Media Focuses on Neurodevelopmental Disorders Linked to Pesticides, Mercury
“Forty years before it was removed from paint, pediatricians had enough
evidence of lead’s ability to maim children’s brains—catastrophically and
irreversibly—to warrant discussion in a medical textbook,” opines Sandra
Steingraber in the March/April 2011 edition of Orion Magazine, where she
posits that not only is the developing brain more vulnerable than the adult
brain to social and nutritional environments, but “that neurotoxins can
act in concert with each other” and “that the chemicals designed to act as
neurobiological poisons—the organophosphate pesticides—truly do so.” In
addition to summarizing studies on the effect of lead, arsenic, mercury, and
other substances on developmental health, Steingraber highlights the latest
research suggesting that organophosphate pesticides created to attack “the
nervous systems of insect pests…have the same effect in humans,” interfering
with “the recycling of the neurotransmitter acetycholine, one of the
messaging signals that flow between neurons.”
In particular, she cites studies purportedly showing that “organophosphate exposure effects cognition” and compares the current “public health approach—surround kids with brain poisons and enlist mothers and fathers to serve as security detail” as comparable to the 1936 recommendations for lead paint. “So don’t give me any more shopping tips or lists of products to avoid,” she concludes. “Don’t put neurotoxins in my furniture and my food and then instruct me to keep my children from breathing or eating them. Instead, give me federal regulations that assess chemicals for the ability to alter brain development and function before they are allowed access to the marketplace.”
Meanwhile, a second article published April 21, 2011, in My Health News Daily
focuses on three new studies allegedly linking prenatal pesticide exposure
to lower IQ scores by age 7. Published in Environmental Health Perspectives,
the research reportedly centered on two urban areas in New York and one
Northern California agricultural town. “One study found children with the
highest levels of exposure in the womb scored 7 points lower on an IQ test
than those who had the lowest exposure,” reports journalist Rachel Rettner,
who compared the drop “to a 7-year-old performing as if they were 6 ½ years
old.”
According to Rettner, however, the three studies showed only “an association, and not a direct cause-effect link,” and found no link between pesticide exposure after birth and the child’s IQ score. She nevertheless reiterates that “In addition to exposure from foods, people can be exposed to pesticides from around their homes, schools, and buildings,” recommending that consumers and pregnant women thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables, as well as “lower their use of pesticides at home.” See MSNBC.com, April 21, 2011.
