Increased Birth Defects Correlated With Elevated Levels Of Pesticides In Surface Water In US
A study in the U.S. has linked the increased number of birth defects in kids of women who got pregnant in spring or summer to elevated levels of pesticides in surface water across the country.
Time of conception
Studying all 30.1 million births, which occurred in the U.S. between 1996 and 2002, the researchers found that women whose last menstrual period occurred in April, May, June or July were at increased risk for delivering infants with birth defects.
They also found that this period of increased risk correlated with elevated levels of nitrates, atrazine and other pesticides in surface water across the country.
While many of these chemicals, including the herbicide atrazine which is banned in European countries but permitted in the U.S., are suspected to be harmful to the developing embryo, this is the first study to link their increased seasonal concentration in surface water with the peak in birth defects in infants conceived in the same months.
The correlation between the month of last menstrual period and higher rates of birth defects was statistically significant for half of the 22 categories of birth defects reported in a Centers for Disease Control database from 1996 to 2002 including spina bifida, cleft lip, clubfoot and Down's syndrome.
"Elevated concentrations of pesticides and other agrochemicals in surface water during April through July coincided with significantly higher risk of birth defects in live births conceived by women whose last menstrual period began in the same months," said Paul Winchester, M.D., Indiana University School of Medicine professor of clinical pediatrics, the first author of the study.
2.Pesticides to cause harm for generations to come:
Birthdefects
Preliminary evidence suggests that pesticides may function in the same way as the controversial chemical bisphenol A, a plastic-making compound able to act like a female hormone. Not only can it disrupt the hormonal systems of living organisms, but it does so at very low doses.
And similar to BPA, pesticides' harmful effects may not be immediately apparent.
In one study, Dr. Winchester says, baby rats exposed to atrazine, an herbicide that is banned in European countries, were born with no birth defects. But they developed problems including infertility, kidney and prostate problems, cancer and shortened lifespans as adults - and passed them on to their offspring.
That means agrichemicals could have effects for generations to come, he says.
3.Pesticides and water pollution
Water pollution
“We should be concerned,” said Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network. “This can influence brain development, sperm counts or susceptibility to cancer, even where the animal at birth seems perfectly normal.”
The most notorious example of water pollution occurred in 1969, when the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire and helped shock America into adopting the Clean Water Act. Since then, complacency has taken hold.
Those deformed frogs and intersex fish — not to mention the growing number of deformities in newborn boys — should jolt us once again.
7 percent of boys are now born with undescended testicles, although this often self-corrects over time. And up to 1 percent of boys in the United States are now born with hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the penis improperly, such as at the base rather than the tip.
Apprehension is growing among many scientists that the cause of all this may be a class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are very widely used in agriculture, industry and consumer products. Some also enter the water supply when estrogens in human urine — compounded when a woman is on the pill — pass through sewage systems and then through water treatment plants.
These endocrine disruptors have complex effects on the human body, particularly during fetal development of males.
4. The movie! "287", a film by Altruism Pictures, is about the disintegrating state of our health and rising disease for reasons mostly unknown to the public. It shows how in July 2005, 287 toxins were discovered in 10 US infants' umbilical cord blood (a study conducted by EWG from blood drawn by the Red Cross) that harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage. 180 of these toxins cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests.
The Planned North American theatrical release: Fall 2009
Movie
- Movie Advisory Board includes Dr. Devra Davis, author of "The secret history of the War on Cancer".
Huguette Allen,
Candidate, Vernon-Monashee
Green Party Critic, Industry & Small Business
Phone: 250.547.0272 cell: 250.309.5973
www.VoteAllen.ca
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