Natural Health News — The industrialisation of agriculture has radically transformed the way most of our food is produced and not always in a good way.

Scaling up production has led to more food being available at lower prices throughout the world. But, increasingly, we are seeing the negative side of this chemically intensive system of food production. Today, 2,000 pesticides with 500 chemical substances are being used in Europe. However, data on how such substances affect soil quality is incomplete and fragmented, and fails to clearly reflect their overall impact on soil systems and human health.

First-time research conducted in the course of two EU-funded projects, iSQAPER and RECARE, is shedding light on the state of European soils. The results are far from reassuring. According to a paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, pesticide residues were found in the vast majority of agricultural soils tested in 11 European countries.

The researchers analysed 76 different pesticide residues from 317 topsoil samples. Alarmingly, 43 of the 76 pesticide residues tested were detected in the soils. “Considering that we tested less than 20% of the active substances currently approved in the EU markets, pesticide residue occurrence in soils might actually be higher,” the authors state.

Pesticide residues were found in 83% of the analysed agricultural soils in 166 different pesticide combinations. The most common mixtures detected at the highest concentrations were the controversial weedkiller glyphosate and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid, followed by the commonly used pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT, banned in the EU in 1986), and the broad-spectrum fungicides boscalid, epoxiconazole and tebuconazole.

The selected samples originated from soils used in the production of cereals, permanent crops, root crops, non-permanent industrial crops, vegetables, and dry pulses, flowers and fodder crops. Soils from root crops revealed a much higher pesticide residue content than those from other crops. In fact, all of the tested root crop soils contained pesticide residues, with 85% of them containing multiple residues.

Better monitoring needed

The content of pesticide residues occasionally exceeded their predicted environmental concentrations in soils, but nevertheless remained below threshold values for soil organisms set by the European Food Safety Authority.Nevertheless, there’s still reason for concern, since the methods used to determine the threshold values are, according toe the scientists, inadequate.

“To get a pesticide approved on the market, only five soil animals and two bacteria groups are tested. But in the soil we have more than one million species,” says Prof. Violette Geissen of project coordinator Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in a video posted on the iSQAPER website. “The others are all not tested on the effects of pesticides. What actually is tested is much less than 1%. Furthermore, mixtures of pesticides in the soils are not tested. Different pesticides can interact in the soils; together can have synergetic effects on others. Nobody knows.”

The study points to the need for monitoring programmes for pesticide residues and the combined effects of residue mixtures in soils. While RECARE (Preventing and Remediating degradation of soils in Europe through Land Care) has now ended, iSQAPER (Interactive Soil Quality Assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Resilience) continues in its efforts to promote healthy soils as the basis for sustainable food production.

• More information on the iSQAPER project can beb found here. Read about the RECARE project here.

New research from The University of Texas at Austin shows that honey bees exposed to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, lose some of the beneficial bacteria in their guts and are more susceptible to infection and death from harmful bacteria.

Official have long insisted that glyphosate is safe for bees, or that bees are nto exposed to the weedkiller in any significant way, but in 2016 testing by the US Food and Drug Administration found residues of the weed killer glyphosate in samples of US honey suggesting that not only are the bees exposed ot it but that they bring it back to their hives.

The findings of independent laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group (EWG) in the US, fgollow swiftly on the heels of a California jury awarding $289 million to a school groundskeeper who claimed Roundup gave him  lymphoma.

EWG’s tests found glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, in all but two of 45 samples of products made with conventionally grown oats. More than two thirds of the samples had glyphosate levels above what EWG scientists consider protective of children’s health with an adequate margin of safety.

Glyphosate has been linked to cancer by California state scientists and the World Health Organization. The California case that ended Friday was the first of reportedly thousands of lawsuits against Monsanto. These suits have been brought by farm workers and others who allege that they developed cancer from years of exposure to Roundup.

Children at risk

“No one wants to eat a weed killer for breakfast, and no one should have to do so.” said EWG President Ken Cook.

“We will petition the Environmental Protection Agency to do its job and end uses of glyphosate that resulted in the contamination we report today,” Cook said. “But we very much doubt our petition will be acted upon by President Trump’s lawless EPA. So we’re calling on the companies to make these iconic products with clean ingredients.”

EWG’s findings raise the prospect that millions of American children are being exposed to a suspected carcinogen at a time when their bodies are rapidly developing.

“It is very troubling that cereals children like to eat contain glyphosate,” said Alexis Temkin, Ph.D., EWG toxicologist and author of the report.  “Parents shouldn’t worry about whether feeding their children healthy oat foods will also expose them to a chemical linked to cancer. The government must take steps to protect our most vulnerable populations.”

