Image
© minnpost.com
Pesticides threaten our health, yet we still use them in America today. In the Vietnam War, herbicides (a subclass of pesticides) and their deadly effects created a dark legacy that still lingers.

Many Americans have heard about Agent Orange and are aware that the Veterans Administration has recognized numerous ill effects it had on people who were exposed to it. Not so well known is that nine of the 12 most dangerous and persistent organic chemicals are pesticides, according to the 2001 Stockholm Convention findings on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

The result of the convention was an international environmental treaty, which went into effect in May 2004. The aim was to eliminate or restrict the production and use of POPs, defined as "chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment."

In the early 1960s, we sprayed Agent Orange in Vietnam as a defoliant. It contained dioxin, but the chemical companies assured everyone that dioxin occurred naturally in the environment and was not harmful to humans. They knew better.

In March 1965, Dow official V.K. Rowe convened a meeting of executives of Monsanto, Hooker Chemical, which operated the Love Canal dump, Diamond Alkali, the forerunner of Diamond-Shamrock, and the Hercules Powder Co., which later became Hercules Inc.

According to documents uncovered years later, the purpose of this meeting was "to discuss the toxicological problems caused by the presence of certain highly toxic impurities" in samples of 2,4,5-T. The primary "highly toxic impurity" was 2,3,7,8 TCDD, one of 75 dioxin compounds.

With all the information that has been collected on the subject of pesticides then and now, you'd think we would have quit using them decades ago. Not so. We're still using pesticides, and - worse yet - our food chain is polluted with them.

According to new research published in the Journal of Pediatrics, levels of pesticides commonly encountered across the country in food as well as around the home significantly increase children's risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and could be causing an increase in the number of children living with the condition.

Pediatrician and public health expert Phil Landrigan, M.D., professor and chair of the department of community and preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said in a recent interview with MSNBC,
"For most people, diet is the predominant source. It's been shown that people who switch to an organic diet knock down the levels of pesticide by-products in their urine by 85 to 90 percent."
There you have it. The public continues to buy over-the-counter weed sprays for their yards in the mistaken belief they're not harmful. Big Agri absolutely depends upon pesticides in nearly all the crops they grow. The corporations continue to claim the new pesticides are safe. Deju vu, anyone?

In spite of the history of Agent Orange and all we've learned about the lies the chemical corporations have told in the past, pesticides are harming a new generation.

Some of these corporations are the very same that were caught lying about Agent Orange in the 1970s. That's why military members who served overseas and were exposed to it are getting disability ratings now. Their children face numerous problems traced to their exposure. Birth defects have been documented.

Now the children of civilians face significantly increased risk of developing ADHD because our food chain is contaminated with pesticides.

Parents are told to give organic food to their children in the study's summary. Easier said than done. Organic food costs considerably more than pesticide-ridden food. Besides, what kind of message does that send? If you can't afford organic, you have to eat food exposed to chemicals with serious side-effects.

So what can be done? Urge lawmakers to stop pesticide use. I know there are organizations - for example, http://.nospray.org/ - and individuals trying to do that now. You could support them.

As It Stands, unless we make some big changes in the way we grow our food, our eventual harvest will be a grim one for the next generation.

About the author

Dave Stancliff is a retired newspaper editor and publisher who writes this column for the Times-Standard.