sound pest management practices.

In the report, Beyond Pesticides, a Washington, DC-based national clearinghouse and advocacy organization focused on pesticide hazards and alternatives, evaluates the states' definition of IPM and essential components that it says are key to effective programs that trade toxic pesticides for sound public health and environmental practices. For buildings, these include sanitation, structural repairs, moisture control, maintenance, and biological controls. Outdoors, practices include planting proper plant varieties, soil health and natural fertilization.

Local governments across the country in 17 states have adopted ordinances that phase-out toxic pesticides on public property. Forty-one states prohibit towns and cities in their state from restricting pesticide use on private land.

Organic Farming Shown To Keep Pace With Conventional Methods

(Beyond Pesticides, July 24, 2007) After a three-year study of worldwide organic versus conventional farm yields, researchers have found that organic farming can produce as much as, and even exceed the crop and animal yields of conventional farming. These findings dispute the myth that organic methods are less productive.

University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment professor Ivette Perfecto, Ph.D., and Catherine Badgley, Ph.D., research scientist with the University's Museum of Paleontology, conducted the study. Their findings are derived from a database of information from farms in both developed and developing nations. The full study, "Organic agriculture and the global food supply" is published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (formerly known as American Journal of Alternative Agriculture), Vol. 22, Issue 2.

Among the findings are that (1) in developed countries, organic and conventional farms recorded similar yields, (2) yields can be doubled or tripled in developing countries using organic methods, and (3) organic fertilizers can be used to attain such yields, even without putting more farmland into production.

Their research shows that for organic corn, yields range from 84 percent to 130 percent of conventionally grown corn. "It even surprised us," Dr. Badgley said, "We expected we might find that it might be oh, 80 percent or something simply because that's the number that has been cited in the past."

This study is not the only analysis that shows organic farming can be competitive with conventional methods. Other findings have reported that comparable yields can be obtained with organic farming while using 30 percent less energy, conserving water and without pesticides.

However, some have disputed these findings. Mike Score, who has worked several years with African farmers, and is a Washtenaw County agricultural agent for Michigan State University Extension, said that these reports do not reflect his experience. Mr. Score said, "The farmers I have worked with have not been able to equal yields (with organic methods) in all cases." He also added that other factors, such as labor and fuel costs, need to be taken into consideration.

Organic farming conserves natural resources by recycling natural materials and it encourages an abundance of species living in balanced, harmonious ecosystems. Organic farmers are required by the National Organic Standards to minimize soil erosion; implement crop rotations; provide for the humane, general welfare and health of farm animals and prevent contamination of crops, soil, or water by plant and animal nutrients, pathogenic organisms, heavy metals, or residues of prohibited substances. Even though the popularity of organic produce has grown tremendously in recent years, farmers in the US are not nearly keeping pace with consumer demand for organic products, estimated to be growing by 20 percent a year. Organic growers face an uphill battle against the conventional growers that get the lion's share of appropriations from the Farm Bill.

Source: The Ann Arbor News

Climate Change and Pesticides Hot Issue for Fish

(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2007) New research finds several species of freshwater fish have lower temperature tolerances when exposed to the widely used pesticides endosulfan and chlorpyrifos. The discovery reveals another key pesticides issue in the global warming debate.

The study, "The Effects of Three Organic Chemicals on the Upper Thermal Tolerances of Four Freshwater Fishes" (Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, July 2007), is the work of Ronald Patra of Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation and colleagues. The study establishes the upper temperature tolerances of both unexposed and exposed silver perch, eastern rainbowfish, western carp gudgeon and rainbow trout. Exposed fish were given sublethal doses of endosulfan, chlorpyrifos or phenol.

The results show exposure to endosulfan cause a decrease of temperature tolerance in silver perch by 2.8°C, eastern rainbowfish 4.1°C, western carp gudgeon 3.1°C, and rainbow trout 4.8°C. Chlorpyrifos decreases temperature tolerance in silver perch by 3.8°C, eastern rainbowfish 2.5°C, western carp gudgeon 4.3°C, and rainbow trout 5.9°C. Phenol is not shown to cause a significant decrease in tolerance.

The authors conclude, "The reduction in thermal tolerance of fish in the presence of endosulfan and chlorpyrifos suggest that, not only does temperature influence the sensitivity of fish to a toxic chemical, but chemical exposure also affects the temperature tolerance of fishes."

The additive stress on species from exposure to pesticides and other toxics in combination with rising global temperatures reiterates that reducing pesticide use in favor of non-toxic alternatives remains an important action that protects and improves environmental and human health.

European Union Bans the Herbicide Paraquat

Beyond Pesticides, July 13, 2007) A European Union (EU) court banned the toxic weedkiller paraquat Wednesday, accepting arguments from the Swedish government that it does not meet EU health standards. Paraquat is the main ingredient in Swiss-based Syngenta's Gramoxone - one of the world's three most widely used weedkillers.

Paraquat has been linked to reproductive effects and to Parkinson's disease. Although paraquat had already been banned in 13 countries, including Sweden, Denmark, and Austria, in 2003, the Commission of European Communities (CEC) had issued an order approving the use of paraquat. Sweden challenged this order and the judges, in a previous decision, ruled that the CEC's action showed a "disregard" of proper procedures.

In the new ruling, the Court of First Instance criticizes EU regulators for not checking more carefully whether paraquat could harm humans and animals before authorizing it for sale in 2003. The court said the European Commission - which regulates herbicides and pesticides - was mistaken when it found no signs that the chemical could cause nervous system diseases such as Parkinson's and that regulators failed to review existing studies on paraquat - even though the chemical producers that asked for approval had not mentioned the adverse studies in their application.

The ruling is a victory for Sweden - supported by Denmark, Austria and Finland - which was angered by having to lift some of its strict environmental controls when it joined the EU in 1995 in order to conform with trade rules.

Paraquat, which has been in use for more than 60 years, attacks the green part of a plant, drying the leaves out to kill it without affecting the roots of crops below ground. Among the literature that links paraquat to Parkinson's is an April 2007 study that finds farm workers exposed to paraquat have twice the expected risk of developing Parkinson's. A 2005 study also confirms the link between paraquat and Parkinson's.

Source: Associated Press

TAKE ACTION: Let the Bush Administration know that the United States should follow the EU's lead and ban the toxic herbicide paraquat. Contact EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and send an email to President Bush. Also let your elected members of Congress know how you feel. Contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives.

STUDY FINDS ORGANIC PRODUCE HAS HEALTH BENEFITS

(Beyond Pesticides, July 6, 2007) Organic fruit and vegetables may be better for the heart and general health than eating conventionally grown crops, according to new research from the University of California. A ten-year study comparing organic tomatoes with standard produce found that they have almost double the quantity of disease-fighting antioxidants called flavonoids.

Flavonoids help to prevent high blood pressure and thus reduce the likelihood of heart disease and strokes. They have also been linked with reduced rates of some types of cancer and dementia.

Alyson Mitchell, Ph.D., a food chemist at the University of California, Davis, and colleagues measured the amount of two flavonoids¿quercetin and kaempferol¿in dried tomato samples that had been collected as part of a long-term study on agricultural methods. They found that on average the flavonoids were 79% and 97% higher, respectively, in the organic tomatoes than in the conventionally grown fruit. The study is due to be published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

New Scientist magazine reports that the different levels of flavonoids in tomatoes are probably due to the absence of synthetic fertilizers in organic farming. Flavonoids are produced as a defense mechanism that can be triggered by nutrient deficiency, such as a lack of nitrogen in the soil. The inorganic nitrogen in conventional fertilizer is easily available to plants and so, the researchers suggest, the lower levels of flavonoids may be caused by over-fertilization.

This new study adds to a growing amount of evidence that organic produce may have health benefits over conventionally grown produce. A 2006 study out of the University of Texas found that organically grown fruits and vegetables have higher levels of antioxidants as well as vitamins and minerals than their conventionally grown counterparts. Another University of California at Davis study, also by Dr. Mitchell, published in 2003 found greater nutritional attributes in organically grown food, which the authors believe may result from the lack of insecticides and herbicides used (see Daily News story).

Another 2003 study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, found additional benefits to eating organic by examining levels of metabolites of organophosphate pesticides in children who ate conventional foods compared with children who ate a diet of organic foods. Children with organic diets have significantly lower body burdens of toxic pesticides and their metabolites (see Daily News story).

TAKE ACTION: Eat organic food whenever possible. Look for the USDA Certified Organic Label when buying food for your family, grow your own produce and/or buy from a local farm that discloses their practices.

ORDER OF EXPOSURE CAN MAKE THE POISON

Beyond Pesticides, July 5, 2007) A new study showing that the order of exposure to multiple pesticides may be just as important as the dose, timing and length of exposure adds another dimension to the complex task of risk assessments. Using carbaryl and chlorpyrifos, University of York scientists have observed significant differences in mortality rates of freshwater invertebrates depending on the order of exposure to these frequently used agricultural chemicals.

The study, Modeling Combined Effects of Pulsed Exposure to Carbaryl and Chlorpyrifos on Gammarus Pulex, suggests the sequence of pesticide exposure may be just as important of a variable as the dose, the timing of the dose and the length of exposure when factoring environmental and health endpoints.