About one-third of 16 samples of foods made with organically grown oats also had glyphosate, all at levels well below EWG’s health benchmark. Glyphosate may get in organic oats by drifting from nearby farm fields, or cross-contamination in a processing facility that also handles non-organic foods.

The EPA has denied that glyphosate may increase the risk of cancer. Documents introduced in the California trial showed how the agency and Monsanto worked together to promote the claim that the chemical is safe.

Time to review

EWG is urging the EPA to review all evidence linking glyphosate to increased cancer risk and other adverse health effects in human and animal studies. The EPA should limit the use of glyphosate on food crops, including the practice of applying it as a desiccant to dry drop out prior to harvesting.

In the UK last year traces of glyphosate were found in samples of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream – most likely from the cereal ingredients they contained.

With the release of the findings, EWG launched a consumer petition to press companies to eliminate glyphosate from food. The organization said suppliers need to stop using glyphosate before harvesting oats and other grains. Click here to sign the petition.

This is the conclusion of the first comprehensive review of gaps in risk assessments for “adjuvants” – ingredients added to pesticide formulations to enhance the function or application of the active ingredient. Ignoring the potential dangers of other ingredients in commonly used commercial pesticides leads to inaccuracies in the safety profile of the pesticide solution, as well as confusion in scientific literature on pesticide effects, finds the review published in Frontiers in Public Health.

“Exposure to environmental levels of some of these adjuvant mixtures can affect non-target organisms – and even can cause chronic human disease,” says Dr Robin Mesnage from King’s College London, who co-wrote the review with Dr Michael Antoniou. “Despite this, adjuvants are not currently subject to an acceptable daily intake and are not included in the health risk assessment of dietary exposures to pesticide residues.”

Pesticides are a mixture of chemicals made up of an active ingredient – the substance that kills or repels a pest – along with a mixture of other ingredients that help with the application or function of the active ingredient. These other ingredients are known as adjuvants, and include dyes, anti-foaming agents and surfactants.

Inadequate testing

Regulatory tests for pesticide safety are currently only done on the active ingredient, which assumes the other ingredients have no effects. This means the full toxicity of a pesticide formulation – including those used in both agriculture and domestic gardens – is not known.

“Currently, the health risk assessment of pesticides in the European Union and in the United States focuses almost exclusively on the active ingredient,” explains Dr Mesnage. “Despite the known toxicity of adjuvants, they are regulated differently from active principles, with their toxic effects being generally ignored.”

Based on a review of current pesticide literature, the authors describe how unregulated chemicals present in commercial formulations of pesticides could provide a missing link between pesticide exposure and observed negative outcomes.

Formulations more toxic than the active ingredient alone

The researchers focused on glyphosate-based herbicides, the most used pesticide worldwide. They point out that this weed killer has so many different adjuvant formulations that a safety test of one weed killer does not test the safety of another.

“Studies comparing the toxicity of commercial weed-killer formulations to that of glyphosate alone have shown that several formulations are up to 1,000 times more toxic than glyphosate on human cells. We believe that the adjuvants are responsible for this additional toxic effect,” says Dr Mesnage.

The authors also looked at neonicotinoid insecticides – strongly suspected to be involved in the collapsing of bee colonies – as another example of adjuvant toxicity affecting non-target organisms. An adjuvant used in these insecticides to increase the penetration of the active ingredient has been shown to cause varying toxic effects in bees. On top of this, residues of the toxin have also been found in honey, pollen and beeswax produced by contaminated bees.

The need for precaution

In some investigations into chemical toxicity, the additive effect described in this study is known as the ‘cocktail effect’ – where combinations of chemicals can become more toxic than the sum of each individual chemical in the mix.

The authors hope their review will stimulate discussion on the toxicity of commonly used pesticides and encourage more thorough regulations.

“Testing of whole pesticide formulations instead of just active ingredients alone would create a precautionary approach, ensuring that the guidance value for the pesticide is valid for the worst-case exposure scenario,” says Dr Mesnage.

Their findings have already had a considerable impact. The European Food Safety Authority is now reassessing the validity of pesticide risk assessment in the EU, and authors hope that this reassessment can extend to entire commercial formulations of pesticides and their other ingredients.

The researchers believe that the experiment is the first in which the tastes of 11 pesticides present in wines were detected by taste.

The study published in Food & Nutrition Journal, involved 195 blind tests carried out by 36 professionals from the wine and culinary industries. The wines were produced in France and Italy.

