Pesticides

Are pesticides causing "incurable" diseases ?

• Insecticides = poisons for killing insects
• Herbicides = poisons for killing herbs
• Fungicides = poisons for killing fungi (yeasts)
• Antibiotics = poisons for killing bacteria

It is very likely that food you are eating contains insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and antibiotics!

The most common contaminants are carbamate insecticides, the triazine erbicides (atrazine and others) and nitrate nitrogen. For years government scientists have tested each of these chemicals individually at low levels in laboratory animals, searching mainly for signs of cancer and have declared each of them an "acceptable risk".

Now a group of biologists and medical researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, led by Warren P. Porter, has completed a 5-year experiment putting mixtures of low levels of these chemicals into the drinking water of male mice and carefully measuring the results. They reported recently that combinations of these chemicals have measurable detrimental effects on the nervous, immune and endocrine (hormone) systems. Furthermore, they say their research has direct implications for humans.

Dr. Porter and his colleagues point out that the nervous system, the immune system, and the endocrine (hormone) system are all closely related and in constant communication with each other.
If any one of the three systems is damaged or degraded the other two may be adversely affected.

A recent study of 4 and 5 year-old children in Mexico specifically noted a decrease in mental ability and an increase in aggressive behavior among children exposed to pesticides. Elizabeth A. Guillette and colleagues studied two groups of Yaqui Indian children living in the Yaqui Valley in northern Sonora, Mexico.

One group of children lives in the lowlands dominated by pesticide-intensive agriculture (45 or more sprayings each year) and the other group lives in the nearby upland foothills where their parents make a living by ranching without the use of pesticides.

The pesticide-exposed children had far less physical endurance in a test to see how long they could keep jumping up and down; they had inferior hand-eye coordination; and they could not draw a simple stick figure of a human being, which the upland children could readily do.

Notably, in the Guillette study we find this description of the behavior of pesticide-exposed children: "Some valley children were observed hitting their siblings when they passed by, and
they became easily upset or angry with a minor corrective comment by a parent. These aggressive behaviors were not noted in the (pesticide-free) foothills children."

The human body can defend itself against poisons to some degree, low-level mixtures of pesticides and fertilizer might still get past the body's defenses.

Americans are searching for the causes of violence in their society. Some are blaming a decline in religious upbringing. Others are blaming households with the parents working and no one minding the kids. Some say the cause is violent movies, violent TV and extremist internet sites, combined with the ready availability of cheap guns.

No one seems to be asking whether pesticides, fertilizers and toxic metals are affecting our young people's mental capacity, emotional balance, and social adjustment. From the work of Warren Porter, Elizabeth Guillette and others, it is apparent that these are valid questions.