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http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn129epaed
25-Dec-12
Page 2 of 2
Given the average diet it sets tolerances for each chemical and crop -- maximum permissible amounts of Captan on apples and beans. Then it lays down field procedures specifying how much Captan can be used on each crop, and what period must elapse between application and harvest, to assure that crops will meet tolerance. A lot more assumptions creep in here. 1) The public's only exposure to a pesticide comes through food ingestion. 2) When several pesticides are present in the diet together, they do not do more damage than they would separately. 3) Farmers obey field guidelines. 4) Obeying field guidelines results in tolerances being met. Crop samples are taken by the Department of Agriculture to test for compliance. Some of the samples do have pesticide levels over tolerance. Many crops have residues far below tolerance, and some farmers use no pesticides at all. My colleagues did an experiment to test just one of this long string of assumptions. They calculated the pesticide exposures of people who do not happen to eat the average national diet. They used data on the actual diets of people of different ages, sexes, and ethnic groups. Their findings were especially striking for children. According to their calculations, children 1-6 years old receive more than the acceptable daily intake of 10 out of 18 fungicides they investigated. Some of the calculated overexposure levels were enormous -from 5 to 200 times the acceptable daily intake. (Calculations were made for only 18 fungicides out of 600 possible pesticides.) Does this mean our children are being poisoned? Probably not, but the EPA can't be sure of that. All anyone can say is that, assuming that foods contain pesticides at the tolerance level, and assuming the EPA's definition of safe exposure, the average child eating an average child's diet, as revealed by one nutrition survey, is overexposed to 10 of the 18 pesticides investigated. The EPA has no choice but to operate on assumptions. No one fully understands the effects of pesticides on the human body. The EPA Office of Pesticide Programs has a finite (and shrinking) budget. The task of regulating 600 chemicals on 376 crops in the hands of 3 million farmers who feed 240 million people is far beyond what any agency, no matter how well-funded, can handle. My personal conclusion from this exercise in looking too closely is that, if we are to go on using pesticides, much more research and monitoring needs to be done. It should be paid for by the chemical companies who are profiting from this massive experiment in which we are all the white rats. And in the meantime, I'll get as much food as I can from my own garden and from farmers whose methods I know and trust. Copyright Sustainability Institute This article from The Donella Meadows Archive is available for use in research, teaching, and private study. For other uses, please contact Sustainability Institute, 3 Linden Road, Hartland, VT 05048, (802) 436-1277. Top
http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn129epaed
25-Dec-12