Researchers , conducted by Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and the chef Jérôme Douzelet examined 16 pairs of organic and non-organic wines produced in seven French regions and one Italian region. The same varieties of grapes were grown both organically and conventionally (with agrochemicals) on the same soils in neighbouring vineyards, in the same climate and in the same year.

The resulting wines were tested for over 250 pesticides. Out of the organic wines, only one bottle was found to contain traces of pesticides. In the non-organic wines, in contrast, 89% contained detectable pesticides, some at very high levels – mostly fungicides and glyphosate-based herbicides.

The 195 blinded taste tests were then carried out with 71 different people on different days. Among the people who detected the pesticides, 57% were then able to identify the exact wine containing them. Organic wines were preferred 77% of the time.

The pesticides identified included boscalid, cyprodinil, dimethomorph, fenhexamide, folpet and its metabolite phtalimid, glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA, iprodione, iprovalicarb, and pyrimethanil.  The 3 most frequently identified pesticides were folpet, fenhexamide, and iprovalicarb.

“An impaired sense of taste”

The pesticides alone or in mixtures were also diluted in water at the levels present in the wines. At least one pesticide mixture was identified as such because it was judged to taste different from water in blind tests: this held true in 85% of cases in which answers were offered by the professionals (147), and 58% recognised all of the waters that contained the pesticides.

The professionals were asked to describe the taste of the pesticides that they were able to identify as being present. The taste of glyphosate, a herbicide often used in vineyards, was described as “strong dryness, acid, acrid, limestone”. The glyphosate-based formulation Roundup was described as tasting of “putrefied wood, drying, bitterness”.

The most common descriptions of the taste of pesticides in general were a “drying” effect and “papilla blockade”, with the latter description being used by the researchers to describe an impaired sense of taste.

The researchers state in their paper that their tests show that people can learn to recognize the tastes of pesticides in drinks and possibly foods. They conclude that “there is no scientific reason why this is not feasible”

They added that, “A larger study could also be envisaged, not only to confirm the presence and distribution of pesticides in foods and beverages, but also to progress from this primary test of feeling to sensory tests on a wider range of pesticides and a larger number of volunteers.”

According to the group Buglife, the first analysis of new monitoring data reveals that British freshwaters are heavily contaminated with neonicotinoids, insecticides that most of us associate with bee deaths. Half of the sites monitored in England exceed chronic pollution limits and two rivers are acutely polluted.

Neonicotinoids are not only highly toxic to bees but also highly toxic to aquatic insects. In addition to killing insects that live or feed near water, such as mayflies, the chemicals also damage the health of fish and birds who feed on those insects, threatening the life of our streams and rivers.

In spite of this, aquatic pollution by neonics has not yet received the same attention because the UK Government has not responded to calls to introduce systematic monitoring, even though, under the EU Water Framework Directive ‘Watch List’ initiative, the UK was required to introduce a pilot monitoring scheme for all five commonly used neonicotinoids – imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, acetamiprid and thiacloprid.

Beyond limits

Sampling was done at 23 sites in 2016: 16 in England, four in Scotland, three in Wales and three in Northern Ireland.

This is the first systematic testing of neonicotinoids in rivers in Britain. According to the results, half the rivers tested in England had either chronic or acute levels of contamination. Of the 23 rivers tested across Britain, all but six contain neonicotinoids. Eight rivers in England exceed recommended chronic pollution limits, and two are acutely polluted.

The River Waveney on the Norfolk/Suffolk Border was the worst polluted river with the acute harm level exceeded for a whole month and the River Wensum in Norfolk, a Special Area of Conservation for its river life, was also chronically polluted. These rivers supply the Broads, an internationally important wetland site and home to many endangered aquatic animals. Sugar beet fields are the most likely source of pollution in these rivers. Both rivers were polluted with both clothianidin and thiamethoxam

The River Tame, an almost entirely urban river in the West Midlands was only monitored twice, and the second reading was very high, indicating a probable industrial or disposal pollution event. The river Tame and the river Ancholme in Lincolnshire, were primarily polluted with clothianidin.

The UK’s streams and rivers are suffering high levels of neonicotinoid pollution. Click to enlarge.  [Image: Buglife]

Concerns are raised about the levels of imidacloprid recorded in rivers, including urban rivers and a remote Scottish stream in the Cairngorms. Imidacloprid is now a rare arable insecticide, but because it does not break down easily in soil it will continue polluting water in arable areas for years to come. However, it is still used in greenhouses, which are known to be a particular pollution risk to water bodies and is used as a flea treatment on pets. The most likely source of pollution in the Cairngorms is when it washes off a treated dog romping in a stream.

