Everyday Exposure to Pesticides Linked to Hyperactivity

Beyond Pesticides, May 18, 2010:

A team of scientists from the University of Montreal and Harvard University have discovered that exposure to organophosphate pesticides is associated with increased risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the study focused on 1,139 children from the general U.S. population and measured pesticide breakdown product levels in their urine. The authors conclude that exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides, at levels common among U.S. children, may contribute to a diagnosis of ADHD.

“Previous studies have shown that exposure to some organophosphate compounds cause hyperactivity and cognitive deficits in animals,” says lead author Maryse F. Bouchard, a professor at the University of Montreal Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and scientist at the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center. “Our study found that exposure to organophosphates in developing children might have effects on neural systems and could contribute to ADHD behaviors, such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.” Marc Weisskopf, PhD, ScD, another study author told Reuters, “What this paper specifically highlights is that this may be true even at low concentrations.”... MORE

It was 40 years ago today...that the Earth got its Day

"Our work’s not done." - Senator Gaylor Nelson, in a 2004 interview, the year before his death at age 89

Earth Day, which was first celebrated 40 years ago, was largely created by Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin who fought hard for environmental laws. From an essay in High Country News,

He then presented 11 measures he hoped would create what he called a national "ecological ethic." Citing the powerlessness of the era’s citizens to combat pollution, he proposed a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to a clean environment. He called for environmental curricula at every level of public education, and he urged a ban on the worst pesticides, the protection of wetlands, investment in mass transit and laws to protect and promote clean air.

As Nelson pressed his agenda, the Earth Day movement grew, and on April 22, 1970, over 20 million Americans -- fully 10 percent of the population -- participated in demonstrations and teaching events. Rallies occurred in scores of cities, over 12,000 schools held events and Congress recessed in honor of the day. The whole thing was as American as apple pie.... MORE

In the above April 22, 1970, AP file photo “Earth Day” demonstrators trying to dramatize environmental pollution conclude their rally at the Interior Department in Washington, leaving spilled oil in their wake. The oil was used to protest pollution by off-shore oil drilling.

TruGreen is not so Tru and not so Green, but we already knew that.

**Breaking News II**: TruGreen Fined for Pesticide Misapplications in New York State

This is not surprising. We had a similar situation in Burlington a few years ago and were forced to put a moratorium on TruGreen's application of chemicals within 500 ft of Lake Champlain, until the company showed the Board of Health its SOP on notifying residents about applications:

Beyond Pesticides, March 22, 2010:

New York State has fined TruGreen, the world’s largest professional lawn and landscape company, half a million dollars for numerous violations for misapplying pesticides and inaccurate recordkeeping, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) consent order filed last week. Seems hard to believe that the Earth Day Network is even considering keeping TruGreen as a sponsor of the Network’s National Earth Day events.

New York State is demanding a civil penalty of $400,000 be paid by TruGreen before April 15, 2010. As part of the consent order agreement, $100,000 of the civil penalty is suspended as long as TruGreen meets the requirements of the order which requires the company to retain an independent third-party auditor to conduct an Environmental Management Systems review of TruGreen statewide operations. TruGreen is then required to create and implement an Environmental Management Systems manual.

The violations took place between 2007 and 2009, with the most egregious occurring in 2009.

**Breaking News II** Included is an Update in the link above. Beyond Pesticides received the following statement today from Earth Day Network regarding their partnership agreement with TruGreen:

Beyond Pesticides received the following statement from Earth Day Network regarding their sponsorship agreement with TruGreen: “Earth Day Network had previously announced an educational sponsorship with TruGreen in respect to organic and sustainable lawn and landscape care. Due to unanticipated events, Earth Day Network and TruGreen regrettably announce their relationship for the 40th anniversary event has been suspended. TruGreen continues to respect the commitment Earth Day Network is making to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and Earth Day Network recognizes TruGreen’s efforts on behalf of organic and sustainable lawn and land care.”

Related: Johann Hari has written a piece in The Nation takes mainstream environmental groups to task for selling out their principles, often in exchange for money from the worst polluters. He also appeared on Democracy Now!

It's Poison Prevention Week! Lose the Pesticides for the Kids!

From Beyond Pesticides:

Numerous scientific studies that show children carrying a body burden of pesticides used in homes and elevated rates of childhood cancer in households that use pesticides, given children’s special vulnerability to pesticides.

“Proper and safe storage, use and supervision of all household products can substantially reduce exposures in the home,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. “Poison Prevention Week serves as a reminder for everyone to keep pesticides away from children, and to read and follow all labels to minimize the potential dangers from pesticides.”

However, EPA fails to alert the public to the limitations of the pesticide regulatory process, such as no evaluation of endocrine disrupting effects, low level exposures, the effects of mixtures and synergistic effects between pesticides and with pharmaceuticals, etc. EPA chooses to focus on pesticide poisoning of children associated with accidental ingestion which, while important, does not capture the many other ways through which children are exposed to chemicals. For instance, a wide range of consumer products such as deodorants, soaps and toys contain the antibacterial pesticide triclosan, which is an endocrine disruptor and has been shown to affect male and female reproductive hormones, which could potentially increase the risk for cancer. Fetal exposure to triclosan, which accumulates in the human body, can impair brain development and long-term neuropsychological development.

