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"gewg_" writes:

from the they-aren't-even-farmworkers dept.

The Center for Food Safety reports [commondreams.org] via Common Dreams

From 2006 to 2014, Japanese doctors documented a new cluster of symptoms reported by hundreds of rural Japanese people: patients suffering from recent memory loss, finger tremors, and combined symptoms of headache, general fatigue, palpitation/chest pain, abdominal pain, muscle pain, and cough. Public health researchers later associated these symptoms with the level of exposure to agricultural neonicotinoid insecticides, used on fresh fruits, tea, rice, and a host of other human food crops. Urine sampling showed the level of symptoms correlated with the amount of neonicotinoid consumption.

Last week, the public health team composed of Japanese, American, and African researchers published the alarming story of those patients [plos.org][1]. The patients lived in rural communities and were being exposed to agricultural chemicals mostly through ingestion of pesticide-contaminated food and [...] perhaps by blowing sprays and dusts in a heavily-farmed, densely-populated area. Residential, pet, and other exposures may also have contributed. The people involved were not farmworkers and did not have unusually high occupational exposures.

[...]Peter T. Jenkins, consulting attorney with CFS, stated, [...] "These exposures are occurring mostly through eating and drinking, so the risks go far beyond farmworkers and other occupational exposures to every-day consumers in rural areas."

The potential for water contamination is also high; although Japanese studies have not documented it, numerous U.S., Canadian, and Dutch studies have. These are compiled in the new Center for Food Safety report, Water Hazard - Aquatic Contamination by Neonicotinoid Insecticides in the United States [centerforfoodsafety.org][1]. The safety of drinking water sources and threats from pesticide contamination needs further urgent research.

[...]Prior neurotoxicity studies on the neonicotinoids have raised alarms, including within the European Food Safety Agency. But, those were mostly cell culture or rat studies. Now, well-supported evidence of illness in real people has emerged in the published scientific literature for the first time. Federal and State regulators must act to protect public health", said Jenkins.

[1] Links in article redirect.

Original Submission