| U.S. Biomonitoring Data Travels to Mexico
 by Tanya Brown
Chemical Trespass in Mexico
In April 2005, Pesticide Action Network and Colectivo Ecologista
Jalisco (CEJ) released a Spanish translation of Chemical Trespass:
Pesticides in Our Bodies and Corporate Accountability in Guadalajara,
Mexico. Chemical Trespass, originally released in May 2004, provides
an analysis of pesticide biomonitoring data from the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presented in Second National
Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Although the
CDC only looked at pesticide body burdens in people living in the
U.S., the data included information on place of birth (including
Mexico) and may represent exposures of people living in Mexico.
One of the main findings of Chemical
Trespass is that Mexican
Americans have higher levels of pesticides in both blood and urine.
These higher levels might be attributable to the fact that a disproportionately
high number of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. work in agricultural
and other occupations that bring them into contact with pesticides.
However because the CDC did not release relevant data on occupation
or urban/rural residence, our ability to interpret the data is
severely limited. Mexican Americans also had significantly higher
levels of DDT than the rest of the study population, and levels
were even higher in Mexican Americans born in Mexico. Although
DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972, it was still used legally in
Mexico until 2000, which may account for these higher levels.
Semana de Tóxicos
The release of Chemical
Trespass was part of a Toxics Week hosted
by the Colectivo Ecologista Jalisco which included a series of
presentations and workshops on toxics in the home, electromagnetic
fields, and natural methods for controlling pests in the home;
a visit to a local organic farm; and a full day informational session
on public right to know. Presenters included Sergio Ochoa, a researcher
from the University of Guadalajara who has researched the mutagenic
affects of glyphosate; Dr. Rafael Rivera Montero a pediatrician
from Nayarit who treats victims of pesticide poisoning; and Tom
Natan from the National Environmental Trust in Washington, DC who
presented information on toxic ingredients in cosmetics.
Glyphosate in Lake Chapala
CEJ also used Toxics
Week to mobilize opposition to a National Water Commission proposal
to use the herbicide glyphosate to kill water lilies in Lake
Chapala, a major source of drinking water for the city of Guadalajara.
This is the second time that the Commission has proposed using
glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s
product Roundup, and local public interest and environmental
groups hope to defeat it again. Though often considered a safer
alternative to other herbicides, glyphosate has been linked to
birth and neuro-developmental defects, (1) and non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
(2) Glyphosate is also known to be toxic to amphibians and other
aquatic animals. (3)
Alternative solutions
have been proposed for dealing with the water lilies in a safe
manner. Patricia Díaz Romo of Huicholes
y Plaguicidas based in Oaxaca, Mexico said that other Mexican communities
have harvested water lilies and used them to weave baskets and
other products to sell to tourists.
For a copy of Chemical Trespassin Spanish please go to http://www.panna.org/campaigns/docsTrespass/chemicalTrespass2004.dv.html.
Tanya Brown was Campaign Coordinator at PANNA from April 2004
until July 2005.
Notes
1. Sanborn, M. et al. 2004.
p. 164. Systematic Review of Pesticide Human Health Effects. Publication
of the Ontario College of Family Physicians; Garry, V. 2002. Birth
defects, Season of Conception, and Sex of Children Born to Pesticide
Applicators Living in the Red River Valley of Minnesota, USA. Environmental
Health Perspectives 110:441-449; Arbuckle, T.E., Z. Lin, and L.S.
Mery. 2001. An Exploratory Analysis of the Effect of Pesticide
Exposure on the Risk of Spontaneous Abortion in an Ontario Farm
Population. Environmental Health Perspectives 109:851-857.
2. Sanborn, M. et
al. 2004. p. 37; Hardell, L., M. Eriksson, M. Nordstrom. 2002.
Exposure to pesticides as a risk factor for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and
hairy cell leukemia: pooled analysis of two Swedish case-control
studies. Leuk. Lymphoma 43:1043-1049.; DeRoos, A.J. et .al. 2003.
Integrative assessment of multiple pesticides as risk factors for
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among men. Occup. Environ. Med. 60:11-17.
3. Relyea,
Rick A. 2004. The Impact of Insecticides and Herbicides on the
Biodiversity and Productivity of Aquatic Communities. Ecological
Applications 15: 618-627.
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