Secondary exposures to pesticides and other toxic chemicals should not be ignored. Studies have found pesticides in household dust and persists in homes, even after removed from the market. In 2008, a study found significant amounts of pyrethroid pesticides in indoor dust of homes and childcare centers, while another found that 75% of homes with pregnant women were contaminated with pesticides. Hazardous wood preservatives, still allowed for use on utility poles, continue to be found on children’s playgrounds. In a tragic case earlier this year, two girls, aged 4 years and 15 months, died after a toxic pesticide drifted into their home. The agency stresses the importance of reading the product label, which is misleading in suggesting that compliance with the pesticide label instructions is fully protective of children, the public and the environment.

EPA promotes poison prevention each year during National Poison Prevention Week to increase public awareness of the potential danger to children from pesticides and other household products. In 2008, the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported that more than half of the two million poisoning incidents each year involve children younger than six years old. Leading causes of poisoning include cosmetics such as perfume and nail polish, deodorant and soap, household cleaning products and medications.

If you have been exposed to a pesticide or other toxic substance and may be experiencing non-life-threatening symptoms, call your local poison center hotline at 1-800-222-1222. Call 911 in case of more serious exposures. EPA urges the public also to report all exposures to the product manufacturer (including the registration number found on the product label of all pesticide products registered by EPA).

Healthy Lawns, Healthy Lives in Burlingon

Article in today's Free Press about the Board of Health's Healthy Green Lawn Labs project with UVM. I am on the Board of Health and am interviewed...

Although snow blanketed Vermont last week, a working group of the Burlington Board of Health is about to issue this call: Wanted — two Burlington property owners willing this spring to swear off the stew of manmade chemicals many people feed their lawns to keep them as weed- and pest-free as AstroTurf.

A Chemical Reaction at Main Street Landing, Burlington

A Chemical Reaction - Trailer from Brett Plymale on Vimeo.

The documentary, A Chemical Reaction, will be shown at the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, November 18, at 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. An opening reception with the director and narrator will be held at 5:30. Tickets are $10 and available through the Flynn Box office (863-5966 or www.flynntix.org). The film tells the story of how one person helped create one of the most extensive chemical bans in North America.

TEXAS: Bugging Out on Pesticides

Texas Observer Political Intelligence

In a state known for flying roaches the size of small planes and a fire ant population that outnumbers humans, it’s not surprising that many people use pesticides. Of course, the pesticides are often more dangerous than the pests, especially to children. Now some of Texas’ anti-pesticide advocates—there aren’t many—are concerned that the Texas Department of Agriculture is considering loosening restrictions on pesticide use in schools.

Mary Hintikka never really thought about pesticides sprayed on school grounds, including outdoor gardens and athletic fields, even inside buildings. But as she watched her school-age son develop frequent, unexplained illnesses, she began to suspect that pesticides might be the cause. She was alarmed to learn that the powerful chemicals sprayed in and around her son’s Houston school included chemicals on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the most dangerous pesticides. Children with long-term or acute exposure to some of these chemicals, numerous studies have shown, are more likely to suffer from childhood leukemia, soft-tissue sarcoma, and brain cancer.

In 2007, the Legislature passed a bill by Corsicana Republican state Rep. Byron Cook that abolished the Structural Pest Control Board—by most accounts, a lax regulatory body—and folded its duties into the Agriculture Department. The idea behind the bill was to strengthen oversight and regulation of pesticides, especially for schools. The bill instructed the department to create new regulations for pesticide use at schools.

The agency released a draft of the new rules last summer, and they were much stricter. Schools could only spray the most powerful pesticides—those in the so-called red category (there are also green and yellow designations)—if students wouldn’t be within 100 feet of the spray area for at least 12 hours. The proposed 100-foot buffer was double the current standard, 50 feet for 12 hours.



(That’s still not ideal. Beyond Pesticides, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., has recommended that students not be allowed in sprayed areas for at least 24 hours.)

The pesticide industry and school boards didn’t like the proposal. They complained to the agency, saying the buffer zone was too onerous, says Bryan Black, a department spokesman. So in its most recent revision, released earlier this year, the department recommends that schools spray only where students won’t be within 25 feet for eight hours. That’s not only lower than the agency’s draft, it’s lower than the current standard.

Black says the department consulted experts at Texas A&M’s Southwest Technical Resource Center in formulating the new standard. “We believe these standards are absolutely safe,” he says. “We’re not going to do anything that would put children in danger.”

But Hintikka—like Sue Pitman, a pesticide expert who once worked in Texas and now lives in Colorado—worries that the department is bowing to pressure from industry and schools. Hintikka says the reason for moving pesticide oversight to the Agriculture Department was to strengthen standards, not weaken them.

