by frog
The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA New Zealand) has just released its assessment of endosulfan and recommended its continued use in New Zealand. Wikipedia says of endosulfan:
Endosulfan is one of the more toxic pesticides on the market today, responsible for many fatal pesticide poisoning incidents around the world.[17] Endosulfan is also a xenoestrogen—a synthetic substance that imitates or enhances the effect of estrogens—and it can act as an endocrine disruptor, causing reproductive and developmental damage in both animals and humans. Whether endosulfan can cause cancer is debated.
So on the spectrum of hero and villain chemicals, this one is at the Darth Vader/Sauron end.
Erma says in New Zealand endosulfan is used on a variety of crops including vegetables, berry fruit and ornamentals. It is also used on citrus and for earthworm control on turf at golf courses, bowling clubs, parks, sports grounds, and airports.
(I’m not sure why we want to control earthworms on bowling greens. I guess if a worm sticks its head up at the wrong time it could disrupt a potentially important game?)
55 countries around the world have banned endosulfan.
Pesticide Action Network’s spokesperson Dr Meriel Watts notes:
Contamination of the global food supply is also ubiquitous – here in New Zealand 50% of tomatoes contained endosulfan residues in the last total diet survey, and recently it was also found in lettuce, strawberries and courgettes in results released by the NZFSA in May this year.
The whole global food supply is contaminated with endosulfan, and so are humans – endosulfan is found in body fat, breast milk, placental tissue and umbilical cord blood – and ERMA has turned a blind eye to this
Endosulfan passes from mother to child through breast milk and from sprayed plants to the atmosphere and the oceans. It’s quite a hard thing to contain in one place. Which is quite a scary thought when you take into account just how dangerous it is.
Photo Credit: Sigma
Published in Health & Wellbeing by frog on Mon, June 30th, 2008
Tags: , endosulfan, food safety, Frog, frogblog, green, green party, meriel watts, new zealand, Parliament, soil and health
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Re earthworms on bowling greens, I’d guess the little piles of worm poo can deflect the bowls.
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Actually Meriel Watts is not a spokesperosn for Soil & Helath (used to be), but for Pesticide Action Network. But otherwise you are on the nail. ERMA have stated they did not even bother to look at risk to marine mammals like dolphins even though endosuflan is known to be highly toxic to them and to accumulate in their bodies. We support Sue K’s call for the Minister to call this decison in and leave ERMA out in the cold.
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Erma are calling for public submissions – so get your voice heard and let them know we don’t think this is a suitable pesticide to be using.
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Ah, the joys of the Wiki
there’sa more folks, wait, there’s more
>
>>Endosulfan is acutely neurotoxic to both insects and mammals, including humans. The US EPA classifies it as Category I: “Highly Acutely Toxic” based on a LD50 value of 30 mg/kg for female rats,[5]
while the World Health Organization classifies it as Class II “Moderately Hazardous” based on a rat LD50 of 80 mg/kg.[18]
It is a GABA-gated chloride channel antagonist, and a Ca2+, Mg2+ ATPase inhibitor. Both of these enzymes are involved in the transfer of nerve impulses. Symptoms of acute poisoning include include hyperactivity, tremors, convulsions, lack of coordination, staggering, difficulty breathing, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and in severe cases, unconsciousness.[7]
DOSES as low as 35 mg/kg have been documented to cause death in humans,[19] and many cases of sub-lethal poisoning have resulted in permanent brain damage.[7] Farm workers with CHRONIC endosulfan exposure are at risk of rashes and skin irritation.[5]
EPA’s acute reference dose for daily dietary exposure to endosulfan is 0.015 mg/kg for adults and 0.0015 mg/kg for children. For chronic dietary expsoure, the EPA references doses are 0.006 mg/(kg·day) and 0.0006 mg/(kg·day) for adults and children, respectively.[5]
I wonder how many of us will be exposed to a lethal dose in five lifetimes.
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What can we do?
I’m an environmental educator and keen to tell as many as I can in my network what steps we can do to lobby ERMA or whoever – what else can we do to raise the nation’s awareness of this issue?
It’s horrendous!
Jacqui Knight
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Frog said:
> Endosulfan is also a xenoestrogen
cool. Is that a hormone that will make me look like Xena?
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We need to do more than just make submissions to ERMA because they are not listening. I suggest a letter to the Min of environment asking him to call-in the decisin – he has the power to override ERMA. And get onto the media and make your voice heard.
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This is the sort of thing that makes me WANT to vote for the green party. But I’m still held back by other green party actions that seemed to me outside of the scope of a ‘green’ policy. Oh Well.
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