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.