Medha Chandra's blog

Endosulfan. Chlorpyrifos. Chlorothalonil. Not words one would associate with the crisp, cold air and water of the Arctic region. But new research shows that these pesticides, among others, are traveling to the Arctic from as far as South East Asia, India and the United States. 

That harmful pesticides travel on wind and water currents to cold northern regions of the world has been known for a while now. But in this latest study, researchers managed to measure the compounds in air and water all the way along their path across the globe, from East Asia to the Arctic.

Get your kids to exercise, eat right, and control their portions — these steps can help combat childhood obesity, we're told. But new research on persistent chemicals points to the fact that as parents, we're not getting the whole story.

Researchers in Spain found that whether a child, especially a girl, will be obese is not just dependent on lifestyle choices, but also on the child’s exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) before birth. As a mother of a 4-year-old daughter, this worries me tremendously.

Women grow more than half of the world’s food. It's the unknown fact of global agriculture.

I have vivid memories of women working the fields across my travels in Asia, and find it amazing that when people talk about farmers, it's almost always about men. In the U.S., for instance, 30.2% of the 3.3 million farm operators counted in the 2007 census were women. In the Global South, women remain guardians of sophisticated and extensive knowledge about traditional agricultural practices that have sustained communities over centuries. The fact is that women are the ‘hidden resource’ supporting much of agriculture across the globe.

I want to share some good news that brightened my day. One of the largest pesticide manufacturers in the world — Bayer CropScience — announced on September 15 that it will withdraw its most hazardous pesticides from the global market. 

This is huge victory for the PAN International network and other NGOs from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa who have campaigned for years for Bayer to take this step. While I'm happy that Bayer finally did the right thing, it saddens me that the company waited 16 years to act after it first promised to withdraw these pesticides back in 1995. Who knows how many pesticide poisonings worldwide could have been avoided?

Most kids are back to school now, and one of the unfortunate realities parents have to deal with this time of year is lice infestations. It always amazes me that lice shampoos made with harmful pesticides such as lindane and malathion are still readily available.

As the mother of an active 4-year-old pre-schooler, it makes me crazy. How can this be?