TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/030689/03068900.007

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.8 KB | 120 lines

                                                                                HEALTH, Page 57

Watch Those Vegetables, Ma


Pesticide-laden produce may endanger your tots


    For many parents, dinnertime is too often a series of
exhausting skirmishes with small children who refuse to finish
their spinach or salad. Invariably, the parental argument is:
"Eat it. It's good for you." This week a new study charges that
all too often what is on the plate or in the glass may not be
good for you at all. In fact, reports the National Resources
Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental group based in New
York City, farm produce sold in U.S. supermarkets and
greengroceries may contain so much pesticide that it poses a
serious hazard to the health of the nation's 22 million
preschoolers.

    The study, titled "Intolerable Risk: Pesticides in Our
Children's Food," examines recent federal data on the eating
habits of infants and youngsters through age five, along with
figures on the amount of pesticides in 27 different crops. The
information is then used to assess the long-term risk of cancer
and neurological problems in these children. Eight of the
pesticides are believed to be human carcinogens; all are used on
fruits and vegetables frequently consumed by children, including
peas, carrots, fruit juices and applesauce. Among the key
findings:

    Youngsters receive four times  as much exposure on average
as adults to the eight carcinogenic pesticides evaluated. As
many as 6,200 of today's preschoolers, the study predicts, may
develop cancer sometime in their life as a result of
pesticide-contaminated produce they consume as children.

    Daminozide (trade name: Alar), a chemical that is used
chiefly on red apples and that penetrates the fruit's skin, is
the greatest cancer hazard. The NRDC predicts that daminozide
use may cause one case of cancer for every 4,200 preschoolers.
Though the percentage of children affected -- 0.024% -- is
minute, the risk is 240 times the standard considered
acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency -- one case
of cancer per million.

    Exposure to four carcinogenic fungicides, including Captan
and Mancozeb, may lead to one case of cancer per 33,000 to
160,000 children, two to seven times the allowable risk.

    At least 3 million youngsters are exposed to unsafe levels
of organophosphate insecticides that may cause neurological
damage. Among the crops treated by these chemicals are
tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers.

    The NRDC report goes on to charge that the Government is
failing to protect youngsters adequately from such dangers. It
points out that current legal limits for pesticide residues, set
by the EPA, are based on the consumption patterns and physiology
of adults. Children eat a great deal more food for their body
weight than adults. They also consume more fruit, which makes
up an estimated 34% of preschoolers' diets, in contrast to 20%
for adults'. Youngsters eat six times as many grapes, seven
times as many apples and seven times as much applesauce as their
parents. The typical preschooler drinks 18 times  as much apple
juice as the average woman. Thus the child's ingestion of
pesticides is likely to be greater.

    Children may also be more vulnerable than adults to
pesticides because their bodies are still maturing. Cells are
rapidly dividing, and organs, like the liver, may not be as
efficient in removing toxic chemicals. "We must revise all
existing tolerances and set the levels for children," says
Janet Hathaway, the NRDC's chief lobbyist in Washington. "We
should be able to eat food without worrying that we are sowing
the seeds of cancer."

    Not everyone believes that pesticides are as serious a
threat as the NRDC claims. Professor Bruce Ames, head of the
biochemistry department at the University of California,
Berkeley, labels the NRDC's alarms "wild." Says he: "They are
piling one worst-case scenario on top of another."  Moreover,
Ames points out, plants produce their own poisons to ward off
pests. "The proportion of positive cancer tests is about as
high for natural pesticides as for synthetic pesticides, and we
are eating 10,000 times more of the natural ones," he notes.
The NRDC insists that its risk estimates are conservative. They
do not, for instance, take into account pesticides in milk or
water.

    Many agree with the NRDC's basic contention that
pesticide-residue limits need to be tightened. Says Dr. Richard
Jackson, a member of a panel of the National Academy of
Sciences, which is examining this issue at the EPA's request:
"The food tolerances are set on good agricultural practices.
The Government does not adequately address the impact of
pesticides on children." The baby-food companies have already
got the message. Gerber and Beech-Nut, for example, do not use
Alar-treated apples in their products, and pesticide residues on
the crops they accept for processing into baby foods are much
lower than federal limits.

    Under mounting pressure, the EPA has begun to take action.
Last month the agency announced its intention to ban the use of
daminozide by next winter and said that it was barring use of
the fungicide captan on 42 crops. Some find the Government's
response too slow. California's Democratic Representative Henry
Waxman and Massachusetts' Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy
plan to introduce federal legislation that would force the EPA
to act quickly to remove dangerous pesticides from the food
supply.

    In the meantime, what is a worried parent to do? Jackson
counsels caution but still recommends that children get a steady
diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, organically grown if
possible. And he warns people not to let their fears push them
into food foolishness. "I wouldn't want parents to go back to
Big Macs," he says, "because they're concerned about the
broccoli."