The Precautionary Principle Matters

Press Release-  On April 27^th, in celebration of Earth Day, the entire community is invited to learn about why the Precautionary Principle is a crucial management practice when it comes to the health of our children.  In this era of widespread chemical exposure to children, the Precautionary Principle matters! 

The Precautionary Principle advocates the elimination of potential hazards to health at the onset of an activity, rather than accepting a level of harm.” Recent science such as the National Cancer Institute’s meticulously written research entitled  Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk, published in 2010, shows that toxins are responsible for making our children chronically ill with conditions from autism to cancer.

The logical solution is we must reduce toxic risks to children in their everyday lives. 

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Why you should Adopt the Precautionary Principle at home

Why you should Adopt the Precautionary Principle at home (Abridged from an Article : Time to Heed the Evidence  By Sean Palfrey, MD) We can work on and pass meaningful Safe Chemical Act  reform and build in proactive responses to new evidence of medical danger whenever it appears which can stop jeopardizing the health of our children’s grandchildren. Abridged from an Article : Time to Heed the Evidence  By Sean Palfrey, MDTwo generations ago, Rachel Carson woke us up, and her book and others sounded a clarion call that should have changed the country’s laissez faire attitude about inventing, using, and discarding chemicals into our air, water, and soil before we studied them to reassure ourselves that they were harmless

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Pediatric Environmental Health Toolkit

Safe and Healthy Children curriculum addresses environmental health in farmworker children

The children of migrant farmworkers are at risk for toxic chemical exposures and other environmental hazards. PSR has released a new train-the-trainer curriculum and education packet on preventing harm to this vulnerable population. Targeting staff and community health workers of the Head Start Seasonal and Migrant Farmworker program, the curriculum augments PSR’sPediatric Environmental Health Toolkit. It includes hands-on activities for parents, brief anecdotes about chemical exposures, information on chemical policy, and principles of participatory education. http://www.psr.org/resources/pediatric-toolkit.html

http://appprecautionaryprinciple.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/prenatal-exposures-a-continuum-of-vulnerability-to-environmental-toxicants/

Funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, PSR worked with partner organizations Academy for Educational Development and Health Outreach Partners to provide training for Migrant and Seasonal Head Start workers on the unique vulnerability of children, exposures to environmental hazards, and prevention strategies.

View the Safe and Healthy Children curriculum

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Mom’s pesticide exposure raises risk of infant leukemia. Jan 30, 2013

Ferreira, JD, AC Couto, MS Pombo-de-Oliveira, S Koifman and the Brazilian Collaborative Study Group of Infant Acute Leukemia. In utero pesticide exposure and leukemia in Brazilian children less than 2 years of age. Environmental Health Perspective http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1103942.

Synopsis by Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá    Reprinted from Environmental Health News Jan 30, 2013

A mother’s exposure to pesticides before, during and after pregnancy may increase the risk of infant leukemia diagnosed before the age of 2, found a study from Brazil. Children were twice as likely to develop the rare cancers if their mothers were exposed three months before conception when compared to mothers who reported no exposures. A mother’s exposure at any time to the insecticide permethrin also raised the cancer risk for infants.

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Mom’s pesticide exposure of insecticide permethrin raises risk of infant leukemia.

A mother’s exposure to pesticides before, during and after pregnancy may increase the risk of infant leukemia diagnosed before the age of 2, found a study from Brazil. Children were twice as likely to develop the rare cancers if their mothers were exposed three months before conception when compared to mothers who reported no exposures. A mother’s exposure at any time to the insecticide permethrin also raised the cancer risk for infants.

Ferreira, JD, AC Couto, MS Pombo-de-Oliveira, S Koifman and the Brazilian Collaborative Study Group of Infant Acute Leukemia. In utero pesticide exposure and leukemia in Brazilian children less than 2 years of age. Environmental Health Perspective http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1103

Synopsis by Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá

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Acute Illnesses Associated With Pesticide Exposure at Schools

Acute Illnesses Associated With Pesticide Exposure at Schools 

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/294/4/455

Pesticide exposure at schools produces acute illnesses among school employees and students. To prevent pesticide-related illnesses at schools, implementation of integrated pest management programs in schools, practices to reduce pesticide drift, and adoption of pesticide spray buffer zones around schools are recommended.