The report states that imidacloprid applied to pets will run off into storm drains and water courses when it rains or when the animal or its bedding is washed, adding: “In addition some Imidacloprid is likely to be excreted by the animals in urine and faeces after absorption through the skin.”

“We are devastated to discover that many British rivers have been heavily damaged by neonicotinoid insecticides. It is vital that action is taken to completely ban these three toxins, including in greenhouses and on pets, before another year of disgraceful pollution occurs.” Matt Shardlow, CEO, Buglife.

Official delays

• The full report on neonic pollution in UK waterways is available here.
• Neonic pollution in US waterways was revealed in a 2017 report by Beyond Pesticides titled Poisoned Waterways.

Animal studies suggest consumption of pesticide mixtures in early pregnancy may be associated with fewer live births, leading to concerns that levels of pesticide residues permitted in food by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may still be too high for pregnant women and infants.

To find out more, researchers from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston studied 325 women who were using assisted reproductive technologies at a fertility centre at a teaching hospital in Boston between 2007 and 2016

The women’s diets were assessed using a standardised food questionnaire.

For this observational study, researchers, led by Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Sc.D categorized fruits and vegetables as having high or low pesticide residues using a method based on surveillance data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). They then counted the number of confirmed pregnancies and live births per cycle of fertility treatment.

Results of the study indicate that eating more high-pesticide residue fruits and vegetables otherwise considered healthy (for example, strawberries and raw spinach) was associated with a lower probability of pregnancy and live birth following infertility treatment.

Conversely, eating more low-pesticide residue fruits and vegetables was not associated with worse pregnancy and live birth outcomes.

The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, was not able to link specific pesticides to adverse effects.

Pesticide regulation is failing us

In a commentary that accompanied the study, epidemiologist and paediatrician Phillip Landrigan, MD, of Mount Sinai warned, “our current laissez-faire attitude toward the regulation of pesticides is failing us”.

The study, he said, “comes at a time when multiple lines of evidence suggest that human fertility is on the decline and that the frequency of reproductive impairment is increasing,”

He noted that trends such as reduced sperm counts and increases in reproductive birth defects and testicular cancer that are “almost certainly” linked to environmental exposures to chemicals – many of which are endocrine disrupters –  and that physicians should respond to these findings by educating patients about pesticides and urging reductions in exposure wherever possible.

Following the publication of the study, in an interview with Time magazine Dr Chavarro noted “I was always skeptical that pesticide residues in foods would have any impact on health whatsoever. I thought we were not going to find anything…I am now more willing to buy organic apples than I was a few months ago.”

Previous research in the US has shown that eating organic produce can substantially reduce pesticide exposure so couples having trouble getting pregnant should consider making the switch.

• For more on this topic see also How to grow a healthy baby

EU member states have voted on numerous proposals to relicence the herbicide over the last two years, but votes consistently failed to reach the qualified majority necessary to move forward in one direction or another.

However with the herbicide’s license due to expire on December 15, Germany – a powerful player in the EU which has thus far abstained in the votes – opted to vote for the temporary renewal of the licence.

Shortly after the vote the Commission, the European Union’s executive, issued a statement to say that 18 countries had backed its proposal to renew the chemical’s licence. Nine countries were against and one abstained, giving a “positive opinion” by the narrowest possible margin under rules requiring more than a simple majority.

The full vote looked like this:

For: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK.

Against: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta.

Abstention: Portugal.

After the vote France vowed to phase out glyphosate within 3 years – though whether this is actually possible given the dearth of current alternatives to glyphosate, is debatable.

A ‘probable carcinogen’

Glyphosate has been used by farmers for decades, but its safety has been cast into doubt by the World Health Organization agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which concluded in 2015 that it was a probable human carcinogen.

The IARC report frustrated attempts to fully renew the herbicide in Europe, though in reality, the herbicide has been given a series of temporary extensions since 2011 while officials attempted to assess mounting evidence that it is toxic.

In June 2016 it was given an 18 month extension in order to allow the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) time to finish conducting an investigation into the wider human health effects of glyphosate.

The final version of that ECHA report was submitted to the EC in June 2017. It concluded that there is no evidence to link glyphosate to cancer in humans, and that the herbicide should not be classified as a substance that causes genetic damage (mutagen) or disrupts reproduction.

