Landmark 20-Year Study Finds Pesticides Linked to Depression In Farmers

[bananas]

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/11/landmark-20-year-study-finds-pesticides-cause-depression-farmers/

Landmark 20-Year Study Finds Pesticides Linked to Depression In Farmers
By Dan Nosowitz on November 7, 2014

A landmark study indicates that seven pesticides, some widely used, may be causing clinical depression in farmers. Will the government step in and start regulating these chemical tools?

Earlier this fall, researchers from the National Institute of Health finished up a landmark 20-year study, a study that hasn’t received the amount of coverage it deserves. About 84,000 farmers and spouses of farmers were interviewed since the mid-1990s to investigate the connection between pesticides and depression, a connection that had been suggested through anecdotal evidence for far longer. We called up Dr. Freya Kamel, the lead researcher on the study, to find out what the team learned and what it all means. Spoiler: nothing good.

“There had been scattered reports in the literature that pesticides were associated with depression,” says Kamel. “We wanted to do a new study because we had more detailed data than most people have access to.” That excessive amount of data includes tens of thousands of farmers, with specific information about which pesticides they were using and whether they had sought treatment for a variety of health problems, from pesticide poisoning to depression. Farmers were surveyed multiple times throughout the 20-year period, which gives the researchers an insight into their health over time that no other study has.

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There’s a significant correlation between pesticide use and depression, that much is very clear, but not all pesticides. The two types that Kamel says reliably moved the needle on depression are organochlorine insecticides and fumigants, which increase the farmer’s risk of depression by a whopping 90% and 80%, respectively. The study lays out the seven specific pesticides, falling generally into one of those two categories, that demonstrated a categorically reliable correlation to increased risk of depression.

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[adirondacker]

1. "How Much Pesticide Residue on Your Produce? FDA Doesn't Know"

Related article...

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/07/how-much-pesticide-residue-your-produce-fda-doesnt-know

[bananas]

7. GAO: FDA doesn't use statistically valid methods, doesn't test for commonly used pesticides, yikes!

The Food and Drug Administration is carrying out little testing for pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables, a new report by a federal watchdog reveals.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report (pdf) found that in 2012, the FDA tested less than one-tenth of 1 percent of imported shipments.

FDA does not test for some commonly used pesticides—like glyphosate—for which the EPA has established tolerance levels, nor does FDA disclose in its annual reports that it doesn't do this testing, the GAO analysis states.

In addition, GAO charges, "FDA does not use statistically valid methods consistent with Office of Management and Budget standards to collect national information on the incidence and level of pesticide residues."

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[AwakeAtLast]

2. OMG!

I come from a farming family dating back 200 years in this country. My grandfather, uncle and father all have suffered from almost debilitating depression over the years. Grandpa also died of Parkinson's. Those chemicals did not come out until he was in his heyday. I just assumed it was hereditary. Of course, that means my cousins, my sister and I were around it, too, just not as much.

Thank you for posting this valuable information!

[niyad]

3. not to mention what those pesticides are doing to all of us.

[bemildred]

4. Poison is poison. nt

[Eko]

5. Correlation does not imply causation.

[Old Nick]

6. Even more depressing?

Monsanto!

[bemildred]

8. The tip of the iceberg.

Chemical farming is not good for farmers.