The researchers conducted the study by exposing the freshwater invertebrate Gammarus pulex ¿ a tiny shrimp ¿ to pulses of the two insecticides (both of which affect the nervous system through acetylcholinesterase inhibition) mimicking exposure to chemical mixtures in the environment ¿ for example, farmers may apply several different pesticides over the growing season that run off into the aquatic environment. After receiving a pulse of one pesticide, the shrimp were given 14 days, a time period chosen based on previous experiments, to recover and expel the chemical from their systems before exposure to the second pesticide.

When first exposed to carbaryl and then chlorpyrifos two weeks later, mortality rates were observed to be 31% for carbaryl and 21% for chlorpyrifos. When reversed, with chlorpyrifos exposure occurring first, the mortality rates were 12% for chlorpyrifos and 55% for carbaryl. The significant difference in the mortality rates from the carbaryl pulses have led the authors to hypothesize that the shrimp were not able to recover completely from the chlorpyrifos exposure and therefore require greater "damage recovery¿? times.

As reported by Environmental Science & Technology, Jim Lazorchak, an EPA ecotoxicologist, calls the experiment "groundbreaking.¿? The team is "trying to explore modeling to predict realistic exposures,¿? he says, particularly for exposures to nonpoint sources of pesticides. Typical assessment methods don't incorporate timing and order, which are critical in assessing real-world situations, where even more stressors occur, he emphasizes, from changes in water availability and climate to lack of food and habitat loss. "As far as assessing different exposure regimes, few people are getting involved¿? in such complex scenarios, he says, "but that's the direction [eco]toxicology needs to go.¿? He continues, "The order in which you are exposed is just as important as the concentration and duration you were exposed.¿? The question now becomes "why is the order important?¿?

The study renews a central discussion over real world scenarios where mixtures and synergistic effects are common. This is a situation that not only impacts our environment but also our health. For example, several studies conducted by a team of Duke University researchers lead by pharmacologist Mohammed Abou-Donia suggest that DEET in conjunction with permethrin-impregnated clothing may be linked to Gulf War Syndrome. Exposing animals to the same doses of DEET and permethrin have been shown to result in similar effects.

Synergistic effects between multiple pesticides and/or other chemicals represent one of the greatest gaps in EPA's ability to protect the public from the adverse health effects associated with pesticide use and exposure. This current study sheds further light on just how little is understood about exposure to pesticide mixtures and the many variables that can occur.

Source: Environmental Science & Technology

USDA ALLOWS 38 NON-ORGANIC INGREDIENTS IN FOODS LABELLED ORGANIC

(Beyond Pesticides, June 27, 2007) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave interim approval last Friday to a controversial proposal that allows 38 non-organic ingredients to be used in foods carrying the "USDA Organic" seal. The agency also decided to allow an extra 60 days for public comment on the rule. The interim final rule can be viewed here: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Newsroom/FedRegNoticeTM-07-06InterimFinalRule062207.pdf.

Some manufacturers of organic foods are pushing for the change, arguing that the 38 items are minor ingredients in their products and are difficult to find in organic form. But consumers concerned about the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones in food production bombarded USDA with more than 1,000 complaints last month.

"If the label says organic, everything in that food should be organic," wrote Kimberly Wilson of Austin, Texas, in one comment, according to the LA Times. "If they put something in the food that isn¿t organic, they shouldn¿t be able to call it organic. No exception."

Under the 1990 Organic Foods Protection Act, USDA is required to identify which non-organic ingredients are allowed in organic food products. Current organic standards require products labeled "organic" to be made up of at least 95 percent organic ingredients. The remaining five percent can come from the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances, a list comprised of substances that are not otherwise commercially available as organic.

The list approved last week includes 19 food colorings, two starches, hops, sausage casings, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin, celery powder, dill weed oil, frozen lemongrass, Wakame seaweed, Turkish bay leaves and whey protein concentrate. Manufacturers will be allowed to use conventionally grown versions of these ingredients in foods carrying the USDA seal, provided that they cannot find organic equivalents and that non-organics comprise no more than five percent of the product.

A wide range of organic food could be affected, including cereal, sausage, bread, beer, pasta, candy and soup mixes. Under the new rule, Anheuser Busch will be allowed to sell its "Organic Wild Hops Beer" without using any organic hops at all. Additionally, sausages, brats, and breakfast links labeled as "USDA Organic" are now allowed to contain intestines from factory-farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics.

Supporters of the USDA rule change say that by allowing small amounts of non-organic ingredients to be used, more products that are mostly organic can be developed. This encourages the development of organic farming, they say.

Advocates for organic integrity argue that the majority of the 38 proposed ingredients are available organically; loopholes in the rule¿s intended safeguard stem from USDA¿s failure to enforce its own guidelines. USDA has failed to provide its 96 certifying agents with standardized guidelines for determining commercial availability of an ingredient. In a letter to USDA, Pennsylvania Certified Organic wrote, "There is no effective mechanism for identifying a lack of organic ingredients. It is a very challenging task to ¿prove a negative¿ regarding the organic supply." Merrill Clark, of Roseland Organic Farms in Michigan, said, "More than 90 percent of the food/agricultural items on the proposed list of materials in this rule are items that can easily be grown organically."

Organic food sales have more than doubled in the last five years, reaching $16.9 billion in the U.S. last year. The booming market has drawn in big food makers such as General Mills Inc., Kellogg Co. and Kraft Foods Inc. to what was formerly an industry of mostly mom-and-pop farms. Under USDA regulations that define "organic," crops must be grown without chemical fertilizers, sewage sludge, bioengineering or pesticides, while animals must be raised without antibiotics and growth hormones and given access to the outdoors.

USDA first issued its proposal May 15, followed by a seven-day public comment period that many people on both sides of the issue decried as far too short. As a result, USDA announced Friday that it would allow 60 more days for its National Organic Program to collect public comments before issuing its final rule.

USDA has allowed small amounts of conventionally grown ingredients in products carrying its seal since its certification program started in 2002. But two years ago, a judge said the agency was misinterpreting the law and ordered it to tighten its approval system and allow only non-organic ingredients that have been added to its National List before they can be used in products carrying the agency¿s seal. Unless the interim decision is overturned, the 38 ingredients will join five others that were previously approved for the National List: corn starch, water-extracted gums, kelp, unbleached lecithin and pectin.

As Carl Chamberlain, of the Pesticide Education Project, said, "Adding 38 new ingredients is not just a concession by the USDA, it is a major blow to the organic movement in the U.S. because it would erode consumer confidence in organic standards."

TAKE ACTION: Tell USDA what you think about the new rule allowing 38 non-organic ingredients to be included in organic-labeled products. Directions for submitting comments can be found online. Be sure to include Docket Number AMS-TM-07-0062. Or, for a quick way to take action, use the Organic Consumers Association¿s online web form to automatically submit comments to USDA.

Study Finds Pesticide Use Increase Risk of Brain Tumors

Beyond Pesticides, June 6, 2007) The results of a recent study indicate that farm workers and persons exposed to high levels of pesticides have an increased risk of developing brain tumors, especially gliomas - a tumor of the nervous system, commonly found in the brain. The study, "Brain tumours and exposure to pesticides: a case-control study in southwestern France," published online in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, suggests that not only are occupational pesticide exposure risks high, but indoor domestic uses of pesticides also increase the risk of developing brain tumors.

Researchers conducted a population base control study with 221 incident cases of brain tumors and 442 individually matched controls selected from a population in Gironde, France between May 1999 and April 2001.The findings show that farm workers were three times more likely to develop gliomas, while persons treating indoor plants were approximately two and a half times more susceptible. However, the study was unable to identify individual pesticides or families of pesticides associated with this health risk.

These findings add to the mounting evidence linking pesticide exposure to adverse human health effects. Recent studies have linked pesticide exposure to the increased likelihood of developing Parkinson¿s disease. Other health effects include vision problems, cancer, and respiratory difficulties. Earlier this year, conservation groups reopened a lawsuit in federal district court against the Environmental Protection Agency aimed at speeding up the removal of several pesticides that pose serious health risk to farm workers

Common chemicals pose danger for fetuses, scientists warm Exposure to toxic materials in the womb can cause health problems later in life, an international panel declares.

By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2007

In a strongly worded declaration, many of the world's leading environmental scientists warned Thursday that exposure to common chemicals makes babies more likely to develop an array of health problems later in life, including diabetes, attention deficit disorders, prostate cancer, fertility problems, thyroid disorders and even obesity.

The declaration by about 200 scientists from five continents amounts to a vote of confidence in a growing body of evidence that humans are vulnerable to long-term harm from toxic exposures in the womb and during their first years.

Convening in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, toxicologists, pediatricians, epidemiologists and other experts warned that when fetuses and newborns encounter various toxic substances, growth of critical organs and functions can be skewed. In a process called "fetal programming," the children then are susceptible to diseases later in life — and perhaps could even pass on those altered traits to their children and grandchildren.

The scientists' statement also contained a rare international call to action. The effort was led by Dr. Philippe Grandjean of Harvard University and the University of Southern Denmark, and Dr. Pal Weihe of the Faroese Hospital System, who have spent more than 20 years studying children exposed to mercury.

