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RELEASE CONTACT: Brandon Adams (919-541-5466)
21 February 2003
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Organic
Food for Thought
Lessening
Childrens Pesticide Exposure
Parents concerned about the risk to their childrens health
posed by eating foods sprayed with organophosphorus (OP) pesticides
may want to take note: Cynthia Curl and her colleagues at the University
of Washington compared the OP pesticide metabolite levels of 39
Seattle preschool children and found that children consuming organic
fruits, vegetables, and juices had significantly lower OP pesticide
exposure than those eating conventional foods [EHP 111:-].
They also concluded that consumption of organic produce and juice
may shift childrens exposures to OP pesticide residues from
a range of uncertain risk to a range of negligible risk, as defined
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys current guidelines.
Studies suggest that chronic low-level exposure to OP pesticides
may affect neurologic functioning, neurodevelopment, and growth
in children.
Ingestion of produce and juice is possibly one of the main pathways
by which children are exposed to pesticide residues. Children often
consume more of these items than adults. Children also eat more
food per body mass than adults.
The scientists recruited families at a local chain supermarket selling
mostly conventional products and a consumer cooperative selling
mostly organical goods. Children aged 2-5 years were considered
eligible for the study if their parents stated that the produce
and juice they consumed was nearly all conventional or nearly all
organic. Parents were later interviewed in the home about a variety
of topics such as income, length of time at their current residence,
and housekeeping practices, as well as any recent use of pesticides
around the home, which could present an alternate route of exposure
in the children (it was subsequently determined not to be a confounding
factor). They were also asked how often their children sucked their
thumbs, washed their hands, engaged in hand-to-mouth activity, and
spent time outdoors. The parents kept food diaries for their children
for three days, and collected as much of the urine produced by their
children on the third day as they could. Most parents collected
nearly all the urine their children produced.
It was rare for a family to eat 100% organically, so a 75% cutoff
was employed: 18 children whose juice and produce servings were
75% or more organic were included in the organic category,
and 21 children whose diets were 75% or more conventional were grouped
into the conventional category. The childrens
urine samples were analyzed for five OP pesticide metabolites: dimethylphosphate,
dimethylthiophosphate, dimethyldithiophosphate, diethylphosphate,
and diethylthiophosphate. These metabolites can be grouped as dimethyl
and diethyl metabolites.
The data showed that the median total dimethyl metabolite concentration
was approximately six times higher for the children eating conventional
diets than for the children eating organic diets. The median total
diethyl metabolite concentration was the same across the two groups.
Overall, the children eating primarily organic diets had significantly
lower OP pesticide metabolite concentrations than did the children
eating conventional diets.
This analysis did not allow the researchers to determine exactly
which pesticides the children were exposed to. The metabolites measured
are generic breakdown products of more than a dozen OP pesticides,
and within that group there is more than a 100-fold difference in
toxicity. The researchers did, however, calculate some simple dose
estimates, and the results of those estimates suggest that consuming
organic products may reduce a childs exposure level to below
the Environmental Protection Agencys chronic reference doses
for various OP pesticides, shifting exposures from a range of uncertain
risk to a range of negligible risk.
-Ernie Hood
Editors note: A full copy of the report is available online
here http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2003/5754/abstract.html,
or by fax or e-mail (PDF format) to working media at no charge.
Go to www.ehponline.org/press,
contact using phone number listed, or e-mail adams6@niehs.nih.gov.
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