Residues on your nerves

The Netherlands Consumers Association and the Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment have conducted research into consumer exposure to potentially neurotoxic pesticides (particularly organophosphates and carbamates) in food. Combinations of residues in food may have a cumulative effect on those exposed. Children are particularly sensitive because their nervous systems are still developing and they are exposed to relatively high doses in their diet. 
    The total intake of neurotoxic pesticides in food was calculated using data on consumption patterns in the Netherlands and the results compared with health protection standards. It was found that over a long period adults took in on average six times more the amount of neurotoxic pesticides than the US standard for safe chronic exposure, and children from one to six years ingested as much as 17 times. Every day at least 50,000 children in the Netherlands (more than 5% of the child population) received a dose of these pesticides that exceeds the US standard. 
    A similar study on the potential impacts of combinations of residues in food should urgently be carried out in the UK.

Have we lost our heads? Consumentenbond and Stichting Naturur en Milieu, November 2000, 18pp.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No.51, March 2001, p17]