Many governmental agencies and industry groups, particularly in the United States, have said there is no or little human evidence to support concerns about most toxic residue in air, water, food and consumer products. About 80,000 chemicals are registered in the United States.

Yet the scientists urged leaders not to wait for more scientific certainty and recommended that governments revise regulations and procedures to take into account subtle effects on fetal and infant development.

Chemicals with evidence of developmental effects include compounds in plastics, cosmetics and pesticides.

"Given the ubiquitous exposure to many environmental toxicants, there needs to be renewed efforts to prevent harm. Such prevention should not await detailed evidence on individual hazards," the scientists wrote in the four-page statement.

Genetic concerns

The scientists are particularly concerned that the newest animal research suggests that chemicals can alter gene expression — turning on or off genes that predispose people to disease. Although the DNA itself would not be altered, such genetic misfires in the womb may be permanent, and all subsequent generations could be at greater risk of diseases too.

"Toxic exposures to chemical pollutants during these windows of increased susceptibility can cause disease and disability in childhood and across the entire span of human life," the scientists concluded.

The "Barker hypothesis," conceived by a British scientist in 1992, says human fetuses are "programmed" for diseases by their early environment. The scientists concluded that this is now well-documented for toxic exposures by a large collection of animal experiments and some human data.

"A sad aspect with many of these prenatal exposures is that they leave the mother unscathed while causing injury to her fetus," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who chairs the Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Department of Community and Preventive Medicine. He was one of the statement's authors.

In a more optimistic vein, the researchers said that if contaminants do play a big role in human health problems, some diseases could be prevented.

"Reducing exposure would lead to tremendous benefits," said Dr. Bruce Lanphear, director of the Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "We shouldn't wait for an epidemic to fully mature before we develop policies to protect children."

For centuries, the basic rule of toxicology has been "the dose makes the poison." Now, the scientists say "the timing makes the poison" — in other words, when a toxic exposure occurs is as important as the amount people are exposed to.

The fetus "is extraordinarily susceptible to perturbation of the intrauterine environment," they wrote.

The growing brain is the most sensitive. Mothers' exposure to mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in fish and other seafood can cause slight declines in a child's IQ and motor skills. In addition, early exposure to pesticides might trigger Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.

Also, children exposed to lead, organophosphate pesticides or cigarette smoke have greater risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. One of every three cases — or an estimated 560,000 children in the United States — can be attributed to lead exposure or prenatal tobacco smoke exposure, Lanphear reported in a study published in December.

The immune, reproductive and cardiovascular systems also are vulnerable to early damage. Children exposed prenatally to PCBs have a high rate of infections and weak response to vaccinations. Many chemicals also can mimic hormones, and in animal tests, they feminize newborns, lowering sperm counts and promoting prostate, testicular, uterine and breast cancers.

In the newest area of research, metabolic systems, which control how nutrients are converted into energy, have been altered by chemicals administered in animal experiments — changes that may contribute to obesity and diabetes.

Chemical danger

"These adverse effects have been linked to chemical pollutants at realistic human exposure levels similar to those occurring from environmental sources," the scientists wrote.

Among the risky chemicals they named are bisphenol A, found in polycarbonate plastic food and water containers; the pesticides atrazine, vinclozolin and DDT; lead; mercury; phthalates used in some cosmetics and soft plastics; brominated flame retardants; arsenic, which contaminates some water supplies; and PCBs, banned but ubiquitous, particularly in fish.

Some of the chemicals have been regulated in the United States, but many have not. Moreover, the scientists said, tests for developmental effects are not routinely required, so "the potential for such effects is therefore not necessarily considered in decisions on safety levels of environmental exposures."

There is "an incredible gap," Landrigan said, because 80% of major chemicals in commerce have never been tested to see if they damage early development.

The conference was funded by the World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, European Environment Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Denmark's Faroe Islands, just south of the Arctic Circle, were the venue because the region is home to the longest-running human experiment analyzing prenatal toxic exposure. Since 1986, Grandjean and Weihe have tracked Faroese children from the womb to adolescence to monitor neurological effects of mercury in seafood. Their findings prompted U.S. advisories that children and women of childbearing age avoid swordfish and other highly contaminated fish.

In addition to Landrigan, three Californians and six other U.S. scientists served on the 28-member committee that wrote the consensus: Brenda Eskenazi of UC Berkeley, Irva Hertz-Picciotto of UC Davis, Beate Ritz of UCLA, Jerry Heindel and Kimberly Gray of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Larry Needham of the CDC, Terry Huang of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, David Bellinger of Harvard University and Howard Hu of the University of Michigan.

marla.cone@latimes.com

Suspect in bee die-off: Insecticide Widely used bug spray may be behind deaths of millions of bees

Thursday, May 24, 2007
By Amy Ellis Nutt
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE

An insecticide is suspected of causing a ``colony collapse'' disorder that has killed millions of honeybees worldwide and up to half of the 2.5 million colonies in the United States. The chief suspect, say many scientists, is imidacloprid, the most commonly used insecticide on the planet. Honeybees come into contact with pesticides because they are needed to pollinate scores of crops, including apples, cherries, blueberries and other crops in southwestern Michigan. The die-off has been a major concern for farmers and scientists, who have been looking into potential causes, from diseases and parasites to pesticides.

A member of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, imidacloprid is a synthetic derivative of nicotine and works by impairing the central nervous system of insects, causing their neurons to fire uncontrollably and eventually leading to muscle paralysis and death.
The potent chemical can be sprayed on plants or coated on seeds, which then release the insecticide through the plants as they grow.

Research has shown that in sublethal doses imidacloprid and other neonicotinoids can impair honeybees' memory and learning, as well as their motor activity and navigation. Recent studies have reported ``anomalous flying behavior'' in imidacloprid-treated bees, in which the workaholic insects simply fall to the grass or appear unable to fly toward the hive.

Imidacloprid was used on just a few specialty crops when it first came out, but its use has become much more widespread because of its effectiveness against a wide range of pests, said Mark Longstroth, Michigan State University Extension's district educator for fruit in southwestern Michigan.
It is also used by homeowners because ``it's very safe for the mammalian system,'' he said.

Longstroth hasn't reviewed data on how imidacloprid is suspected to affect the honeybees, but he said implicating the chemical as the colony collapse culprit sounds plausible. Launched in 1994 by Bayer AG, the German health-care and chemical company, imidacloprid is sold under various brand names, such as Admire, Advantage, Gaucho, Merit, Premise and Provado.

Common chemicals are linked to breast cancer

Of the 216 compounds, many in the air, food or everyday items.
By Marla Cone
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 14, 2007

More than 200 chemicals ¿ many found in urban air and everyday consumer products ¿ cause breast cancer in animal tests, according to a compilation of scientific reports published today.

Writing in a publication of the American Cancer Society, researchers concluded that reducing exposure to the compounds could prevent many women from developing the disease.

The research team from five institutions analyzed a growing body of evidence linking environmental contaminants to breast cancer, the leading killer of U.S. women in their late 30s to early 50s.

Experts say that family history and genes are responsible for a small percentage of breast cancer cases but that environmental or lifestyle factors such as diet are probably involved in the vast majority.

"Overall, exposure to mammary gland carcinogens is widespread," the researchers wrote in a special supplement to the journal Cancer. "These compounds are widely detected in human tissues and in environments, such as homes, where women spend time."

The scientists said data were too incomplete to estimate how many breast cancer cases might be linked to chemical exposures.

But because the disease is so common and the chemicals so widespread, "the public health impacts of reducing exposures would be profound even if the true relative risks are modest," they wrote. "If even a small percentage is due to preventable environmental factors, modifying these factors would spare thousands of women."

The three reports and a commentary were compiled by researchers from the Silent Spring Institute, a women's environmental health organization in Newton, Mass.; Harvard's Medical School and School of Public Health in Boston; the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.; and USC's Keck School of Medicine. Silent Spring Institute Executive Director Julia Brody led the team.

In response to the findings, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer prevention group that funded the work, pledged an additional $5 million for developing research tools to root out environmental causes.

Reviewing hundreds of existing studies and databases, the team produced what it called "the most comprehensive compilation to date of chemicals identified as mammary carcinogens." No new chemical testing was conducted for the reports.

The researchers named 216 chemicals that induce breast tumors in animals. Of those, people are highly exposed to 97, including industrial solvents, pesticides, dyes, gasoline and diesel exhaust compounds, cosmetics ingredients, hormones, pharmaceuticals, radiation, and a chemical in chlorinated drinking water.

"Almost all of the chemicals were mutagenic, and most caused tumors in multiple organs and species; these characteristics are generally thought to indicate likely carcinogenicity in humans, even at lower exposure levels," they reported.

For many of the compounds, the federal government has not used animal breast cancer data when conducting human risk assessments, which are the first step toward regulating chemicals or in setting occupational standards to protect workers. Companies are not required to screen women who work with the chemicals for breast cancer.

"Regulators have not paid much attention to potential mammary carcinogens," the researchers wrote.

Toxicologists say that other mammals, such as rats and mice, often develop the same tumors as humans do, and that animal tests are efficient means of testing the effects of chemicals. Environmental regulators, however, often want conclusive human data before taking action.

