PESTICIDES ARE DUMBING DOWN OUR CHILDREN

Three separate studies recently published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives indicate prenatal pesticide exposure to fetuses negatively impact a child’s learning ability. Their IQs tend to be lower. The greater the umbilical cord pesticide blood levels, the lower the child’s IQ. These toxins originated mostly from conventional agriculture’s heavily sprayed foods. But farmers and farm workers were studied the least. The three studies focused mostly on urban dwellers who consume those sprayed foods. One was done in UC Berkley, CA, another by Columbia University in NYC, and the other by Mt. Sinai Hospital researchers, also in NYC. Most effective pesticides contain different types oforganophosphates. As of the turn of our current century, many nations had bannedchlorpyrifos and diazinon, from domestic use. Those two pesticides were so heavily loaded with organophosphates that just having bug and ant poisons stored in one’s domicile caused health problems to occupants. Organophosphates (OPs) are spinoffs from biochemical warfare research to create nerve gases for killing humans. Scientists soon discovered that the OPs killed bugs too. Of course, the usual toxicology index that protects the industry is based on the notion that if you don’t drop dead soon after exposure to any chemical agent, it’s safe! But eventually, long term neurological deterioration was detected among OP users,even if they hardly used them. The link was made to these organophosphate nerve gas components in chlorpyrifos and diazinon. They were disallowed for home use, but not for agricultural use.

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