Poisoning our children

A powerful piece from NC Policy Watch that every person in our state with an interest in farms, families and/or food should read. Get informed. Read the entire post and consider calling your state representatives in support of NC House Bill 1818. [The emphasis added below is mine.]

Pesticide Legislation Highlights State’s Obsolete, Immoral Policies

By Rob Schofield

Quick Take:

• No group of Americans is more regularly exposed to dangerous toxic chemicals than farmworkers and their families.
• In North Carolina, the poorly regulated use of vast quantities of agricultural pesticides continues to lead to death, horrific birth defects and other disastrous health consequences.
• In response, lawmakers will consider legislation this week that would enact some modest regulatory changes that are long overdue.

...

North Carolina is home to around 150,000 farmworkers who apply something on the order of 62 million pounds of pesticides each year. Not surprisingly, persistent exposure to these poisons causes large numbers of these workers and their families to suffer from a wide range of acute and chronic health problems. Young children are particularly sensitive and birth defects can result when pregnant women are exposed to the poisons.

The latter issue received significant media attention earlier this year after the horrific birth defects of some North Carolina farmworker children were publicized. Here’s how the “Pesticide Education Project” at the nonprofit watchdog known as the Agricultural Resources Center, reports the subject:

“The North Carolina Division of Public Health released a much-anticipated report assessing the connections between the severe birth defects in three babies born to farmworkers and their pesticide exposures while working for Ag-Mart in North Carolina. The report, released by the NC Division of Public Health’s Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch (OEEB), evaluated the likely pesticide exposures for each of the three women and the duration and timing of these exposures during the critical periods in their pregnancies. The authors concluded that while there is not enough evidence to definitively ‘prove’ whether pesticides caused the birth defects, there is ample cause for suspicion.

It is important to note that in epidemiological studies such as this one, it is virtually impossible to definitively “prove” causation. What the report does show are unacceptable exposures to known toxicants, a plausible cause (the exposures), and three tragic outcomes.

Scofield provides a laundry list of what can/should be done to address this issue (visit NC Policy Watch to see the list), ending with this:

Most of these recommendations have been incorporated into a bill that is expected to be considered this week in the House Agribusiness and Agricultural Economy Committee....

Ultimately, given the lack of political clout enjoyed by farmworkers, the success or failure of the new proposal may well hinge on the attitudes of agricultural product consumers. Will average North Carolinians (legislators included) act to force tougher regulations in order to help limit the amount of poisons in the food they consume (and to protect some of their most vulnerable fellow humans)? Let’s hope so. And let’s hope it doesn’t take years to happen.

Yes, let's hope so.