. Earth Science News .
Creative Debugging

Pesticides are harmful to termites (pictured), insects and unfortunately, humans.
by Christine Dell'amore
UPI Consumer Health Correspondent
Washington (UPI) Jul 31, 2006
Pregnant women can avoid potentially harmful exposure to pesticides by adopting creative methods for killing cockroaches, according to a recent study.

In the July 27 Environmental Health Perspectives journal, researchers investigated whether integrated pest management, or IPM, could reduce pest infestations and thus exposure to pesticides for pregnant African-American and Latina women in New York City. IPM relies on knowledge of the life cycle and behavior of insects to develop common-sense environmentally sensitive ways to eliminate pests.

In previous research, lead author Megan Williams of Columbia University and colleagues found up to 72 percent of women in inner-city New York are exposed to insecticides during pregnancy. Housing density and disrepair are related to pest problems, the authors wrote.

In their experiment, IPM practices consisted of professional cleaning, sealing of pest entry points, application of pesticides with low toxicity and education about the insects. Williams and colleagues used IPM in 25 homes, and compared these to a control group of 27 homes. The team collected information on cockroach infestation levels and indoor air samples at the start of the study and one month after intervention. They also measured insecticide levels in the maternal and umbilical cord blood taken at delivery.

In the intervention group, cockroach infestations decreased to the point where the results could not be due to chance. Likewise, levels of the insecticide chemical piperonyl butoxide were considerably lower following the intervention. In the control group, neither the insects nor the insecticide chemicals decreased in number or concentration.

The study suggests IPM is an effective strategy to reduce pest infestation and subsequent prenatal exposure to the chemicals, the authors concluded.

This research is the latest installment in a series of recent investigations into pesticides and health. Currently, researchers are studying whether conditions like attention deficit disorder, lowered IQs, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease can be linked to early exposure to pesticides.

Children are most vulnerable to pesticides from formation of the fetus up to 2 years of age. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns children may be sensitive to pesticides because their excretory systems are not developed enough to excrete pesticides, and that in relation to their body weight, kids eat and drink more than adults.

In July, United Press International reported utero exposure to the pesticide DDT and its byproduct, DDE, are associated with slower neurodevelopment in early childhood. The study, published in the July issue of Pediatrics, was one of the first to look at child neurodevelopment and DDT. A few studies have looked at the effects of DDE.

"The proof is in the pudding. ... We need to follow these kids to see if this has predictive validity," lead author Brenda Eskenazi, a professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley, told UPI in that story.

In addition, Robin Whyatt of Columbia University, the corresponding author on the study in Environmental Health Perspectives, has previously found that birth weight and birth length is lower in children whose mothers were exposed to pesticides.

Although the intricacies of how pesticides impact the human body are not entirely clear, there's no getting around the fact a pesticide is a neurotoxin, developed to kill bugs by paralyzing or over-exciting their neurological systems. Since the chemicals disrupt enzymes in the brain which govern communication, exposure to pesticides could damage a child's brain.

This new research shows mothers in these communities can successfully rely on IPM to reduce their pesticide exposure, the authors concluded.

Source: United Press International

Related Links
Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up

Strong Indian Monsoon Brings Misery But Hopes Of Rich Crops
New Delhi (AFP) July 31, 2006
Indian officials on Monday predicted that bountiful monsoon rains would yield bumper crops, even as downpours tormented thousands and flooded large swathes of the country's two wealthiest states. The western state of Maharashtra evacuated 65,000 flood-hit people from 35 villages in the southern district of Sangli, the United News of India reported.







  • Chertoff Loses Clout With Senate
  • Shanghai Builds Underground Bunker To House 200,000 People
  • Indonesia To Install Tsunami Sirens On Mobile Phone Towers
  • One year on, Mumbai's great flood debate rumbles on

  • Shoot Up And Cool Down
  • Cosmic Dust In Ice Cores Sheds Light On Earth's Past Climate
  • Pine Plantations May Be One Culprit In Increasing Carbon Dioxide Levels
  • New Co2 Data Inverts Current Ice-Age Theory

  • Satellite To Help Predict Earthquakes
  • Envisat Images A cloudless UK
  • TopSat Images Farnborough Air Show
  • NASA Releases First CALIPSO Images

  • NASA Selects Space Weather Mission Teams
  • British Retail Chain Currys To Sell Solar Power Panels
  • Britain And California To Cooperate On Climate Change And Clean Energy
  • Iowa State researchers convert farm waste to bio-oil

  • The Next Dilemma Stemming From The Global Aids Epidemic
  • Scientists Develop SARS Vaccine with Common Poultry Virus
  • HIV breakthrough needs support
  • Scientists Develop SARS Vaccine

  • Seeing The Serpent
  • MIT Researchers Watch Animal Brains In Action
  • Scientists Discover Evolutionary Origin Of Fins, Limbs
  • Ancient Global Warming Drove Early Primate Dispersal

  • Pipeline Leak In West Russia Could Poses Serious Threat
  • Thermometer Factory Pollutes Farming Town In China
  • Shell says oil pipeline leak in Nigeria slashes daily output
  • Bird Brains Shrink From Exposure To Contaminants

  • Germans Set Up An Apartheid-Like Society In Saxon Britain
  • Present-Day Non-Human Primates May Be Linchpin In Evolution Of Language
  • Trade Of Humans Is Big Business
  • Talk To Your Baby And They Learn To Speak

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement