TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/030689/03068900.007

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 106 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."