Animal studies generally use high doses of a substance to simulate a lifetime of exposure, and then the results are extrapolated to the lower levels that people are exposed to.

Ana Soto, a Tufts University professor of cell biology who specializes in cellular origins of cancer and effects of hormone-disrupting contaminants, said there probably was a link between breast cancer and exposures to chemicals in the environment, particularly early in life.

"I cannot say I'm convinced, but what I can say is that it's a very likely, very plausible hypothesis," said Soto, who did not participate in the new research. "More and more, cancer looks like an environmental disease."

Twenty-nine of the chemicals are produced in volumes exceeding 1 million pounds annually in the United States.

Seventy-three are present in consumer products or are food contaminants ¿ 1,4-dioxane in shampoos, for example, or acrylamide in French fries. Thirty-five are common air pollutants, 25 are in workplaces where at least 5,000 women are employed, and 10 are food additives, according to the reports.

There are probably many more than 216, the research team said, because only about 1,000 of the 80,000 chemicals registered for use in the United States have been tested on animals to see whether they induce cancerous tumors or mutate DNA. Such tests cost $2 million each.

Because epidemiological studies are difficult to conduct and full of uncertainties, human data are "still relatively sparse," the researchers wrote. Only 152 studies worldwide have examined whether women exposed to contaminants are more likely to have breast cancer ¿ compared with nearly 1,500 that have explored the links between diet and the disease ¿ and most of the 216 carcinogens were not included.

"Despite this large remaining gap, research in the last five years has strengthened the human evidence that environmental pollutants play a role in breast cancer risk," the researchers wrote. They said the existing studies suggested "substantial public health impact."

Human evidence is particularly strong for PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls ¿ compounds widely used in the 1940s to late 1970s that still contaminate fish and other foods ¿ and for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found in diesel and gasoline exhaust.

Solvents in dry cleaning, aircraft maintenance and other jobs also may increase breast cancer risk.

Some of the chemicals named as breast carcinogens already are regulated to protect public health, but some, particularly those in consumer products, are not.

The scientists conducted the review hoping to lay the groundwork for new human studies, as well as to persuade regulators to use existing animal data to strengthen regulations and require more testing of chemicals.

"Animal models are the primary means of understanding and anticipating effects of chemicals in humans," they wrote. "All known human carcinogens ¿ are also carcinogenic in animals."

Emerging evidence suggests that the roots of breast cancer are in infancy or the womb. More animal and human research should focus on such early exposure, said Patricia Hunt, a Washington State University School of Molecular Biosciences professor.

But Hunt and Soto urged society not to wait for scientific proof to reduce exposure to the chemicals.

"When you look at their list of chemicals, we are exposed to all of it," Soto said. "We know humans are exposed to mixtures, and studying mixtures is very difficult. We will never have the whole picture, and it will take many, many years to collect epidemiological evidence, so we should take some preventive measures now."

Although virtually all women are exposed to the chemicals, some may be more susceptible because of differing metabolism or ability to repair DNA.

Breast cancer is probably triggered by an interaction of multiple environmental and genetic factors.

Experts have long suspected diet plays a role. But the new research found "no association that is consistent, strong and statistically significant" for any particular foods raising or reducing breast cancer risk. There is substantial evidence, however, that regularly consuming alcohol, being obese and being sedentary increase risk.

About 178,000 new cases will be diagnosed this year in the United States.

The reports are at http://www.silentspring.org/sciencereview .

marla.cone@latimes.com

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Chemical carcinogens

Researchers name 216 chemicals that cause breast cancer in animal tests. Here are some of the most widespread:

Chemical Source/use
1,4-dioxane Detergents, shampoos, soaps
1,3-butadiene Common air pollutant; found in vehicle exhaust
Acrylamide Fried foods
Benzene Common air pollutant; found in vehicle exhaust
Perfluorooctanoic acid Used in manufacture of Teflon
Styrene Used in manufacture of plastics; found in carpets, adhesives, hobby supplies and other consumer products
Vinyl chloride Used almost exclusively by the plastics industry to make vinyl
1,1-dichloroethane Industrial solvent; also found in some consumer products such as paint removers
Toluene diisocyanate Used in foam cushions, furnishings, bedding
Methylene chloride Used in furniture polish, fabric cleaners, wood sealants and many other consumer products
PAHs Diesel and gasoline exhaust
PCBs Electrical transformers; banned but still in environment
Atrazine Widely used herbicide, particularly for corn

NEW STUDY STRENGTHENS LINK BETWEEN PESTICIDES AND LYMPHOMA

Beyond Pesticides, May 10, 2007) The risk of non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma is significantly increased with substantial exposure to pesticides, regardless of asthma or atopy history, according to findings from a study published in the May issue of the International Journal of Cancer. This study further strengthens the link between exposure to pesticides and cancer and specifically to lymphoma.

"Occupational exposure to pesticides and a personal history of atopy have been widely examined as risk factors for non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma (NHL), a neoplasm arising from cells of the immune system," writes Claire M. Vajdic, Ph.D., of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and colleagues. "These studies have typically found that exposure to pesticides increases risk of NHL, while asthma, or atopy more generally, has been inconsistently protective."

In an Australian population-based, case-control study, the researchers examined the interaction between occupational pesticide exposure and atopy on the risk of NHL. Included in the study were 694 incident cases and 694 randomly selected controls that were matched to cases by age, sex, and state of residence.

Participants completed telephone-administered job-specific questionnaires. Experts used the information collected to determine occupational pesticide exposure. History of atopy (including asthma, hay fever, eczema, and food allergy) was self-reported.

The odds ratio (OR) for NHL with substantial exposure to pesticides and any history of asthma was 3.07. With substantial pesticide exposure and no history of asthma, the OR was 4.23. The risk of NHL was less for subjects with non-substantial pesticide exposure and a history of asthma (OR = 0.30), and was close to null with non-substantial pesticide exposure and no history of asthma (OR = 0.99).

"This finding was consistent for several measures of pesticide exposure and asthma, including lifetime pesticide dose, subtype-specific pesticide dose and history of asthma as an adult, teenager, or child," Dr. Vajdic and colleagues report.

Furthermore, "The pattern of risk for a history of hay fever, eczema, food allergy or any type of atopy was similar; risk was increased with substantial pesticide exposure and no history of atopy, but less so when atopy was reported."

Non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system. There are several different types of NHL, which are differentiated by the type of immune cell that is cancerous, the characteristics of the cancerous cell, and different genetic mutations of the cancerous cells. Treatment for NHL varies depending on NHL type, patient age, and other existing medical conditions.

A number have studies have established a link between NHL and pesticide exposure. According to a 2000 study, parents who used pesticides in the home once or twice a week were nearly 2.5 times as likely to have children with non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma. Parents who used pesticides on a daily basis were 7 times more likely to have children with the disease. In 2002, The Lymphoma Foundation of America released a report that found that the majority of 117 scientific studies and articles reviewed showed a significant increase in lymphoma in populations with higher exposures to pesticides, especially herbicides. A May 2006 study published in the journal Blood found that agricultural exposure to insecticides, herbicides, and fumigants are associated with increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma (NHL).

Source: Reuters

ORGANIC BABY FOOD SALES SOAR

Beyond Pesticides, April 26, 2007) As concerns about the effects of pesticides in children¿s food grows, sales of organic baby food have increased dramatically. Although it still only accounts for a fairly small portion of the overall baby food market, the organic baby food sector is booming.

Whole Foods Market Inc. said it has tripled the space allotted to organic baby products in the past five years. Last year, Gerber Products Company rebranded and broadened its organic line, and Abbott Laboratories introduced an organic version of its baby formula.

Organic baby food sales soared 21.6 percent to $116 million this past year, after jumping 16.4 percent a year earlier, according to The Nielsen Company. Meanwhile, overall baby food sales rose 3.1 percent to $3.7 billion in the same period, after being essentially flat a year earlier. The data were gleaned from U.S. grocery, drug and mass-market retailers, excluding Wal-Mart.

Big companies aren¿t the only ones addressing the demand for organic baby products. Two years ago, Gigi Lee Chang started Plum Organics, a line of frozen baby foods that now is a very popular line, according to Whole Foods officials.

Ms. Lee Chang got the idea to start the company when she heard friends talking about her son¿s healthy appetite. She decided the organic foods she had been preparing for him might be a good business opportunity. The products are sold nationally, and an extension of the line is planned for later in the year.

Producers said adhering to USDA regulations makes organic foods cost more but parents are willing to pay the difference. For example, a 25.7-ounce container of organic Similac formula retails for about $27.50, but the traditional brand would cost $23.50, according to Scott White, a vice president at Abbott Nutrition. Gerber said its organic products cost about 30 percent more than its traditional baby foods.

The growing organic baby food sales are part of a larger boom in organic products. This past year has also seen increasing numbers of sustainable vegetable and cotton growers; and even hospitals and schools are purchasing organic food.

Source: AP

TAKE ACTION: The Farm Bill currently heavily subsidizes conventional agriculture over organic growers. Contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative and tell them to support increased funding for organic growers in the farm bill. Take action today to ensure that there is sufficient funding authorized in the 2007 Farm Bill to protect our environment and ensure sustainable, healthy food for all.

