OEHHA Agendas Available for the September 2, 2010 Public Workshop and Meeting of the Cumulative Impacts and Precautionary Approaches Work Group

09/01/10

Wendy Crittenden, Content Editor

OEHHA and the California EPA will convene two public meetings related to the Agency's Cumulative Impacts and Precautionary Approaches (CI/PA) project on Thursday, September 2, 2010, in the Cal/EPA Headquarters Building at 1001 I Street in Sacramento. The agenda for the meeting is available here. The subject of both meetings is a draft report entitled, "Cumulative Impacts: Building a Scientific Foundation".

The public and Work Group members are welcome to attend both meetings. Slide presentations, agendas, and related materials from earlier CI/PA Work Group meetings are available here. A webcast of the meeting may be accessed here. Comments may be submitted during the meeting to the following e-mail address: sierrarm@calepa.ca.gov. For any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this meeting please contact John Faust at jfaust@oehha.ca.gov. [Source: OEHHA]

UC Berkeley and Harvard Studies Link Pesticide Exposure to ADHD

08/31/10

Wendy Crittenden, Content Editor

A new UC Berkeley study on children of Salinas Valley suggests that exposure to organophosphate pesticides is a prime cause of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study appeared Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and examines the effects of both prenatal and childhood exposure to the pesticides that are widely used in the US to control insects on food crops.

UC Berkeley epidemiologist Brenda Eskenazi and her colleagues have been studying more than 300 Mexican American children living in the heavily agricultural Salinas Valley. As members of a farming community, the children are more likely than others to be exposed to the pesticides. The problems resulting from environmental exposure are often first seen in those with the highest exposure.

Eskenazi and her team tested for levels of pesticide metabolites in urine in the mothers twice during their pregnancies and several times in the children after birth. The children were then tested at ages 3 1/2 and 5 years for attention disorders and ADHD, using the mothers' reports, performance on standardized computer tests and behavior ratings from examiners. After correcting the data to account for lead exposure and other confounders, researchers found that each tenfold increase in pesticide levels in the mothers' urine was associated with a fivefold increase in attention problems as measured by the assays. The effect was more pronounced in boys than in girls.

This study comes three months after a Harvard study that investigated much lower levels of malathion in urine. The Harvard study found a tenfold increase in pesticide levels was associated with a 55 percent increase in ADHD. The researchers believe that most of the children in the study were exposed to the malathion through food. [Source: SF Gate]

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