Why are we fighting two wars on Kaua‘i?
Gary Hooser reports in The Garden Island in one of his columns that chlorpyrifos is a nerve gas developed in World War II and “is highly dangerous to children and pregnant women.”
On Kaua‘i, we are simultaneously fighting two wars: one against COVID-19 and one against a WWII nerve gas.
Research in epigenetics shows how prenatal damage to the baby’s brain and DNA, from environmental toxicants including viruses or pesticides, can be passed on to subsequent generations though the damaged DNA, reports “Vibrant and Healthy Kids, Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity.”
In The Guardian article published in 2015, pediatrician Carla Nelson reported there have been nine babies born in five years in Waimea with severe heart malformations requiring complex surgery. Nelson said this is more than 10 times the national rate.
TexasChildren.org in their “Development of an Evidence-Based Early Childhood Development Strategy,” reports, “Pesticides have been linked to the loss of brain architecture and cognitive impairment (Modgil 2014). Additionally, prenatal pesticide exposure is associated with a higher risk of a developmental disorder at two years of age (Eskenazi 2007). Moreover, prenatal exposure to insecticides, such as chlorpyrifos, leads to developmental delay during the first three years of life (Rauh 2006). Lastly, air-pollutant exposure results in slower brain processing speeds and ADHD (Peterson 2015).”
COVID-19 has wrecked the economy. What about chlorpyrifos? Dr. Jim Yong Kim, MD., former president of the World Bank, reported in 2016 that U.S. and Hawai‘i’s international PISA reading, math and science scores are essentially “C” grade relative to more-developed nations like Switzerland, where restricted use pesticides (RUPs) like chlorpyrifos are banned.
“Prevention of developmental neurotoxicity caused by industrial chemicals is highly cost-effective. A study that quantified the gains resulting from the phase-out of lead additives from petrol reported that in the USA alone, the introduction of lead-free gasoline has generated an economic benefit of $200 billion in each annual birth year since 1980 (Environmental Research, 1994), an aggregate benefit in the past 30 years of over $3 trillion. This success has since been repeated in more than 150 countries, resulting in vast additional savings (Lancet Neurology, 2014).”
This letter concerns the safety requirement of creating a 1/4-mile, no-spray, pesticide perimeter zone between corporate pesticide spraying and the schools and homes in Waimea and Kekaha. Dr. Lee Evslin said in The Garden Island in 2016 that “California is moving toward quarter-mile buffers around its schools.”
Why do we need 1/4-mile safety buffers? It is common sense. The study, “Effects of Pesticide Exposure on the Human Immune System,” published by Human &Experimental Toxicology, 2008, explains the immune system becomes weak from pesticide exposure. Therefore, people living in Waimea and Kekaha who may have weaker immune systems from pesticide exposure could have a higher chance of dying if they contract COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports in “The Effects of Workplace Haazards on Female Reproductive Health” that exposure to harmful substances during the first three months of pregnancy might cause a birth defect or a miscarriage. During the last six months of pregnancy, exposure to reproductive hazards could slow the growth of the fetus or affect the development of its brain.
Exactly how much chlorpyrifos needs to breathed by a pregnant mother over several weeks or months to create irreversible (permanent) brain defects, which lower the IQ score of her child?
Dr. Qing X. Li published a four-year study in Chemosphere in 2017, which measured 35 billionths of gram/meter cubed of chlorpyrifos in the contaminated air of Waimea Canyon Middle School, which he said is safe, according to EPA standards. However, 4.39 trillionths of a gram/gram in the umbilical cord can create irreversible brain damage from prenatal exposure, determined Columbia University’s Dr. Virginia Rauh.
Which is smaller, “billionths” or “trillionths” of a gram? The larger amount, billionths of a gram, may transfer by breathing the contaminated air, into the smaller amount, trillionths of a gram in the umbilical cord, which is required for causing brain defects.
Testing pregnant rats living for months in a one-meter-by-one-meter-by-one-meter box, kept in Waimea, breathing 35 billionths of a gram of chlorpyrifos, could determine if the baby rats would have irreversible brain defects.
Furthermore, the EPA’s standards for chlorpyrifos can’t be trusted. Why? The EPA was supposed to have already banned chlorpyrifos. But in order to maximize biotech corporations’ profits, Trump is forcing the EPA to not ban chlorpyrifos, and to not ban over 50 other very-toxic pesticides which are banned in the European Union because they are so destructive.
Rauh, using magnetic resonant imaging (MRI), determined very low levels of chlorpyrifos prenatal exposure creates an “IQ interaction,” or lower IQ scores. Please see the research in Brain Anomalies in Children Exposed Prenatally to a Common Organophosphate Pesticide, Proc Natl Acad Sci, May 15, 2012.
Let’s look at exposure to Roundup in Waimea and Kekaha. Mutations Research and Reviews, published, 2019, that exposure to Roundup increases the chance of getting non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41%.
It would be wisest for Kaua‘i and Hawai‘i legislators to do the righteous and ethical thing: mandate 1/4-mile, no-spray, pesticide-perimeter zones in Waimea and Kekaha and terminate the use of chlorpyrifos permits. Create 1/4-mile pesticide buffers and ban chlorpyrifos permits immediately.
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Will M. Davis is a resident of
Lihu‘e.
Source: The Garden Island
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