The department hasn’t finalized the rules. The agency will decide in the next month to either implement the proposal or revise it again. In the meantime, Hintikka says, parents should find out exactly what pesticides are being used at their kids’ schools.

—Dave Mann

Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer

Pesticide lobby bugged by White House organic garden

Sustainablog

Just a few days after Michelle Obama invited local fifth graders to help plant the White House Kitchen Garden, the MACA, a group which represents and is comprised of former executives from Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and DuPont Crop Protection, sent the White House a letter (which can be viewed in its entirety here) expressing their disappointment that she had not “recognize[d] the role conventional agriculture plays in the US.”

But that’s not all. The group went on to provide a dose of propaganda educational information, including little known fact that “technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.” Drawing a clear line between technology, undefined, and sustainability does not, in the strictest terms, suggest the group’s total disapproval of organic farming methods.

That outright statement came in an email MACA sent their members shortly after sending the first lady aforementioned letter, in which they said that the idea of an organic garden “made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.”

UK LANDMARK ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL VICTORY

An environmental activist in the UK has won the right to have the use of pesticides in England and Wales reviewed.

Georgina Downs has suffered from reactions to pesticides since she was a child. A high court judge's ruling will force Environmental Secretary Hilary Benn to start a review of their use.

A High Court judge said award-winning Georgina Downs had produced "solid evidence" that rural residents had suffered harm from crop spraying with toxic chemicals. He ordered the Government to reconsider how to protect the health of countryside communities.

Miss Downs, who lives on the edge of farm fields near Chichester, West Sussex, launched her independent UK Pesticides Campaign in 2001 and was recently named a "woman of the year". To support her campaign, she collected evidence on DVD from other rural residents reporting health problems including cancer, Parkinson's disease, ME and asthma they believe could be linked to crop spraying.

This is welcomed news, even on this side of the pond. Burlington's Board of Health has been reviewing the city's pesticide ordinance for well over a year. There is unanimous agreement of the board that the ordinance should be changed to make Burlington pesticide-free.

Burlington Front Porch Forum Posting re: BOH Action on Pesticides

By Jean Markey-Duncan posting to Burlington's neighbourhood Front Porch Forum -

LAWNCARE CHEMICALS: COMPANY FINED AND PUBLIC WARNING
Tue, 21 August 2007

BURLINGTON BOARD OF HEALTH RESPONDS TO CITIZENS CONCERNS:
Recently the Board of Health approved a request by a popular lawn care company to be allowed to apply additional chemicals within the Buffer Zone neighborhoods bordering the lake. The company, which touted itself as an expert in the field, convinced the Board, made up of citizens like you and me, that the chemicals they were asking to apply were safe.

After receiving a number of complaints from residents claiming the company was not adhering to the requirements of the pesticide ordinance, the board reversed its decision to allow the additional chemicals.

I attended the commission meeting and listened to the company's representative offer embarrassing "circular" excuses for why they may not have been in compliance with the ordinance but Alan Sousie, the head of the commission, was quick to see through the excuses. Board members responded quickly and appropriately by voting to reverse their previous decision to allow the additional chemical applications in the buffer zone; furthermore, they agreed to fine the company for its failures. This sends a strong message that our Board of Health is serious about protecting the health of the citizens of Burlington .

This action is a big step in the right direction and I applaud the Board for its courage. What is now needed is an extensive educational campaign about lawn chemicals. An educated citizenry will help the Board design proper ordinances and will also help with enforcement.

Unfortunately, most people believe if a chemical is on the market, it is safe. In fact, this simply is not true. Go to the EPA website, and you will not find any claim that a chemical has been proven safe. The homeowner innocently hires professional lawn care companies or purchases products like 4 Step Lawn Care programs thinking they are benign. The EPA has categorized the chemicals in these products among other things, as possible carcinogens, suspected endocrine blockers, and neurotoxins. Additionally the "inert" ingredients that carry the target chemical can, in fact, be more dangerous than the target chemical itself.

Sadly, children are particularly at risk. A National Cancer Institute study warns that, "It is prudent to reduce or, where possible, eliminate pesticide exposure to children, given their increased vulnerability and susceptibility. In particular, efforts should be focused to reduce exposure to pesticides used in homes and garden and on lawns and public lands, which are major sources of exposure for most children."

As a person trained in plant and soil science, I am not anti-chemical by any means but I am convinced that our desire for the "perfect" lawn is responsible for putting many millions of unnecessary pounds of unsafe chemicals into the environment at the expense of our health. Our Board of Health is doing its best to keep us safe but they need our support. Let's educate ourselves, make informed decisions about our own chemical use, and help the board create and enforce good ordinances that put the health of the community first.

COMMENT: Jean is a concerned citizen and is proud of the Board's collaborative work as volunteer citizen commissioners working diligently on public health issues. I like her point about education, which we have collectively decided is a priority. I am on the BOH and voted against granting the initial permit with another commissioner (first paragraph). The motion by me to fine the company was indeed approved unanimously. But there is still work to do... onward through the pesticide fog!