Walter A. Alarcon, MD; Geoffrey M. Calvert, MD; Jerome M. Blondell, PhD; Louise N. Mehler, MD; Jennifer Sievert, BS; Maria Propeck, BS; Dorothy S. Tibbetts, MPH, MS; Alan Becker, MPH; Michelle Lackovic, MPH; Shannon B. Soileau, MS; Rupali Das, MD; John Beckman, BS; Dorilee P. Male, BS; Catherine L. Thomsen, MPH; Martha Stanbury, MSPH

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Effect of Aspartame on Oxidative Stress and Monoamine Neurotransmitter Levels in Lipopolysaccharide-Treated Mice

Abridged : Neurotoxicity ResearchNeurodegeneration, Neuroregeneration, Neurotrophic Action, and Neuroprotection© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 201110.1007/s12640-011-9264-9Omar M. E. Abdel-Salam¹  , Neveen A. Salem¹ and Jihan Seid Hussein²(1)Department of Toxicology and Narcotics, National Research Centre, Tahrir St., Dokki, Cairo, Egypt (2)Department of Medical Biochemistry, National Research Centre, Cairo, Egypt

The dipeptide aspartame (1-methyl N-L-alpha-aspartyl-Lphenylalanine) is a low-calorie sweetener that is widely used in human foods and beverages. The present study provides the evidence that the dietary sweetener aspartame increases oxidative stress in the brain of mice. In summary, findings in the present study suggest that in LPS-treated mice, aspartame significantly increases the levels of lipid peroxidation and nitrite in brain. In addition, aspartame itself impairs cellular antioxidant status because of the decreased brain levels of GSH, and glucose. Thus, aspartame increases oxidative stress in brain which could have important implications in view of the fact that oxidative stress is implicated in various brain pathologies and that the agent is one of the most widely used artificial sweeteners in human foods and drinks. Evidence is accumulating with regard to supporting an important role for oxidative stress and increased inflammatory response in the pathogenesis of several brain diseases and neurodegenerative disorders.

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AAP Makes Recommendations to Reduce Children’s Exposure to Pesticides

For Release: November 26, 2012 ### The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. For more information, visit www.aap.org.

Children encounter pesticides every day and are uniquely vulnerable to their toxicity. A new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) outlines the harmful effects of pesticides on children and makes recommendations on how to reduce exposure. The policy statement, “Pesticide Exposure in Children,” and an accompanying technical report are published in the December 2012 issue of Pediatrics (released online Nov. 26).

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How about instead of giving children drugs they give children organic food?

Dietary intake and its contribution … [Environ Health Perspect. 2008] – PubMed – NCBI http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367841/ “Children with higher levels of the pesticide malathion in their urine seem to be at an increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD” http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/16/science/la-sci-pesticides-201005

• PubMed comprises more than 22 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

• How about instead of giving children drugs they give children organic food? “By substituting organic fresh fruits and vegetables for corresponding conventional food items, the median urinary metabolite concentrations were reduced to nondetected or close to non-detected levels for malathion and chlorpyrifos at the end of the 5-day organic diet intervention period”  

1. “In conclusion, we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production. We also concluded that these children were most likely exposed to these organophosphorus pesticides exclusively through their diet.”
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367841/ “Children with higher levels of the pesticide malathion in their urine seem to be at an increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD” http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/16/science/la-sci-pesticides-20100517

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Pesticides and Children

National Pesticide Information Center http://npic.orst.edu/health/child.html

All pesticides have some level of toxicity, and pose some risk to infants and children. The risk depends on the toxicity of the pesticide ingredients and how much of the pesticide a child is exposed to.

Pesticides come in many forms but all are, by design, toxic to living organisms. In our efforts to rid our crops, homes, and gardens of weeds and pests, we have surrounded ourselves with mixtures of chemicals with only a minimal understanding of how they affect our health.  Annually, Americans use more than 4.5 billion pounds of pesticides, including about 1 billion pounds of “conventional” pesticides used in agriculture, industry, home and garden. Every day, we are unknowingly exposed to a variety of pesticides in our food, drinking water, homes, schools, and offices.

Pesticides and Children- Most households use some form of pesticide such as insect repellant, weed killer or a flea collar for the pet.  However, there are pesticides in many other products as well. Treated wood for playgrounds and tree houses, soap, pool chemicals, shelving paper, even the waxy coating on fruits and vegetables contain some level of pesticides.  We are exposed to these low levels of pesticides every day without fully understanding the dangerous health effects they may have.

There is mounting evidence for a wide range of health effects. It is clear that developing fetuses, infants and young children are particularly sensitive to the harmful effects of pesticides.  When exposed to a toxic chemical, children are much more likely to experience an adverse health reaction at lower doses than adults.  Developing and growing bodies are much more susceptible to pesticide contamination than grown bodies.

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