Chemical Estrogen- Mimics Impacts Asthma, Immune Functioning

(Beyond Pesticides, April 10, 2007) Scientists have reported several environmental estrogens can affect the immune system, promoting allergic diseases such as asthma. Researchers have observed this response using pesticides and other environmental contaminants.

Focusing on six environmental estrogens (xenoestrogens), researchers were able to reveal how these contaminants affect the immune system. Using doses representative of present human exposures, these estrogen-mimics were tested on human and mouse cells. The observed effect of exposure was both an increase in speed and intensity of immune reactions.

Three of the environmental estrogens tested were organochlorine pesticides or metabolites: endosulfan, dieldrin and DDE (DDT metabolite). The other contaminants included nonylphenol, a by-product of plastics manufacturing, and two PCBs.

The study reveals that the accelerated and increased level of degranulation of mast cells is the mechanism that causes more severe allergic reactions than would otherwise take place. According to Environmental Health News, mast cells play a vital role in allergic reactions because they are primed by past experience with allergens to release inflammatory agents into the body, which causes an allergic reaction. If the mast cell has been primed to react to a specific allergen, it will degranulate, releasing molecules such as histamine. The more intense the degranulation, the more intense the allergic reaction. Therefore, since environmental estrogens increase degranulation, these contaminants can intensify the strength and even frequency of allergic reactions.

The researchers also found that in combination with endogenous estrogen (estrogen produced within the body), environmental estrogens had an additive effect on degranulation, in effect, amplifying allergic responses.

The researchers state, "This estrogenic impact is likely to be important both for rapid disease-promoting responses, such as mast cell activation, and for more long-term pathogenesis, such as estrogen-induced cancers."

They conclude, "The results described here indicate that we must also consider the possible impact of environmental estrogens on normal immune function and on the development and morbidity of immunological diseases such as asthma."

These findings help to explain the dramatic increase of asthma and other allergic diseases that have taken place, especially in industrialized countries, over the past thirty years. Several persistent and ubiquitous pollutants, including pesticides, produce estrogen-like responses and tend to bioaccumulate and bioconcentrate in the food chain. Biomonitoring studies have shown most of us carry around many of these chemicals in our body.

The full study, "Environmental Estrogens Induce Mast Cell Degranulation and Enhance IgE-mediated Release of Allergic Mediators," is available in the January 2007 edition of Environmental Health Perspectives.

Agricultural Pesticides May Be Risk Factor for Gestational Diabetes

(Beyond Pesticides, March 26, 2007) A new study finds exposure of pregnant women to agricultural pesticides during the first trimester may increase the risk of gestational diabetes. The over twofold increase in risk is associated with some of the most commonly used agricultural pesticides.

The study, published in the March issue of Diabetes Care, used a study group comprised of wives of licensed pesticide applicators. Self-reported pesticide-related activities during the first trimester of the most recent pregnancy were analyzed for 11,273 women. Of this group, 506 women reported having gestational diabetes.

Agricultural pesticide exposure during pregnancy, such as mixing or applying pesticides or repairing pesticide application equipment, resulted in an odds ratio of 2.2 [95% CI 1.5-3.3] for reporting gestational diabetes ¿ in other words, the women were 2.2 times more likely to develop the disease. No association was found between residential pesticide exposure during pregnancy and gestational diabetes, but it should be noted that the study group is not necessarily representative of urban/suburban populations. The increased risk of developing gestational diabetes was associated with the frequent use of 2,4,5-T, 2,4,5-TP, atrazine, butylate, diazinon, phorate and carbofuran.

The data for this study was collected through the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a project that began in 1994 to identify occupational, lifestyle, and genetic factors that may affect the rate of diseases in farming populations. The study has nearly 90,000 participants in total in the states of Iowa and North Carolina. AHS was initiated in response to medical research that indicates agricultural workers may have higher rates of some cancers, including leukemia, myeloma, non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma, and cancers of the lip, stomach, skin, brain, and prostate, as well as other conditions, like asthma, neurological diseases, and adverse reproductive outcomes that may also be related to agricultural exposures.

While AHS is still ongoing, other findings from AHS indicate that as the reported duration and frequency of pesticide use increases, it is reflected in an increase in reported neurological symptoms. This was particularly evident in those who used insecticides and fumigants. Additionally, the effect was compounded in those who have experienced acute pesticide exposure. AHS data also reveals exposure to certain pesticides may be a risk factor in respect to specific cancers and respiratory ailments.

Further, a growing body of evidence is strengthening the link between pesticides and many serious health problems. For example, Beyond Pesticides¿ asthma brochure details evidence that exposure to pesticides is both a root cause and a trigger for asthma, especially in young children. Infants and unborn children are especially susceptible to the adverse effects of pesticides. Many pesticides disrupt the functioning of the endocrine system, which regulates everything from insulin to fertility.

TAKE ACTION: Pregnant women and children are especially vulnerable to the effects of toxic pesticides. If you or someone you know is pregnant, please educate them on the dangers of pesticide exposure during pregnancy, and the availability of non-toxic and least toxic alternatives. For more information, see http://www.beyondpesticides.org/alternatives/factsheets/index.htm.

Chemicals May Play Role in Rise in Obesity

By Elizabeth Grossman
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, March 12, 2007; Page A06

Too many calories and too little exercise are undeniably the major factors contributing to the obesity epidemic, but several recent animal studies suggest that environmental exposure to widely used chemicals may also help make people fat.

The evidence is preliminary, but a number of researchers are pursuing indications that the chemicals, which have been shown to cause abnormal changes in animals' sexual development, can also trigger fat-cell activity -- a process scientists call adipogenesis.

The chemicals under scrutiny are used in products from marine paints and pesticides to food and beverage containers. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one chemical, bisphenol A, in 95 percent of the people tested, at levels at or above those that affected development in animals.

These findings were presented at last month's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A spokesman for the chemical industry later dismissed the concerns, but Jerry Heindel, a top official of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), who chaired the AAAS session, said the suspected link between obesity and exposure to "endocrine disrupters," as the chemicals are called because of their hormone-like effects, is "plausible and possible."

Bruce Blumberg, a developmental and cell biologist at the University of California at Irvine, one of those presenting research at the meeting, called them "obesogens" -- chemicals that promote obesity.

Obesity has become a major health concern as people in the United States and around the world have become increasingly overweight, raising their risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, stroke and certain cancers. The World Health Organization estimates that more than a billion adults worldwide are overweight and 300 million are obese. Scientists have begun examining a wide range of possible causes beyond eating too much and exercising too little -- including possible chemical exposures.

Blumberg began to suspect a link while trying to pinpoint how one endocrine disrupter, tributyltin, affects genetic mechanisms in the reproductive system. Tributyltin is used as a marine and agricultural fungicide, an antimicrobial agent in industrial water systems, and in plastics; it can cause serious sexual abnormalities in marine animals.

"What we discovered," Blumberg said, is that tributyltin disrupted genetic interactions that regulate fat-cell activity in animals. "Exposure to tributyltin is increasing the number of fat cells, so the individual will get fatter faster as these cells produce more of the hormones that say 'feed me,'" Blumberg said. The exposed animals, he added, remain predisposed to obesity for life.

Retha R. Newbold, a developmental biologist at the NIEHS, has seen similar lifetime effects in her work with diethylstilbestrol (DES), a potent synthetic estrogen she has studied for 30 years.

Newbold's research has shown that mice exposed to DES during early development produced more fat cells, larger fat cells, and more abdominal fat than those not exposed. Exposed mice became obese adults and remained obese even on reduced calorie and increased exercise regimes. Like tributyltin, DES appeared to permanently disrupt the hormonal mechanisms regulating body weight.

"Once these genetic changes happen in utero, they are irreversible and with the individual for life," Newbold said.

DES was widely prescribed for women during pregnancy from the 1940s until 1971, when it was withdrawn after being linked to cancer. Taken by perhaps 8 million women, DES has caused reproductive abnormalities in children and grandchildren of women who took it. Whether its effects include promoting obesity has yet to be determined, but its effects on animal metabolism -- it is also used to fatten livestock -- are similar to those caused by bisphenol A, a chemical most people now encounter daily.

"Exposure to bisphenol A is continuous," said Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Bisphenol A is an ingredient in polycarbonate plastics used in many products, including refillable water containers and baby bottles, and in epoxy resins that line the inside of food cans and are used as dental sealants. In 2003, U.S. industry consumed about 2 billion pounds of bisphenol A.

Researchers have studied bisphenol A's effects on estrogen function for more than a decade. Vom Saal's research indicates that developmental exposure to low doses of bisphenol A activates genetic mechanisms that promote fat-cell activity. "These in-utero effects are lifetime effects, and they occur at phenomenally small levels" of exposure, vom Saal said.

Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council said his organization's review of the scientific literature found that a preponderance of the bisphenol A studies have shown no adverse effects, including no increased body weight. "Our conclusion is that there is no risk to human health," said Hentges.

But many scientists disagree, including vom Saal, who called the ACC's statements a "blatant lie."

