Selfsufficientish.com

A new study has been added to the growing body of literature reporting on the potential health effects of low-level exposure to widely used pesticides. In this study, a pesticide used on leafy greens, apples, cherries, strawberries, cucumbers, grapes, watermelons, and other food crops has been identified as an obesogen in mice. An obesogen is a chemical that promotes obesity by prompting the growth of more and larger fat cells, often doing so through prenatal exposure and setting the stage for metabolic disease later in life.

Since the identification of these effects in the past ten years or so, pesticides and other synthetic chemicals have come under increasing scrutiny for the role they may play in promoting childhood and adult obesity and related health effects. “An alarming recent trend is the increasing rate of obesity in very young children, even infants,” writes Bruce Blumberg, University of California Irvine professor of developmental and cell biology who led this new study of the fungicide called triflumizole (TFZ). “Since it is unlikely that infants are consuming more calories and exercising less than in the past, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the prenatal and/or early postnatal environment has recently changed.”

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This study is, however, one of many reporting on subtle but potentially serious effects of exposure to pesticides at low levels, amounts comparable to those people encounter environmentally. Among these are the studies of organophosphate pesticides I reported on for The Pump Handle in September, which are increasingly being linked to adverse neurological impacts in children who were exposed prenatally. But many other biocides have also been identified as having potential adverse hormonal or developmental activity, typically at low exposure levels. Such evidence on atrazine, endosulfan, tributyl tin, vinclozolin, and those based on glyphosate has been summarized for Pesticide News by Gwynne Lyons of WWF-UK.

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This is problematic because testing used to set current safety standards for such chemicals often has not historically included low-dose effects. This means that what’s considered a safe level of exposure may be missing potentially important hormonal and developmental health impacts. That such effects may be absent from a regulatory toxicity review of a pesticide has both potential occupational and public health impacts. Long-term studies of children whose mothers were exposed to pesticides in their agricultural communities or through use of these substances in indoor pest control are beginning to show some of these impacts. The TMZ study is yet another indication that what is considered a safe exposure level of pesticide exposure – for agricultural workers, their families or for the food we eat – may merit another look.