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Editorial

Regulatory issues
European action for pesticide-free water 6
The European Union’s Water Framework Directive is the most significant piece of European water legislation to be produced for over 20 years and will rationalise all previous legislation. Andy Croxford of the UK’s Environment Agency describes its key elements, indicating which pesticides it will prioritise and first indications of the measures it will use to reduce pollution.

Pesticide factory blaze in France 7  

Royal Commission slams UK risk assessment  8
A remarkable new report on pesticides and health has just been published in the UK. In it the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution finds that links between chronic ill health and pesticide exposure are plausible. It criticises the UK government’s current procedure for monitoring pesticide-related ill-health recommending a number of key changes. Alison Craig looks at the findings.

UK National Pesticide Strategy — fails the sustainability challenge 18
Earlier this year the UK government published a draft of its long-awaited National Pesticides Strategy. The draft fails to provide a clear plan for more sustainable agricultural production and makes no commitment to reduce pesticide use and dependence. Clare Butler Ellis outlines key elements of PAN UK’s critique of the strategy. 

Obsolete stockpiles

Contaminated storage site in Kenya 10
Extensive use of POPs pesticides in agriculture in Kenya in the 1970s and 1980s led to accumulation of stockpiles. Rachel Wambui Kamande describes the history and current status of the main storage site in Kenya at Kitengela. She outlines the challenges remaining in implementing the Stockholm Convention and eliminating POPs from her country.

Rachel Carson Memorial Lecture
From silent spring to silent night: endocrine disruption, amphibian declines and environmental justice 12
In 2002 Professor Tyrone Hayes sparked off a controversy with experiments showing that atrazine, one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, could feminise male frogs at concentrations 30 times lower than that legally allowed in US drinking water. In this years Rachel Carson Memorial Lecture he presents new data showing that atrazine can also retard growth and development, and suppress the immune system. In addition, he shows that the effects of atrazine are enhanced when in combination with other pesticides or other environmental stressors. His results suggest that pesticide exposure is likely to be one important factor explaining the global decline in amphibian populations. The targets in amphibians affected by atrazine are common to all vertebrates and may explain associations between low fertility and reproductive cancers in humans. Despite five laboratories now reporting that atrazine can disrupt normal endocrine function in amphibians his results have been disputed by Syngenta, one of the main manufacturers of this pesticide.

Organic cotton
UK public buys organic cotton 20
UK sales of organic food have increased 10-fold over the past 10 years from just £100 million in 1993/4 to £1.12 billion in 2003/4. They now account for around 1% of market sales. Sales of organic clothing have taken longer to get off the ground but are now experiencing similar growth. Simon Ferrigno reports on these promising new developments.

News 21
Citizens’ action kicks out pesticide factory in Mexico
Scientists speak out on endocrine disruptors
New bans in Pakistan

News and resources 22
Carcinogen sprayed for mosquito control in Hungary
Updated List of Lists — now available
Other new publications from PAN UK

Book reviews 23
The organic revolution in Egyptian cotton growing
New handbook of pesticides
Guidelines for integrated production