Pesticide Exposure and Early Childhood Cognitive Development

This is the visual that has forever changed the way I view pesticides. The two images to the left  represent drawings made by four and half year old children with low blood levels of pesticides, whose mothers also had low levels during pregnancy. The two images on the right represent those drawn by four and half year old children with high blood levels of pesticides, whose mothers also had high levels during pregnancy. This test, in which the children were asked to draw a person, was one of the many tests administered during a long-term study conducted by the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health. The study followed pregnant women and their children through age seven with and without exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos, now banned by the U.S. E.P.A. from residential use/products. However, we're still exposed to this chemical in our environment through its continued commercial and agricultural applications. It's in the foods that we eat!

This study, as well as other similar studies conducted by this center, showed direct correlations between prenatal exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos and delayed cognitive development in children. One study, showed a correlation between exposure and deficits in working memory and IQ at age seven.  Like autism, this study showed boys to be more vulnerable than girls to the detrimental effects of chlorpyrifos.

Upon seeing this image on my television screen featured in an educational video that my husband recorded for me, The Habitable Planet, I immediately began to research what types of pesticides are found in our foods. I came across the Pesticide Action Network's What's on My Food? website. I wanted to know what foods might contain chlorpyrifos. What I learned was astounding. Chlorpyrifos have been found in over 40 different fruits and vegetables, with the highest levels found in a single serving of my autistic son's favorite fruit: apples. And it doesn't end there. Apples contain over 42 different pesticide residues and are ranked #1 in the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen Plus: their list of fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residues. My son eats over four apples each day and I had never purchased organic fruits and vegetables, until now. How had I not known of this sooner? Why do obstetricians not recommend to their pregnant patients to eat organic fruits and vegetables during pregnancy? Why isn't there more awareness on the subject?  These were just some the questions swirling around in my brain upon this discovery.

I believe pesticides are among the many environmental factors contributing to our autism epidemic, but this is one factor that we can at least control during pregnancy and in our children's critical early developmental years. The Pesticide Action Network reports that pesticide exposure contributes to a higher incidence of Birth defects; Neurodevelopmental delays and cognitive impairment; Childhood brain cancers; Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD); Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD); Endocrine disruption; and Cancer. Pharmaceuticals, vaccines, pollution, pesticides, etc. are all invading the natural environment and our bodies. It's not a coincidence that autism occurs most prevalently among children of older parents who have been exposed to these environmental toxins longer.

I urge all pregnant women and parents of young children to download the Environmental Working Group's 2013 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce and make the financial investment of buying 'organic' at the minimum those fruits and vegetables listed on their Dirty Dozen Plus list.  Your child's health and cognitive development is well worth the investment.