Poisoning Agriculture

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Sloppy Journalism Continues to Tarnish the Perception of Food Safety and the Processes that Produce It
The daily reports about how agriculture is killing us are certainly alarming. However, when I carefully examine each report the sensational headlines never seem to match reality. The claims originate usually from either unpublished reports, or re-interpretations of legitimately-published work where the conclusions have little to no relationship to the scandalous headline.
Today’s example came to me via Twitter when I read the post to the left. Pesticides associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; Lou Gehrig's Disease) progression? Okay, I’ll take a look at the data and see what they authors found. The referenced study is here.
The authors analyzed 167 cases of ALS, measured blood levels of select compounds, and then monitored disease progression. The authors found associations between levels of specific organic compounds and the progression of disease.
But they were not pesticides. At least anything used in a long, long time.

The big offenders were polycholorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl esters (PBCEs), known toxic compounds from paper/plastics/electronics manufacturing and a class of flame retardants. No pesticides.
In fact, the study did not even test modern day pesticides. They examined the levels of components of chlordane (cis- and trans-nonachlor, and chlordane itself) a compound that has been banned since the 1980’s. It is a a reasonable idea to test for it, as it is environmentally persistent and its components are health hazards.
They also examined levels of hexachlorocyclohexene (HCH) and Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p.p’ DDE; the breakdown product of DDT). This makes sense too, as these long-banned compounds are persistent chemistries that still can be detected in those exposed, years after exposure.

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