Research into the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on obesity has been done only in laboratory animals, but the genetic receptors that control fat cell activity are functionally identical across species. "They work virtually the same way in fish as they do in rodents and humans," Blumberg said. "Fat cells are an endocrine organ."

Ongoing studies are monitoring human levels of bisphenol A, but none have been done of tributyltin, which has been used since the 1960s and is persistent in the marine food web. "Tributyltin is the only endocrine disrupting chemical that has been shown without substantial argument to have an effect at levels at which it's found in the environment," Blumberg said.

Concern over tributyltin's reproductive effects on marine animals has resulted in an international agreement discontinuing its use in anti-fouling paints used on ships. The EPA has said it plans next year to assess its other applications, including as an antimicrobial agent in livestock operations, fish hatcheries and hospitals.

Bisphenol A is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in consumer products, and the agency says the amount of bisphenol A or tributyltin that might leach from products is too low to be of concern. But the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, is reviewing bisphenol A, and concerns about its estrogenic effects prompted California legislators to propose banning it from certain products sold in-state, a move industry has fought vigorously.

Researchers said the next step is to learn if these apparent animal "obesogens" are affecting people.

"Our job is to follow the science, and based on these animal studies, this is worth taking a look at," said Heindel of the NIEHS.

USDA FINDS PESTICIDE RESIDUES IN A MAJORITY OF FOODS

(Beyond Pesticides, March 2, 2007) The United States Department of Agriculture¿s (USDA) Pesticide Data Program (PDP) recently released its latest annual summary detailing pesticide residues in the U.S. food supply. The data, from 2005, reveals approximately two-thirds of sampled foods contained one or more pesticides at detectable levels.

For the 2005 report, PDP sampled fresh and processed fruit and vegetables, soybeans, wheat, milk, heavy cream, pork, bottled water and drinking water. A total of 14,749 samples were tested for various insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and growth regulators. Twelve states reported data to comprise the report: California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Ohio, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. Excluding drinking water, 84 percent of samples originated within the United States.

Foods most likely to be consumed by infants and children are analyzed to provide data that is used in the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act. The data is used in this context to assess dietary exposure to pesticide residues by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Overall results show that, excluding drinking water samples, 36 percent of samples had more than one detectable pesticide, 30 percent had one detectable pesticide, and 34 percent did not have detectable levels of the analyzed chemicals. In fruits and vegetables, 73 percent of fresh and 61 percent of processed produce had detectable residues. Drinking water analyses primarily found widely used herbicides and their metabolites; forty-eight different residues were found in untreated intake water and 43 in treated water.

Residue detection varied widely depending on the commodity. The percent of samples with detected residues for all analyzed chemicals ranged from 8 percent for pork to 99 percent for milk. Other commodities of interest had the following percentages of samples containing one or more pesticide residues: bottled water-16, soybeans-22, wheat-75, apples-98, heavy cream-99. Samples for each commodity were analyzed for a unique list of pesticides, which were partially determined by the need for additional data regarding dietary exposure, and changes in pesticide use directions. Some prohibited pesticides (DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, chlordane) have been included in many commodity analyses due to their persistent nature.

The number of pesticides detected on specific commodities also varied. Seven different pesticides were detected in bottled water, 12 in milk, 18 in wheat, 18 in green beans, 30 in strawberries, 31 in grapes, 36 in apples, and 43 in lettuce. Specific figures of concern include:

Malathion was found in 66.9 percent of wheat samples.
DDE, a metabolite of DDT, remains in 85.4 percent of milk samples.
2,4-D, alachlor ethanesulfonic acid (alachlor metabolite), atrazine, imazapyr, metolachlor ethanesulfonic acid and metolachlor oxanilic acid (metolachlor metabolites), and prometon were found in over half of the treated drinking water samples.
Acephate, chloripyrifos, and methamidophos residue levels were found to be above EPA tolerance levels in multiple samples. Additionally, many pesticide residues were found in commodities that have not had tolerances set by EPA.

Studies have shown pesticide residues are higher in children that are fed conventional versus organic foods, and that an effective way to reduce a child¿s exposure to pesticide residues on food is to change their diet to organic.

TAKE ACTION: Buy organic foods for yourself and your family whenever possible. If organic foods are not easily accessible to you due to cost or distribution, consider buying organic for the foods you eat the most.

HONEYBEES ARE VANISHING: THREATENING CROPS AND LIVELIHOOD

(Beyond Pesticides, March 1, 2007) In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have been shocked to find that bees have been inexplicably disappearing at an alarming rate, according to an article in the New York Times last week. This loss of honeybees threatens not only beekeeper livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation¿s most profitable crops. Although the reasons for the honeybee disappearances are unknown, pesticides may be one of the culprits.

"I have never seen anything like it," David Bradshaw, a California beekeeper, said. "Box after box after box are just empty. There¿s nobody home." Last month he discovered that half of his 100 million bees were missing. Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first national affliction. Bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to call "colony collapse disorder," growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis.

A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. "Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food," said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation. The sudden mysterious losses in honeybee populations highlight the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country.

The bee losses are ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70 percent; beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20 percent in the offseason to be normal.

Along with recent stresses on the bees themselves and an industry increasingly consolidating smaller operations, some fear these losses may force a breaking point for even large beekeepers. Once the domain of hobbyists with a handful of backyard hives, beekeeping has become increasingly commercial. Over the last two decades, the number of beehives, now estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be 2.4 million, has dropped by a quarter and the number of beekeepers by half.

"There are less beekeepers, less bees, yet more crops to pollinate," Mr. Browning said. "While this sounds sweet for the bee business, with so much added loss and expense due to disease, pests and higher equipment costs, profitability is actually falling."

Some 15 worried beekeepers convened in Florida this month to brainstorm with researchers how to cope with the extensive bee losses. Investigators are exploring a range of theories, including viruses, pesticides, a fungus and poor bee nutrition. Mites have also damaged bee colonies, and the insecticides used to try to kill mites are harming the ability of queen bees to spawn as many worker bees. The queens are living half as long as they did just a few years ago.

Researchers are also concerned that the willingness of beekeepers to truck their colonies from coast to coast could be adding to bees¿ stress, helping to spread viruses and mites and otherwise accelerating whatever is afflicting them.

The news of honeybee losses comes amidst a recent trend of declining pollinator populations. An October 2006 report by the National Research council found that long-term population trends for some North American pollinators ¿ including bees, birds, bats ¿ are "demonstrably downward."

The issue of protecting pollinators from pesticides and other environmental hazards has been heating up recently. In a landmark decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that landowners who spray pesticides on tree groves can be held liable for damages to beekeepers¿ neighboring apiaries (Anderson, et al. v. International Paper, March 2005). The case was brought by three beekeepers who raise bees for honey and sale. This ruling sets a standard that could have dramatic ramifications for pesticide use across the country. For more information on this issue, see "The Minnesota Honey Bee Battle" printed in the Spring 2006 issue of Pesticides and You.

According to Ohio State University, over 75 commonly used pesticides are highly or moderately toxic to bees. The following pesticides are highly toxic to bees: 2,4-D (Weed-B-Gone), abamectin (Zephyr), acephate (Orthene), azinphos-methyl (Guthion), bifenthrin (Capture), carbaryl (Sevin), carbosulfan (Advantage), chlormephos (Dotan), chlorpyrifos (Lorsban, Dursban), cyfluthrin (Baythroid), d-phenothrin (Sumithrin), demeton-s-methyl (Metasystox (i), (50-% Premix), diazinon (Spectracide), dichlorvos (DDVP), dicrotophos (Bibrin), dimethoate (Cygon, De-Fend), esfenvalerate (Asana XL), ethion (tech), (Ethanox), etrimfos (Ekamet), fenitrothion (Sumithion), fenpropathrin (Farmatox), fensulfothion (Dasanit), fenthion (Baytex), fenvalerate (DMSO), (Belmark), flucythrinate (Pay-Off), fonofos (Dyfonate), heptachlor (Fennotox), lindane (Lindane), malathion (Malathion 50, Malathion ULV), methamidophos (Monitor, Tamaron), methidathion (Supracide), methiocarb (Mesurol), methyl parathion (Penncap-M), mevinphos (Phosdrin), monocrotophos (Azodrin), naled (Dibrom), omethoate (Folimat), oxydemethon-methyl (Metasystox-R), oxydisulfoton (Disyston S), parathion (Bladan), permethrin (Ambush, Pounce), phosmet (Imidan), phosphamidon (Dimecron), propoxur (Baygon), pyrazophos (Afugan), resmethrin (Chrysron), tetrachlorvinphos (Gardona), and tralomethrin (Scout X-TRA). The following are moderately toxic: Acetochlor (Acenit), Aclonifen (Challenge), allethrin (Pynamin), alphacypermethrin (Fastac), ametryn(Evik), bromopropylate (Acarol), cinmethylin (Argold), crotoxyphos (Ciodrin, Decrotox), DCPA (Dacthal), diphenamid (Dymid), disulfoton (DiSyston, Ekanon), endosulfan (Thiodan), endrin (Hexadrin), ethoprop (Mocap), flufenoxuron (Cascade), fluvalinate (tau-fluvalinate), (Mavrik, Spur), formetanate hydrochloride (Carzol), mancozeb (Manzate, Dithane, Fore), methanearsonic acid (MAA), neburon (Granurex, Propuron), pebulate (Tillam), phorate (Geomet, Thimet), pirimiphos-methyl (Acetellic), sethoxydim (Poast), sulfosate (Touchdown), terbufos (Counter), thiocyclam hydrogen oxalate (Evisect), thiodicarb (Larvin, Nivral), and triforine (Denarin, Funginex).

