Dr. Alan Greene at the Organic Farming Conference (part 4)

"Good food, grown right is at the core of human health."

The folks at MOSES (that’s the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service) were kind enough to allow me to reprint this summary of Dr. Alan Greene’s keynote at the 2009 Organic Farming Conference, written by colleague and friend Bridget O’Meara; this is part two.

Tiny Doses, Big Impact
In addition to too many calories and poor nutritional content, according to Greene, the food that most American kids consume contains too many chemicals. He observes that the potato (which in the form of a French fry is the most popular vegetable among adults as well as children) "after it's washed, after it's peeled, has the highest level on average of pesticides of any produce in the U.S." Some physicians as well as pesticide manufacturers insist that "pesticide residue is too small to have any affect on health--despite scientific research. They will say it's just too small, 100 parts per billion, to make any difference. But trace amounts do have major health affects." As Greene points out, the drugs that fill a conventional doctor's bag are effective at a fraction of even these minute levels.

Paxil, for example, changes brain function at just 30 parts per billion.

Pyraphosphorous, an organophosphrous pesticide developed as a chemical weapon (nerve gas) in WWII, is now commonly used as a pesticide. Not surprisingly, a New York study showed that pesticide residue impacted brain size and cognitive function, and has been linked to learning delay, autism, and ADHD. Organophosphrous pesticides are used throughout the U.S.

A study conducted in Seattle tested kids' urine and found 3 times the EPA safety limit of organophosphorous. BUT when these kids switched to a mostly organic diet (no new foods just organic equivalents of what they'd been eating), "within 24 hours pesticides in urine were gone and stayed gone for the five days of testing." When these kids were put back on the regular diet, their pesticide levels spiked back up. "Good news: on their next shopping trip people can change their kids pesticide exposure. Organic food makes a difference."

Albuterol, another example, is an asthma medication that works at 2.1 parts per billion.

An Italian study of the impact of GMOs revealed that mice fed Bt corn had a depressed immune system and their tissues were in an inflamed state throughout the body in a way consistent (in humans) with asthma and allergies. "GMOs are NOT equivalent and have not been proven safe. Most Americans don't want GMO food and believe they've never eaten it, although most eat it every day."

Artificial food coloring and preservatives are also causing problems for kids. Greene says, "ADHD is not an issue of parenting or class size, but a real disease--the brains of these children are different; they cannot pay attention. A study out of England put 2300 kids on a diet of food without preservatives or food colorings and ALL of their behavior improved. Then same kids were given a shot to drink at lunch, every day for a week: one had all the colorings and preservatives that they would have ingested in a conventional diet; the other was a placebo. The weeks that the kids ingested the chemicals, their behavior was much worse. The weeks of placebo, their behavior was much better, noticed at school, at home, and in the doctor's office. The difference was on the same order as that seen with prescription ADHD medications."

Chemicals make a difference and can have positive or negative effects in tiny doses.

Some birth control drugs function at 0.019 parts per billion to prevent fertility.

DES (estrogen) is an anti-miscarriage drug given to women in the 1930s. A 1953 study proved it didn't work, but doctors kept prescribing it (to as many as 10 million women)--little girls (daughters) started getting rare vaginal cancer and DES was pulled off the market in 1971. Health problems persisted for decades. A 2001 study found that there is a 30% increase in breast cancer in women who took that drug. Girls had trouble conceiving/carrying babies and boys had physical reproductive abnormalities--all from a tiny bit of extra hormone.

Starting 1950, DES was given to beef cattle. It was used through the 1970s until a study showed that it impacted animal fertility, so cattle producers switched to the six different drugs in use today used to control miscarriages and improve weight gain. There is no evidence that these are safe; the few existing studies point to problems in today's beef.

The EPA is concerned, Greene says. In 1996, the agency was given 10 years to address endocrine disruptors in environment and impact on human health, especially on kids and pregnant women... ten years later a draft list of what needed to be studied had been generated but no action was taken. When he talked to EPA officials, they responded, "'You don't understand, these issues are so complex; these things are so potent at such tiny doses that it's really hard to sort out and we want to do it right." Greene says, "You know, I really agree with them: it is complex, it is scary, these tiny doses are potent, we do want to do it right--but we should do it beforewe feed this stuff to millions of people!"

Meanwhile the U.S. is facing a fertility crisis. There are multigenerational affects. Human sperm counts are down on farms, but it's not just farming communities that are affected. Consumers exposed to Atrazene are 11 times more likely to have damaged sperm (counts are going down every year). And not only humans--the reproductive systems of species in nearly every class of animals on the planet are being destroyed by Atrazene...

Greene's voice drops off and he pauses. Finally, he closes his wide-ranging, erudite, and passionately delivered speech with these final words: "What you are doing is central to human health. Everything that I do depends on you, in the front lines--not just our health, not just our planet, but the future of our species depends on you. So it's time. It's time for America to wake up to the value of good food, of great food. And it's time for America to wake up to the value of the people who are laboring to bring that to us. And it is time for us all to wake up to a future of sustainable and ecological farming done right."