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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums10 Crazy Things Pesticides Are Doing to Your Body
Pesticides are designed to kill, although the mode of action they use to put the stranglehold on pests varies. Whether it's nerve gas–like neurological disruption, the unbalancing of key hormones, or the stunting of a plant's ability to absorb life-sustaining trace minerals from the soil, none of the chemical interventions seems all that appetizing, especially considering that chemical residues routinely wind up on and even inside of the food we eat everyday. Pesticides are also blamed for diminishing mineral levels in foods.
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#1: Food Allergies. In one of the strangest links to pesticides to date, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City found an association between food allergies and the levels of a pesticide breakdown product in urine. People with high levels of dichlorophenol, a breakdown product of the herbicide 2,4-D and of chlorine used to disinfect tap water, were more likely to suffer allergies to milk, eggs, seafood, and peanuts. It's not clear what could be happening, says Elina Jerschow, MD, MSc, lead author of the study, but she says it may have something to do with the "hygiene hypothesis." Dichlorophenol acts like an antimicrobial and could interfere with healthy bacterial levels in the gut, which, in turn, could upset the body's natural immune reactions to certain allergens in food.
Prevent it: Go GMO free. The USDA is about to approve a genetically modified (GMO) corn resistant to 2,4-D, one of the main sources of dichlorophenol in our food supply. If approved, the nonprofit Center for Food Safety estimates that the use of 2,4-D would quadruple, exposing millions more people to potentially food-allergy-inducing pesticide by-products. Buy certified-organic foods and download the True Food Shoppers Guide to avoid nonorganic foods that might contain GMOs.
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#8: Infertility. Pesticides spell trouble in the baby-making department, thanks to their bad habit of not staying put. For instance, atrazine, a common chemical weed killer used heavily in the Midwest, on Southern sugar cane farms, and on golf courses, has been detected in tap water. Doctors and scientists point to published evidence tying atrazine to increased miscarriage and infertility rates. Other pesticides cause a plunge in male testosterone levels. A 2006 study found chlorpyrifos, a chemical used in nonorganic apple and sweet pepper farming, and carbaryl, a go-to pesticide in strawberry fields and peach orchards, caused abnormally low testosterone levels.
Prevent it: Avoid the worst summer fruit, the kinds most likely to be laced with toxic pesticides. Instead, choose organic grapes, strawberries, and imported plums.
Source / rest of article:
http://www.rodalenews.com/agrochemicals?cid=social_20140519_24250984&cm_mmc=Facebook-_-Rodale-_-Health-_-TheNextTimeSomeoneTellsYouOrganicDoesNotMatterShowThemThis
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SamKnause
(13,108 posts)As a U.S. citizen I am beginning to think they have very few.
Does the U.S. have any laws that protect corporations ??????
Yes, the majority of laws protect corporations.
This is what I would call ass backwards !!!!
P.S. I know that "our esteemed" Supreme Court has ruled corporations are people. Those who voted that corporations are people should be mentally evaluated. This is insanity on full display.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)"Regulatory Capture" is a pernicious and very real thing. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
-app
SamKnause
(13,108 posts)A really bad thing.
A really destructive thing.
A really corrupt thing.
It seems to have infested every nook and cranny in the U.S.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)Your focus on whom the law protects is the crucial question. Once upon a time, I thought that with greater environmental and public health knowledge, we as a nation would make better choices. But scientists have known about the problems posed by chlorinated hydrocarbons since the 1930's, and they were extensively studied from the 1970's to this day. Yet we still allow them to be sprayed on foods. For organophosphates, the real bad news arrived in the scientific press in the 1980's & 1990's, and again, here we are still using too many of them.
If we want to protect our health and ecology, we need political power. Knowledge too of course, but political power backing up that knowledge is needed for matters to improve.
-app
KT2000
(20,583 posts)issues, I have come to realize that protections for people are minimal.
We had a particularly dirty sulfite paper mill that was making people sick. The only law that had an effect was one that said a polluting source could not exceed certain limits in a national park - and that was visibility issues. Since one was up the road from the mill - they had to abide by that law, which they chose not to do, and shut down. It did not matter that people under their plume were sick - they were poor.
The only enforceable exposure limits for toxic chemicals are for workers and that is administered by OSHA, and they are not much good at it. For others it is a matter for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)Good example. It's important to apply pressure where we can.
The thing that shocks me the most in the wider environmental field still is the exempting of fracking from Clean Water Act standards. This is still the law of the land, but Cheney simply said, "nope," and for more than a decade, we have had to live with the consequences. And six+ years into a Democratic administration, there has been no attempt to correct this executive over-reach.
Agricultural chemicals and the laws regulating their use have a longer and more complex history, but the bottom line is that the EPA and the FDA have a responsibility to protect human health and the environment.
-app
Mostly, they ban the worst of the worst, eventually, and pretend they've made a big difference.
And I say that as someone that's about to go put down a barrier of permethrin/bifenthrin around a field, so I'm hardly squeamish about poison.
