Harmful pesticides found in everyday food products

Government promises to rid the nation's food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren't doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of local children. The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II. When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.

Click here to read the entire article by By ANDREW SCHNEIDER, Seattle PI.Com SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

ABOUT THE STUDY

Chensheng Lu's study was published this month in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science. It was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and used federal laboratories to confirm the accuracy of his findings.

Unlike many previous studies, Lu's team focused on children living in an urban/suburban area who were tested for multiple days in each of the four seasons with urine and saliva sampled twice a day.

The organic produce was sent to the Department of Agriculture lab in Yakima to be tested for pesticides. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the urine samples and the Food and Drug Administration laboratory is completing its quantification of pesticide residues in samples of the conventional food the children consumed.

The team included scientists from Emory University, the CDC and the University of Washington.

Click here to view the study report on Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) is a monthly journal of peer-reviewed research and news on the impact of the environment on human health. EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and its content is free online.

Does this topic interest you? Click here to read the Harvard School of Public Health Press Release entitled, "A Silent Pandemic: Industrial Chemicals Are Impairing the Brain Development of Children Worldwide".