Introduction to: Pesticides in Children's
Foods
Pesticides in Children's Foods1
Introduction
You can't control pesticide use by the agricultural industry...
...but you can remove the pesticides!
Food and Water Ozonator
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In last year’s report, we analyzed four
years (1994-1997) of data from the US Department of Agriculture’s
Pesticide Data Program (PDP), assessing problems of pesticides
in children’s foods and comparing relative residue profiles
of different foods. Using a Toxicity Index (TI) that CU invented
for this purpose, based on the frequency of detection
and mean residue level of each pesticide detected in a food,
and on a multi-factor toxicity index for each chemical, we
found very large differences in pesticide residue toxicity
among
foods. High scores on CU’s Toxicity
Index can result from multiple residues, from residues in a
large fraction of samples, from high residue levels, from residues
of relatively toxic pesticides, or, in most cases, from a combination
of these factors.
We highlighted foods last year that consistently
had either especially high TI’s, meaning they were relatively
heavily contaminated with pesticides, or consistently low
scores, meaning they were relatively residue-free. In our
1999 report, and in an article based on it in CONSUMER REPORTS
magazine, we ranked PDP-tested foods in order of their relative
TI scores. We advised consumers to feed their children plenty
of fresh fruits and vegetables, while showing them how to avoid
excessive pesticide
residue intake. And, based on our analysis of the residue profiles
of foods with the high TI scores, we suggested regulatory priorities
for the US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
This year’s Update incorporates the 1998
PDP data into our analysis. The additional year’s data
expands our database to cover five years, and adds a number
of foods not previously tested by the PDP to the list ranked
by TI scores. New foods fall in both the high-scoring and low-scoring
groups.
This year, as last year, we compared TI’s
for imported and domestically grown samples of foods for which
imports are
an important part of the market. Within that analysis this
year, we have taken a detailed
look at the tomato market, breaking it down into imports (Mexico)
and U.S. samples from the two major tomato-growing regions,
California and Florida.
Last year’s report identified 15 specific pesticides
that repeatedly accounted for a large share of the TI score
for particular foods. We called those high- risk chemicals “risk
drivers.” This year’s report contains four ways
to place risk-driving residues and pesticides into perspective.
First, we look at the 1998 data and highlight residues in individual
foods that account for a significant share of the higher TIs.
We then look at
those residues that pose a risk of giving a young child more
than what the EPA defines as a “safe dose” of one
of the more toxic pesticides, as either an acute (one-time)
or chronic (repeated) exposure.
We next examine chlorpyrifos, the most widely-used organophosphate
insecticide in the U.S., describing the role it plays in dietary
pesticide exposure and risk. Our
final analysis looks at residues of chlorinated hydrocarbon
insecticides (dieldrin, heptachlor, etc.). Although most agricultural
uses of this pesticide family were banned in the 1970s, residues
persist in soils, and they can be taken up through the roots
by certain crops, leading to dietary residue
problems.
In the year since our last report, we have reviewed and updated
our scoring scheme (see Methods section ). Changes
reflect both new toxicity assessments for specific chemicals,
published by the EPA in the past year, and our own reassessment
of certain aspects of our scoring scheme, in part in response
to comments we received after we published last year’s
report. The revisions have changed the Toxicity Indices for
individual pesticides, which in turn changes the TI scores
for foods found by the PDP to contain residues of those pesticides.
Since the scoring scheme has changed, TI values for 1998 PDP
foods cannot be compared directly with the TI scores we published
last year for 1994-97 PDP foods. To do those comparisons,
we have re-calculated the scores for 1994-97 PDP foods, using
our revised TI values for individual pesticides.
The scores for most foods have changed slightly from the scores
published last year; in a few cases the absolute TI score for
a food changed markedly. But in virtually all cases, the changes
did not significantly affect the relative scores for different
foods we compared in last year’s
report.1
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Updating the CU Scoring Scheme |
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