What's the Deal with Organic Pricing?

9-02-2010 @1:33PM Liz said... Steve, I see your point(s), however as someone who has worked for many years at a company that has the sole purpose of the application of agricultural pesticides, I can tell you that there is certainly an increased rate of cancer/mortality amongst those exposed to these chemicals. Granted, this is a group whose exposure is much higher than the average person, but at the same time, these men and women are developing cancers by contact alone. Based on this, I can't imagine the consumption of these pesticides is a good thing. I'm not saying I advocate the public fear-mongering, but I do think that there is a basis to the claim that the consumption of pesticides leads to an increased rate of certain diseases.

9-06-2010 @11:47PM Patrick said... Steve,

I am happy you'd love to be corrected because...

"Exposure to certain agricultural pesticides may be associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer among pesticide applicators, according to a large study looking at the causes of cancer and other diseases in the farming community. The study, part of a long-term study of pesticide applicators and their spouses known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), appears in the May 1, 2003, issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology*. The AHS is a collaborative effort involving the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Environmental Protection Agency." http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/AgricultureHealthStudy

"Colon cancer risk was up to four times higher when exposed to aldicarb, a pesticide used on cotton, peanut, and soybean crops. Rectal cancer risk more than doubled for study participants with the most exposure to chlorpyrifos, a versatile chemical used to kill pests on food crops, tobacco, pasture land, and lawns." http://coloncancer.about.com/od/cancerresearch/a/04122007.htm

"(Beyond Pesticides, September 29, 2009) A new study reveals that children exposed to agricultural pesticides applied near their home have up to twice the risk of developing the most common form of childhood leukemia, according to the Northern California Cancer Center (NCCC). The study, “Residential proximity to agricultural pesticide applications and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” published in the October issue of Environmental Research, used a unique California database to reveal an elevated risk in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) among children living near applications of certain categories of pesticides used in agriculture.

The study, led by Rudolph Rull, Ph.D., shows an elevated risk of ALL associated with moderate exposure, but not high exposure, to pesticides classified as organophosphates (odds ratio (OR) 1.6), chlorophenoxy herbicides (OR 2.0), and triazines (OR 1.9), and with agricultural pesticides used as insecticides (OR 1.5) or fumigants (OR 1.7)." http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=2480

"A Norwegian study of a large population of rural residents found that pesticide use was associated with cancer in young children of less then five years of age (2). Participation in horticulture and pesticides use was also associated with Wilms tumor, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, retinoblastoma (eye cancer), and neuroblastoma." http://www.envirohealthpolicy.net/kidstest/Cancer%20Pages/DoPesticidesCauseCancerinChildren.htm

"A new study in PLoS ONE adds heft to a link between pesticides and obesity that’s been emerging for the past several years. Soo Lim, of the Department of Internal Medicine at Seoul National University College in Korea, is lead author. Lim and colleagues exposed a group of lab mice to low levels of the common pesticide atrazine. Then, they divided the group: half the mice ate a fatty diet, and the other half ate normally.
The authors report that the pesticide decreased metabolism, increased body weight, and jacked insulin resistance even in mice eating the normal diet. A high-fat diet just made it worse.
Furthermore, atrazine decreased oxygen consumption and hindered basic aspects of cell signaling.
“These results suggest that long-term exposure to the herbicide ATZ might contribute to the development of insulin resistance and obesity, particularly where a high-fat diet is prevalent,” Lim and her team report."" http://anneminard.com/2009/04/14/day-80-pesticides-give-you-obesity/

""Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, have two previously unsuspected effects. They act on genes in the developing fetus and newborn to turn more precursor cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them, like a physiological Scrooge. 'The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,' says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 'Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.'" " http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20090917

" Tributyltin, the main active ingredient in many pesticides, causes damage to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems of animals from water fleas to humans.

But that’s not all. The chemical may interfere with cells, making people more prone to obesity.
So far, tributyltin has shown to cause the growth of excess fat tissue in mice exposed in utero. This study published recently in a BioScience article shows a parallel between the rise in obesity over the past 40 years, and the rise in use of industrial chemicals over the same time period. The correlation is under scientific scrutiny but shows a “plausible and provocative” association between the two." http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/obesity-epidemic-linked-to-pesticides/

"Licensed pesticide applicators who used chlorinated pesticides on more than 100 days in their lifetime were at greater risk of diabetes, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The associations between specific pesticides and incident diabetes ranged from a 20 percent to a 200 percent increase in risk, said the scientists with the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI)." http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/releases/2008/longterm.cfm

"Cambridge University scientists are advocating more research into the possible links between environmental pollution and type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. At least 171 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, according to estimates by the World Health Organization.
In today's edition of the British medical journal "Lancet," Drs. Oliver Jones and Julian Griffin highlight the need to research the possible link between persistent organic pollutants, POPs, and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes.
POPs is a group of chemicals which includes many pesticides such as dieldrin, DDT, toxaphene and chlordane and several industrial chemical products or byproducts including polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, dioxins and furans.
In their commentary, Jones and Griffin cite peer reviewed research which demonstrates a strong relationship between the levels of POPs in blood, particularly organochlorine compounds, and the risk of type 2 diabetes. " http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-25-04.asp

...so, yes, there appears to be evidence of a correlation.