By: Andrea Yoder
Dr. Paul Winchester |
Honesty is the best policy, and honestly—I wish I weren’t
writing this article. As I’ve thought
about this week’s topic and how this article might come together, I’ve had a
whole mess of feelings ranging from mad to sad with a little bit of anxiety and
overwhelm mixed in between. The topic of
this article spawns from last week’s newsletter where we reported some recent
news highlights in the world of agriculture as featured in The Organic & Non-GMO Report. One of the articles we mentioned from their most
recent publication was one entitled “Toxic legacy: new science reveals generational harm of pesticides.” The
article reports on the work and observations of Dr. Paul Winchester, a
pediatrician currently practicing in Indiana.
The introductory paragraph starts as follows:
“When Paul Winchester, a
pediatrician, moved to Indiana from Colorado in 2002, he noticed something disturbing—a
high number of birth defects. ‘I was
used to the number of birth defects I should see in a community hospital, and I
saw many more in Indiana,’ says Winchester, who is medical director of the
Neonatal and Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis.”
Winchester started digging in to figure out the cause for
his observations, and his research pointed him to the herbicide atrazine.
Atrazine has been widely used as a herbicide in agriculture
for many years, especially in Midwestern states where corn and soy are major
row crops. If you take a look at the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of estimated atrazine use in the U.S. in 2015, you’ll see some of the Midwestern states
including Indiana, Illinois and Ohio are amongst the states with the greatest
annual atrazine use. Unfortunately, atrazine
has a relatively long half-life and is not strongly absorbed by the soil, thus
runoff from areas of use carries atrazine into groundwater, rivers and
streams. In Andre Leu’s book, The Myths of Safe Pesticides, he cites
that “In lakes and groundwater, atrazine and its breakdown products are
persistent, and can persist for decades.” Why is this a problem? Because atrazine is a known endocrine
disrupter and can negatively impact human hormonal systems.
The article in The
Organic & Non-GMO Report reports that recent research indicates that atrazine
has epigenetic effects, meaning exposure to atrazine can cause changes to human
DNA that can then be passed on to subsequent generations. In September 2017, Winchester, along with a
group of researchers, published the following research article on PLOS
One: “Atrazine induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease, lean phenotype and sperm epimutation pathology biomarkers.”. If you are interested in the methods,
statistics and further discussion of the observations made in this study as
well as research that preceded this study, I encourage you to read the full
research article. The purpose of their
study was to “investigate the potential that the agricultural herbicide
atrazine may promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease in
both male and female rats.” Winchester’s
group exposed the first generation to atrazine, but the three generations
following did not have direct exposure.
What they found was that the third generation actually had more health
problems than the earlier ones, suggesting that epigenetic changes to DNA
caused by exposure to atrazine can be passed on to subsequent generations
resulting in negative health outcomes.
In the article, “Winchester calls the discovery of the link between
chemicals like pesticides and epigenetic changes leading to disease ‘the most
important next discovery in all of medicine.’"
Winchester is also concerned that glyphosate, the most
heavily used herbicide around the world, may also have multigenerational
effects. He has studied glyphosate
exposure in pregnancy and, in one study, found that over 90% of women in the study had detectable
levels of glyphosate in their urine while pregnant. Whereas atrazine ends up in our water supply,
glyphosate is more likely to end up in the food supply. Glyphosate residue has been detected in food
samples ranging from snack foods to cereal as well as products containing corn
and other grains to name just a few.
We’re eating it!
Atrazine and glyphosate are just two of the chemicals
Winchester has researched, but there are many more. Here’s what Winchester has to say about
them: “Every one of the chemicals tested
so far produces infertility, and the industrial world has reached the lowest
level of fertility on record. We are
below replacement levels in most industrialized countries including the
U.S. This is looking at your own species
extinction.”
I grew up in rural Indiana on our family farm where my dad
was born, farmed with his dad and brother, and still farms with my
brother. In 1963, he and his father
decided to start using atrazine and continued to do so until about 2000 when
they stopped using it and switched to a different herbicide because the weeds
they were trying to kill had developed resistance to atrazine. Around 2000 they also started using
glyphosate because one of the farms they were renting had some persistent giant
ragweed and the landlord was putting the pressure on them to clean it up. Herbicides were and still are used by the
majority of farmers in the community I grew up in. I don’t know the full extent to which I’ve
been exposed to chemicals such as atrazine, but I fully remember the putrid
smell of chemicals that were stored on one end of the shed and the area just
outside that shed where they were mixed and the sprayer was cleaned out. So when I read this article I do get chills
down my back. The people we’re talking
about are my people. It’s me.
Sadly, the multigenerational effect of most agrochemicals
being used has not been formally studied.
However I’d like to point out that regardless of good research to
document safety or harm, the chemicals have been and continue to be used. We are all part of a large population study,
one that is being conducted without proper consent. If in fact there are multigenerational
effects of exposure to chemicals such as atrazine and glyphosate, I fear the
day we’re able to connect all of the dots and realize the final outcomes. Sadly, once we understand the full extent of
the impact, it may be too late to reverse the damage and many people will
suffer the damaging impact on their health and well-being. People in the community I grew up in have suffered
from and died from a variety of cancers, including my own mother who died of
breast cancer in 2009. While it’s hard
for me to piece together all of the facts, I suspect my mother was exposed to
agrochemicals both as a child and as an adult.
She grew up in rural Michigan on a farm where we know chemicals were
used in the 1960s. While I am not sure
what was used prior to that time, their farm was downstream from a Dow chemical
plant that was, in my opinion, too close for comfort. They sourced their water from a shallow well
for many years. Her two sisters preceded
her in death, both with breast cancer.
Her mother lived into her 80’s, but battled breast cancer several times
and had pancreatic cancer at the time of her death. This leaves me suspecting that I’m not the
first generation to be exposed to these chemicals, but more likely I may be the second generation.
I’m grateful for the knowledge I have now and feel that I am
better equipped to make informed decisions about my environment, the water I
drink and the organic food I choose to eat in order to minimize my exposure to
toxic chemicals. What I don’t understand
is how the harmful effects these chemicals are having on our health and our
environment can continue to be ignored.
I realize I’m not the only person who has experienced the loss of a
family member to cancer or has dealt with other negative health consequences
related to chemicals, but that’s an experience I wouldn’t wish upon anyone and
feel an urgency to stop it from happening anymore! This research is too close to home and is the
reality that reminds me that none of us are immune to this problem. Whenever I ask how these things can continue
to be ignored, the infuriating answer I get always points back to money, profit
and economics.
What will it take for the scales to reverse when we value
the preservation of human health and the health of our environment over the
power of the mighty dollar? Consumer and
public demand for clean water and food is the change we need. It’s up to all of us to make this happen. Thank you for choosing to support organic
agriculture and for feeding your families certified organic food. That’s a start.
1 comment:
Thank you, Andrea, for this informative and impassioned piece. You and Richard give us hope, along with beautiful and delicious produce!
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