It has since been revealed that whole sections of the ECHA’s final report were copied and pasted from an application submitted by Monsanto on behalf of the lobby group that calls itself the Glyphosate Task Force.

The revelation has cast serious doubt on the impartiality of the advice put forward by the ECHA. The impartiality and methodology of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which, in part, based its official opinion on the safety of glyphosate on the report’s findings, has also been questioned.

Where Europe goes from her is anyone’s guess. Most campaigners including the UK’s Beyond GM suggest that we must use the time to make a sensible switch to less toxic alternatives.

In the US the Environmental Protection Agency’s review of the toxicity of glyphosate – which was due this year – has been hit with multiple delays including the need to incorporate new data on the herbicide’s toxicity. It is now expected in early 2018.

Precaution should prevail

“The bottom line is there is enough evidence that glyphosate – together with the other ingredients which make up Roundup and other glyphosate based herbicides – poses a significant health risk which should be fully and independently evaluated. Precaution demands that we significantly restrict the use of these herbicides to limit this potential risk.” Beyond GM notes in a recent analysis.

“The glyphosate saga shows that our regulatory system and its interface with the political process and the concerns of civil society is not fit for purpose. It has been co-opted by industry interests, is not transparent and does not encompass the Precautionary Principle, which leaves us all open to health and environmental damage.”

“Unless we fix this we are destined to make the same mistakes over and over again which, with the advent of more pernicious and pervasive technologies such as synthetic biology and gene editing, will leave us far more vulnerable to harm.”

Researchers now report that washing apples with a common household product – baking soda – is a better way to get rid of residues on the surfaces of the fruit.

Farmers have long claimed that pesticides can help increase crop yield – a claim debunked by research showing that organic yields are the same and in some cases better than conventional ones.

Moreover many concerns over the human health effects of pesticides in the diet have been raised over the years.

Washing is one strategy to clean some of the pesticide residues off produce, and it is standard practice in the food industry.

But some of the pesticides that get absorbed by fruits and vegetables might not be easily removed using current cleaning methods.

So researchers, reporting in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, investigated which washing method can most effectively reduce pesticides.

The researchers applied two common pesticides – the fungicide thiabendazole, known to penetrate apple peels, and the organophosphorous insecticide phosmet – to organic Gala apples.

Better than bleach

They then washed these apples by immersing them in three different liquids: tap water, a 1% baking soda/water solution, and a US-EPA-approved commercial bleach solution (Chlorox) often used on produce.

The baking soda solution was the most effective at reducing pesticides. After 12 and 15 minutes, 80% of the thiabendazole was removed, and 96% of the phosmet on the surface of the apples was removed. This is because baking soda degrades both thiabendazole and phosmet, making them easier to wash off.

The different percentages are likely due to thiabendezole’s greater absorption into the apple; mapping images showed that thiabendazole had penetrated up to 80 micrometers deep into the apples; phosmet was detected at a depth of only 20 micrometers.

Washing the produce with either plain tap water or the bleach solution for two minutes, per the industry standard, were far less effective.

They also note that none of the treatments was able to remove the pesticides that had been absorbed into the flesh of the apple.

Citrus oils are easily pressed from the skin of the fruits and therefore can be produced in large quantities, say the researchers, which means the mandarin oil could be used in areas which have little or no access to an alternative.

The study in the journal Natural Product Research, looked at oil distilled from three types of citrus: mandarin (Citrus reticulata), Chinese wild mandarin (C. reticulata chinase Blanco) and a variety of sweet orange (C. sinensis Osbeck).

The C. sinensis oil was the most active against larvae, even at lower concentrations. It was also the most effective as a fumigant against adult mosquitoes. For both larvae and adults C. reticulata chinase was the second most effective oil followed by the C. reticulata oil. The researchers suggest that as each type of orange oil had different dominant volatile oil compounds they might also work well in combination.

With mosquitoes being responsible for the transmission of many diseases to humans and animals in the world due to rapid urbanisation and poor water management, the potential for an easily accessible and non-toxic mosquito control program is much needed.

In addition many conventional approaches can be toxic to humans, and there is evidence that the mosquitoes are becoming resistant to them.

Dr. Mohamed E. I. Badawy, lead author and professor at the Department of Pesticide Chemistry and Technology at Alexandria University in Egypt commented “This study, which we believe to be the first of its kind, shows that the essential oils from the peels of citrus plants were very effective against larvae and adults. This means there could be a natural and hugely accessible product available which could be used as a method of mosquito control.”

• For more on this subject see our article Natural insect repellents that bite back