The U.S. Senate (S.Res. 580) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated June 24-30, 2007, as National Pollinator Week. The Pollinator Partnership offers resources, as well as a listing of Pollinator Week events happening across the country for those who want to be involved.

A Safe House?

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER
February 15, 2007

FELICIA BUSTO-FRAIM always kept her Flushing, N.Y., home clean with traditional brand-name cleaning products like Windex and Fantastik. But her attitude changed the day her daughters’ school switched to environmentally friendly cleaning products.

“You could tell the difference,” said Ms. Busto-Fraim, 37, a former prosecutor who now stays at home to care for her three children. “You didn’t have that disgusting disinfectant smell when you walked into the bathrooms anymore.”

Ms. Busto-Fraim embarked on “a total house makeover” after she saw that there was “no discernable difference” in cleanliness at the Waldorf School of Garden City, a private school on Long Island that her two older daughters, Isabella, 11, and Alessandra, 6, attend.

Out went the scouring powder, disinfectant, toilet bowl cleaner, glass-cleaning spray and laundry detergent that she had always used, never before doubting their safety. “A lot of the cleaning products that we used are ones that our moms used,” she said. “You think, how bad can they be?”

Ms. Busto-Fraim now uses the products used in her daughters’ school, from a nonprofit company called Imus Greening the Cleaning. She likes the ways her home feels. “It smells fresh; it smells healthy,” she said. The one chemical-laden product she has been unable to give up is her stain stick, which she uses to get tough mud and grass stains out of her children’s clothing.

Dusting, mopping and scrubbing with natural dirt-busters is going mainstream. More supermarkets are stocking them and more schools are switching to them, inspiring anxious parents to do the same. Whether the so-called green products, made with more plant-based ingredients, are entirely safe, and capable of creating the perfect haven that some parents struggle to create for their children, remains to be seen.

Cory McKee, 27, a stay-at-home mom of three in Tridell, Utah, started ordering Seventh Generation brand cleaning products online two years ago after learning that her oldest child, now 7, had celiac disease, a gluten intolerance. Ms. McKee said that although the disease is not caused by toxins in the home, dealing with it raised her awareness about other health issues.

“That really woke me up,” Ms. McKee said. “I really need to make sure our home is safe.” She lost confidence in the cleaners she had been using in part because the labels of some products do not list all of their ingredients. That made it impossible to know what her family was being exposed to when she sprayed the windows, she said.

Even when the chemicals are listed, few consumers know what they are. “You are probably not breathing in the best stuff,” Ms. McKee said. “I teach my children: If you can’t pronounce it, don’t use it.”

The label on Seventh Generation bathroom cleaner explains its ingredients: Hydrogen peroxide (the active stain removal agent), biodegradable surfactants (for soil removal), citrus oil (for grease removal) food-grade, nontoxic oxygen stabilizers (to help the hydrogen peroxide last longer), and water. It also lists what is not included: “Free of chlorine, petroleum based solvents, glycol ethers, phosphates, acids, caustics, dyes and perfumes.”

Some schools, hospitals and government agencies are replacing chemical-based cleaning agents with natural alternatives. Since last September, a state law has required schools in New York to use cleaning products that do not contain any carcinogens, reproductive toxins or scents that could aggravate asthma, following some of the standards certified by Green Seal, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.Massachusetts and other states are also encouraging changes in the way public buildings are cleaned.

“It may be triggering parents to think about the products they are using at home,” said Patti Wood, a founder and president of Grassroots Environmental Education, a nonprofit organization in Port Washington, N.Y. Cleaning supplies in the home are a concern, she said, because children crawl on the floor and put their fingers in their mouths, resulting in greater exposure to chemical residues than adults are subject to.

So-called green household cleaning products, once found mainly in health food stores, are increasingly showing up on the shelves of supermarkets, children’s stores and in chain stores including Target and Linens ’n Things. In January, Stop & Shop added Seventh Generation, Method and Imus Greening the Cleaning brand products to 300 supermarkets from New Hampshire to New Jersey. “This is in part a response to what consumers are looking to purchase, and the fact they are asking for more and more of these products,” said Faith Weiner, a spokeswoman for the chain.

Jeffrey Hollender, the chief executive of Seventh Generation, said his company’s expansion into more traditional shopping outlets had begun to “accelerate dramatically,” much as organic foods began showing up in mainstream supermarkets several years ago. Revenue at Seventh Generation, a private company, has grown at least 30 percent a year for more than five years, he said.

The growth may be fueled in part by reports linking chemicals found in cleaning supplies to health problems. A report in April 2006 on indoor air chemistry by the University of California at Berkeley for the California Air Resources Board found that some household cleaners may generate risks by giving off unsafe levels of toxic pollutants.

“Conventional products and conventional cleaning practices have the potential to cause health harm, but not all do,” said William W. Nazaroff, an environmental engineering professor who led the Berkeley study.

That doesn’t mean, he said, that switching to new products is a panacea.

“I haven’t seen any good evidence supporting the idea that something that is being sold as green is really good for the people who are using the products,” Professor Nazaroff said. “There are good intentions but something of a disconnect between our hearts and our heads.”

He said that products that are being marketed as good for the environment often are based on terpenes, chemicals that can be extracted from citrus peels. Combined with ozone, he said, terpenes can form a toxic chemical byproduct like formaldehyde.

“Companies have jumped on the idea that green sells, which it does, and are using partial definitions of what it means to be green,” he said. “There is no regulatory agency that would challenge them.”

Companies that make household products said that the substances they contain are not hazardous, if properly used. Petrell Ozbay, a spokeswoman for S.C. Johnson & Son, makers of Windex, Fantastik, Pledge and other brands, said that traditional cleaners are “safe and effective.” But she said that to give consumers a choice, it is producing versions of Windex that do not contain ammonia. Windex Multi-Surface with Vinegar, which hit the market in 2001, and Windex Antibacterial Multi-Surface Spray and Windex Crystal Rain, introduced last year, are ammonia free.

“It’s a matter of what a consumer prefers to clean with,” Ms. Ozbay said. “We run our products through rigorous testing and uphold them to standards that meet or exceed regulatory standards,” Ms. Ozbay said. “We are committed to making safe products for families.”

There is no government organization that evaluates both conventional and “green” products and rates their safety. Enesta Jones, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency, said it was not possible to say if “green” products are safer than traditional cleaners without knowing the specific product chemistry.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission requires the labels of products that are potentially life-threatening to include signal words like “danger,” “poison,” “warning” and “caution.”

Federal law doesn’t require full disclosure of all the chemical ingredients. Ross Holthouse, external relations manager for fabric and home care at Procter & Gamble, which makes Tide and Cheer, said that listing the 300 to 400 raw ingredients in detergent, for example, could be confusing to consumers and might reveal trade secrets. Procter & Gamble lists active ingredients as well as substances such as dyes or fragrances that could be important to consumers with allergies, Mr. Holthouse said. He said that Procter & Gamble employs “Ph.D. toxicologists both from a human safety standpoint as well an environmental safety standpoint to make sure our products are safe before we even think about putting them on the market.”

A Kids Safe Chemicals Act, proposed in 2005, would require that all chemicals used in the home be evaluated for their safety to children, and require companies to list ingredients containing mutagens, hormone or endocrine disrupters, neurotoxins or carcinogens. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, said he planned to re-introduce the legislation this year.

“We have laws that make sure medicines are safe for the public, but we don’t do the same for chemicals in household products, even toys and bottles used by children,” Mr. Lautenberg said. “This must change.”

In some places, it is changing, building by building. Deirdre Imus, an environmental activist who is married to the well-known radio host Don Imus, started a campaign in 2001 to reduce toxins in cleaning techniques at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, where she had founded the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology. Since then, she said, she has helped change cleaning methods in two dozen hospitals as well as other school and government buildings.

“There are a lot of products being manufactured out there today that do the job and do it cost effectively without any of the health impacts,” said Ms. Imus, who last March started the Greening the Cleaning product line.

Humans aren’t the only ones who can be affected by chemicals used in the home. Kevin and Alison Schwartz, both 30, of Wantagh, N.Y., were puzzled by the hot spots that their dog, Tucker, kept getting under his chin. Finally they realized that Tucker was reacting to an ammonia-based cleaner they were using on a coffee table where he liked to rest his head.

“My dog basically told me I had these toxic chemicals in my house,” Mr. Schwartz said. They started wiping down the table using only water. Tyler’s rash disappeared but the table wasn’t really clean.

After Ms. Schwartz became pregnant last year, her obstetrician cautioned the Schwartzes to be careful about chemicals in household products. Mr. Schwartz, who owns a pet products business, started researching natural cleaning products.

