photo by: adactio
Today I ran across the new website from the Pesticide Action Network, What’s On My Food? This website uses a formula similar to that on the Skin Deep Database only in relation to chemicals on food and the documented research on those chemicals rather than chemicals in skin care items. It is a great resource to click on and see the various chemicals that the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program has found in various foods cross referenced with data from the EPA and authoritative research.
Pesticide regulations in the U.S. are well behind much of the rest of the industrialized world. This is mostly because agrichemical corporations like Monsanto have too much influence in Washington, but also because pesticide regulation in the U.S. does not adequately account for things like additive and synergistic effects.
Since the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) regulates most chemicals on a chemical-by-chemical basis, the combined and cumulative effects of a mixture of pesticides are nearly impossible for them to address – and so they usually don’t. 1
In addition to this handy tool, they have a lot of really great information and links to research. They have links and document the growing body of research on the effects of pesticides on human and environmental health from the various exposures: working or living near crops where pesticides are used, prenatal exposure, exposure through food, and exposure through runoff into streams, rivers, aquifers, lakes, and oceans.
Given the complexities of chemical causality and disease-formation, the smart solution would be to follow the European Union’s lead and adopt the “precautionary principle”2 as the basis for regulatory decision-making. Put simply, this approach prioritizes protecting human health when there is significant doubt about the safety of a product. By contrast, pesticides and industrial chemicals in the U.S. are innocent until proven guilty. It often takes decades to prove a chemical guilty.
Meanwhile, we are exposed to dozens of pesticides in the food we eat, water we drink and air we breathe. People working on farms or living in rural areas near non-organic agricultural fields face even higher exposure levels.
My transformation from someone who lived very chemically intensively to someone who works diligently to reduce the amount of chemicals in my life and the lives of others began in 2005 when I began to work with children with autism. When sifting through the research on autism it is impossible to ignore the various research linking chemicals to the condition. Then your mind stats to wonder about the rise in other health-related issues: Parkinson’s, cancer, asthma, depression, ADHD, pre-term births, endometriosis, infant mortality (to name a few). As you dig deeper and deeper the research presents a not so great picture. Instead of pull myself into isolation in some remote village less damaged from chemical pollution, I decide to do what I can and help others to realize the need to reduce the amount of chemicals we currently support through our consumption patterns.
To begin with I eliminated all chemicals from my house: the pesticides I used in the garden, the cleaners under the sink, skin care products, perfume… Then I saw the need to eat as organically as possible for me, my unborn children, and millions of farm workers around the world. And then I took a good hard look at my clothing and the textile industry and realized that if I were to buy new supporting organic cottons and sustainable fibers was the only way to go. Conventional cotton uses 25% of the world pesticides and if I truly want to live my life in a way the respects the quality of life and health for all there is no way to justify not supporting the more sustainable options. Once you see the world as a contained system in which we are all connected and realize the ill effect that can be cause by a single shirt the organic and sustainable textile industry becomes a pivotal part in the quest for a better future.
The following is an excerpt from the What’s On My Food Website:
How are we exposed?
» In our bodies
» On the farm
» In the environment
» On our plates
In our bodies
Most of us are born with persistent pesticides and other chemicals already in our bodies, passed from mother to child during fetal development. The human health impacts linked to pesticide exposure range from birth defects and childhood brain cancer in the very young, to Parkinsons’ Disease in the elderly. In between are a variety of other cancers, developmental and neurological disorders, reproductive and hormonal system disruptions, and more.
On the farm
Most of us are born with persistent pesticides and other chemicals already in our bodies.
Farmers and farmworkers are some of the hardest working people on the planet. Yet they and their families bear the highest health costs and face the greatest risks of pesticide exposure. Farmworkers in particular remain the least protected class of workers in the U.S. – last year another slavery case was brought in Florida on behalf of farmworkers there. Poisoning incidents among farmworkers are vastly underreported – yet in California alone, hundreds of cases of pesticide poisoning are documented every year.
Occupational exposure to pesticides in acute cases range from dizziness and nausea to death; chronic exposures are linked to the same array of diseases listed above plus a few more listed below.
In the environment
Pesticides don’t stay where they’re applied. They drift from their target and are carried in our air, oceans, rivers, groundwater and soil. They contaminate ecosystems and can poison fish, birds and wildlife. Water supplies around the world contain measurable amounts of pesticides, including atrazine. Atrazine, a suspected endocrine disruptor recently banned in Europe3, is the most commonly used herbicide in the U.S.
Besides heavy use in industrial farming, pesticides are used in or near playing fields, parks, schools, public gardens, golf courses, grocery stores, offices, apartment buildings, hotels and resorts, airplanes, cruise ships — the list goes on. Rural communities are routinely contaminated by pesticide drift, while city dwellers may trace pesticide residues on their shoes to public parks and even their apartment’s common areas.
