The folks at the Organic Consumers Association recently reported on a new study that showed when children switch to organic fruits, vegetables and juices, the traces of pesticides in their urine disappear. Now, mind you, nobody has shown what kind of damage the pesticides might be doing, but they have shown that they exist in the urine of children who eat conventional foods. The health risks of low-level exposure to pesticides have not been determined, though certainly at high levels of exposure, the risk is evident. The Food and Drug Administration continues to assess many of the commonly used pesticides, and some critics say the department is allowing far to high an exposure risk for some, and not banning others that should be banned.
This new study shows that a switch to organic foods has a swift effect on the presence of pesticides in the child. Within just 8 to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides could no longer be detected in the testing.
"Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets," said Chensheng Lu, the principal author of the study and a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health. He is a leading authority on pesticides and children.
The children in the study were from a wealthy neighborhood in Washington State, but Lu said the results will no doubt be replicated in poorer communities.
You can read the complete report here:
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2008/10912/10912.pdf
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