He hired a chemist and tried 150 different formulations using only vegetable-based surfactants derived from soy, palm kernel oil and sugar. Last March, he started BabyGanics, a line of natural household cleaners now sold in stores like Buy Buy Baby, Babies “R” Us and Giant supermarkets.

“As a parent I want to know that what I am using, my baby can touch,” said Mr. Schwartz, whose son is now 5 months old.

Sam Katz, a lawyer in Atlanta who has a 1-year-old son, agreed. He began to wonder why he was putting baby locks on his cleaning-supply cabinets “to prevent my kid from getting to these chemicals if I am just going to spray it on the ground or in his tub.”

A few months ago he and his wife, Genifer, switched to BabyGanics products. “Now when he crawls on the floor I don’t worry about his hands,” Mr. Katz said. “I know he is going to get dog hair on him but I don’t have to worry about the chemicals. I feel much more comfortable.”

Scientists explore connection between pollution, intersex fish.

A biological role reversal of fish in the Monocacy River and other local Maryland waterways has scientists wondering what problems might lie ahead for aquatic life -- and humans. Frederick News-Post, Maryland. [related stories]
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=56738

Scientists explore connection between pollution, inter-sex fish Originally published February 11, 2007
By Nancy Hernandez News-Post Staff Frederick News Post, Maryland

FREDERICK -- A biological role reversal of fish in the Monocacy River and other local waterways has scientists wondering what problems might lie ahead for aquatic life -- and humans.

Immature eggs have been found in male small-mouth bass while female fish of the same species were lacking an egg yolk precursor, according to Vicki Blazer of the U.S. Geological Survey.

She spoke at Hood College this week about the findings of a recent fish study she led involving about 15 governmental agencies and universities across several states.

Beginning in 2005, fish were collected at sites downstream and upstream of several treatment plants on the Monocacy River and Conococheague Creek in Pennsylvania. Scientists wanted to see what, if any, role wastewater treatment plants have played in the problem, Blazer said.

The gonads of male fish were not as developed downstream of wastewater treatment plants, with the biggest discrepancies found along Conococheague Creek, she said.

As much as 100 percent of the male small-mouth bass in some locations exhibited male and female characteristics, she said. The male fish had sperm and immature eggs. Some also had produced vitellogenin, while their female counterparts had not. Vitellogenin is an egg yolk producer typically found only in female fish.

Male largemouth bass also possessed inter-sex characteristics, but not as frequently, she said.

The sex abnormalities are not limited to the local region, she said. In the south branch of the Potomac River, about 58 percent of roughly 230 male fish exhibited inter-sex characteristics.

Inter-sex fish have been discovered in recent years around the world, Blazer said. The severity of the problem ranges from location to location, even within watersheds, and from season to season, she said.

What causes the sex abnormalities has not been determined, but chemical pollution is a suspect.

Roughly 15 chemicals have been identified in the Monocacy River and scientists estimate many more are present.
Under current regulations, water quality limits are set for individual chemicals and not for the myriad of compound possibilities, said Robert Ballinger, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.
The Monocacy River meets water quality standards for the individual chemicals, he said.

But chemicals do not necessarily pose health hazards individually, rather creating toxic compounds when combined, Blazer said.
In local fish, compounds commonly called endocrine disrupters appear to be the problem behind the gender confusion, Blazer said.

Endocrine disrupters that mimic estrogen are intercepting and distorting the normal hormonal signals of the small-mouth and largemouth bass. Both wild fish and those exposed to chemical compounds in the laboratory developed the sex abnormalities, Blazer said.

She hopes to collect more fish this spring, before and after spawning season, to study what influence the sex abnormalities might have on reproduction and future fish populations.

Further south, researchers in Virginia are trying to determine if the sex abnormalities played a role in the deaths of thousands of small-mouth bass since 2000. One 2005 episode in the south fork of the Shenandoah River wiped out about 80 percent of the small-mouth bass and redbreast sunfish population, Blazer said.

While no data has definitely linked sex abnormalities with large numbers of fish being killed, the two problems are likely related, said Drew Ferrier, a biology professor at Hood College.

Endocrine disrupters also can intercept and distort other body functions, such as the thyroid and immune system, he said. Humans are susceptible to endocrine disrupters as well.

More study is needed to determine what chemical compounds lead to inter-sex fish and to pinpoint where the chemicals are entering the waterways, he said.
"There are many more questions on this topic than answers," he said.

Contamination is likely coming from multiple sources, such as human wastewater, runoff from farms and industrial sites and atmospheric pollution, Blazer said.

"Many times, we want to blame agriculture and industry but when we use fertilizer to kill dandelions, use antibacterial soap, flush our prescriptions down the toilet, we need to think about that," she said.

Blazer's team will continue to analyze the collected data and hope to perform additional studies, such as chemical analysis of the soil where small-mouth bass lay their eggs.

Figuring out what is harming the fish will benefit people as well, Blazer said. Humans breathe the same air, drink the same water and eat food grown in the same ground that animals do. Aquatic species that are battling health problems offer clues that something is amiss in the environment.
"Fish are an indicator of our ecosystem's health," she said.

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Persistent Pesticides Linked to Diabetes

(Beyond Pesticides, January 9, 2007) Adding to a growing body of literature linking persistent pesticides to diabetes, a new study in the online journal Environmental Health Perspectives has found an increased rate of hospitalization for diabetes in those who live close to hazardous waste sites containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

While established risk factors for diabetes, such as obesity, genetics and a sedentary lifestyle, have been emphasized in prevention efforts, increasing evidence is showing exposure to environmental contaminants is also an import risk factor that needs to be taken into account. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and the annual direct and indirect costs of diabetes are estimated at $132 billion. Deaths resulting from diabetes are likely to be underreported.

The study, Increased Rate of Hospitalization for Diabetes and Residential Proximity of Hazardous Waste Sites, analyzes hospitalization rates by zip code throughout the state of New York, excluding New York City. Zip codes were categorized as clean, containing a hazardous waste site(s) without POPs, and containing a hazardous waste site(s) with POPs. The results show an increase of hospitalization for diabetes in areas with hazardous waste sites - the highest rates occurring in areas containing POPs.

POPs are synthetic, toxic chemicals that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate in food chains and are common contaminants in fish, dairy products and other foods. POPs include dioxins, furans, PCBs and chlorinated pesticides. The link between dioxin exposure and diabetes has been found in multiple studies, including the analysis of Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. While not as well established, the link between chlorinated pesticides and diabetes has also been observed.

Additionally, earlier studies have reported increased incidence of other diseases in individuals living near hazardous waste sites, such as congenital anomalies, low birth weight, end-stage renal disease, and respiratory ailments.

Source: Environmental Health Perspectives

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Two NYC Studies Emphasize Importance of IPM

(Beyond Pesticides, January 3, 2007) Two recent studies by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children¿s Environmental Health (CCCEH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other leading institutions offer strong evidence that use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques during pregnancy reduced risk of pesticide exposure and related developmental delays.

The first report, released by the American Academy of Pediatrics in its journal, Pediatrics, followed 254 children in New York City between 1998 and 2002. The study tracked cognitive and motor development at 12, 24 and 36 months of age. Researchers found children with the highest levels of chlorpyrifos in their umbilical chord plasma tended to score lower on mental development tests and experience more problems paying attention, with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder by the age of three. Chlorpyrifos has been barred from sale for residential uses since 2001, although it is still used widely in agriculture.

Lead researcher Virginia Rauh, ScD, said, ¿These findings indicate that prenatal exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos not only increases the likelihood of developmental delay, but may have long-term consequences for social adjustment and academic achievement.¿ Robin Whyatt, DrPH, senior author on the study, said, ¿Prior to the ban, chlorpyrifos was one of the most widely used insecticides for residential pest control across the United Sates. Despite a recent regulatory ban on residential use of chlorpyrifos in the U.S., agricultural applications continue in the U.S. and abroad.¿

The second study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives (Vol. 114 No. 11 ), tracked the effect of using integrated pest management (IPM) techniques, instead of chemical pest controls, around pregnant women and the subsequent levels of pesticides in umbilical chord plasma. Citing studies such as that by Dr. Rauh, researchers expressed a need for studies documenting the effectiveness of alternative pest controls reducing such risks to early childhood development.

According to the report, ¿The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of reducing prenatal exposures to pests and insecticides through an IPM intervention that included professional cleaning, building repairs, sealing pest entry points, professional insecticide placement, and one-on-one education.¿ By monitoring ¿intervention¿ and ¿control¿ households, researchers were able to determine the effectiveness of these IPM techniques ¿ the concluding evidence detecting reduced insecticide levels in blood samples collected at delivery from the control group. The researchers observed that, ¿This pilot intervention study demonstrates that IPM can have a significant effect on pest infestation levels and appears to reduce residential insecticide exposures during pregnancy . . . Success of IPM interventions has been attributed to simultaneous application of multiple nonchemical approaches to pest control, including education, repair, least-toxic exterminations, reinforcement, and repetition . . . we believe that this intervention protocol using IPM can be successfully adapted for use by individuals within households in this community to reduce pest infestation levels and residential pesticide exposure.¿

Beyond Pesticides advocates for IPM in residential, commercial, and school settings as a way to reduce risk of pesticide exposure and