PANUPS: Environmental Illness, Pesticides & Parkinson's,

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Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:51:43 GMT

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PANUPS: Environmental Illness, Pesticides & Parkinson's,

First Ever Organic Degree and more

 

 

Environmental Illness, Pesticides & Parkinson's, First Ever Organic

Degree and more

June 22, 2006

 

Global Environmental Health Threat: As much as 24% of global disease

is caused by environmental exposures that can be averted.

Well-targeted interventions can prevent much of this risk, the World

Health Organization (WHO) reports in a recent study. WHO further

estimates that more than 33% of disease in children under the age of 5

is caused by environmental exposures. Preventing environmental health

risks could save as many as four million lives a year, mostly in

developing countries.

 

Florida/Mexico: Exposure to pesticides reaches across generations,

according to a new University of Florida study that finds daughters of

mothers who lived near areas of heavy agricultural spraying may be

unable to nurse their children. Conducted in Mexico, the research

involves pesticides also used in the United States, although sold

under different names, potentially presenting similar risks to people

in the U.S., said Elizabeth Guillette, the University of Florida

anthropology professor who led the research. The study was published

in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

 

Minnesota: Exposure to pesticides used for farming and other purposes

may raise the risk of Parkinson's disease in men, a new study

confirmed. Parkinson's patients were 2.4 times more likely to be

exposed to pesticides in their life than those who were not exposed to

pesticides, according to the study Chemical exposures and Parkinson's

disease: A population-based case-control study. The research was

conducted by Mayo Clinic scientists and published in the June issue of

the journal Movement Disorders.

 

Read the abstract.

 

Mexico: Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, the principal

tobacco companies in Mexico, employ agricultural production contracts

to impose their norms and corporate culture upon the ejidatarios

(communal land owners) who grow tobacco. Pesticides mandated by the

company contracts typically damage the nervous system, provoke nausea,

loss of balance, confusion and worse. At high concentrations some of

these chemicals can paralyze breathing and cause death. Much of

Mexico's tobacco growing is concentrated in the Gold Coast (Costa de

Oro) region of Nayarit. The majority of workers in the tobacco fields

are indigenous, coming from the Huichol (wixárika), Cora (nayari),

Tepehunao (o 'dam ñi 'ok) and Mexicanero communities in the mountains

in the north of Jalisco, from western Nayarit, and southern Durango

and Zacatecas. An estimated one million of these people are migrant

day laborers and approximately 450,000 are children between the ages

of six and fourteen. The state of Nayarit leads the nation in

pesticide poisonings. For ten years, the PAN Affiliate project

Huicholes and Pesticides has exposed and denounced the use of toxic

pesticides in tobacco fields. Read their recent report.

 

Washington: Washington State University is offering the nation's first

organic farming degree. John Reganold, a Washington State University

soils professor, put together a proposal to create the nation's first

organic farming degree, and the state approved the program last month.

Reganold is a major figure in the rise of organic farming, reports the

Seattle Post Intelligencer.

 

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PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and

reporting on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the

mainstream media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North

America, a non-profit and non-governmental organization working to

advance sustainable alternatives to pesticides worldwide. We gladly

accept donations for our work and all contributions are tax deductible

in the United States.

 

Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) 49 Powell St., Suite

500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA Phone: (415) 981-1771 Fax: (415)

981-1991 Email: panna Web: http://www.panna.org

 

Email us at: panna. Phone us at: (415) 981-1771.