HEALTHY FIELDS, SICK WATER: Pesticides implicated in Parkinson's Disease are believed to travel from farms to humans via private wells.
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Rural residents who drink water from private wells are much more likely to have Parkinson’s disease, a finding that bolsters theories that farm pesticides may be partially to blame, according to a new California study.
Nearly one million people in the United States--one of every 300--have the incurable neurological disease. Beginning with a slight tremor, Parkinson’s often progresses to severe muscle control problems that leave patients struggling to walk and talk.
Over the past few years, a growing body of evidence has led many experts to suspect that pesticides can attack developing brains, perhaps in the womb or infancy, leading to neurological diseases later in life. Many insecticides widely used on farms are potent neurotoxins, and lab animals exposed to mixes of them develop Parkinson’s symptoms. In addition, several previous studies of farmers and rural residents have reported a link.
The new study of more than 700 people in California’s Central Valley found that those who likely consumed contaminated private well water had a higher rate of Parkinson’s.
The risk was as much as 90 percent higher for those who had private wells near fields sprayed with the widely used insecticides propargite or chlorpyrifos.
People with Parkinson’s “were more likely to have consumed private well water, and had consumed it on average 4.3 years longer” than those who did not have the disease, said the scientists, led by UCLA epidemiology professor Beate Ritz, in their study published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Unlike municipal water supplies, private wells are largely unregulated and are not monitored for contaminants. Many are dug at shallow depths of less than 20 yards, and some of the crop chemicals used to kill pests and weeds can seep into ground water.
The study participants lived in Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties—the heart of California’s farm belt. About 17 percent reported drinking private well water during the study period from 1974 through 1999.
Previous studies have reported connections between Parkinson’s and consumption of rural well water and pesticide use. The UCLA research, however, is the first to examine people’s proximity to specific chemicals and estimate their exposure. Incorporating a geographic information system and land use maps, the researchers based their analysis on California’s pesticide use records.
A weakness of the research is that the scientists do not know exactly what each person in the study was exposed to because private wells are not tested. Close proximity to sprayed fields does not necessarily mean their wells were contaminated.
The UCLA team examined state records identifying where pesticides were used between 1974 and 1999. They then compared the address of each participant in the study to those records. From that, they estimated each person’s exposure via the air and the water based on how much pesticide was used within 500 meters of their homes.
Jonathan Chevrier, a University of California at Berkeley postdoctoral researcher in epidemiology who did not participate in the research, said the new effort “is an interesting study” that “goes further than prior research” in connecting pesticides to Parkinson’s.
Most other studies had no exposure information at all, while the UCLA scientists tapped into the historical data, which Chevrier called “a major strength.” Nevertheless, he added, “it is important to note that the authors did not measure the water concentration of pesticides or determine the amount of well water participants consumed.”
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12 Comments
Add CommentThe photo caption is misleading. A monoculture field laden with synthetic chemicals is by no means a "healthy field." High yielding and efficient, but far from healthy as an ecologically balanced and sustainable environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPure speculation based on assumptions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article should not even should have been published as such. Do not make statements that rural water contaminated by pesticides are a possible cause of Parkinson's.
Yes, there is language in the article that notes the weakness of this study, but the headline and the general air of the article has reached the conclusion that this is the cause.
I suspect that the researchers threw in some nice color charts, graphs, and GIS maps to make this look convincing and credible.
Look how many years were spent in this study and they did not bother to actually test the waters for contaminants?
Reckless.
I no doubt that exposure to such chemicals over time has detrimental effects of those living in rural areas. It just needs to be shown using actual testing than speculation.
I worked in drinking water for over 16 years. We, in the field, would refer to those who lived in rural areas as "cancer-proof". This was due to the fact that politicians wrote water standards to exempt small rural water systems that serve less than 10,000 from regulations that were implemented to protect the health of the public from carcinogens and other contaminants in their drinking water supply. Obvuiously, they must be "cancer-proof" because they do not need to meet the same regs as larger systems.
I always manage to misspell one word in my comments, despite proofreading. My apologies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess it beats force-feeding lab rats high doses over a short period of time in the effort to simulate low doses over a long period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other news, nothing means anything, and black is white.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that the article is very clear that it is not conclusive. "bolsters theory" is not the same as "proves theory" though I would prefer "bolsters hypothesis" as it hasn't been proven yet and the science haters seem to get a lot of mileage out of, "it's only a theory!" It does point to a target for further research. Science is often about these incremental steps towards understanding rather than the news worthy eureka moments we always hear about. Also, please keep in mind that these are news articles not peer reviewed scientific papers. They aren't meant to prove anything only inform the reader of what is happening in the world of science. If you want proof, go to the source, or better yet, conduct the experiment yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy mother was born in Cotton Plant Arkansas in 1906. In her mid twenties she developed Parkinsons desease and suffered with it for over fifty years. Your article, therefore was of interest because she was raised on a farm and . . . In 1947 she was the subject of a filmed (experimental)operation performed by doctors in Prince George's County Maryland.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are spell checker add ons to most web browsers if you search for one. They either work in the background or you right click and Check Spelling. Search spell check web browser in your favorite search engine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDespite the lack of "proof", the scientist would be grotesquely unethical if they did not report the link that shows a possible harm to humans. Sure, no causal relationship has been proven, but what if they didn't report the link and then found proof 50 years from now. You would be frothing at the mouth because they didn't report something when they had a mere suspicion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Texas, a pest control company was using an insecticide that was later found in the milk of breast feeding mothers. The company owner, one Tom Delay I believe, went ballistic when it was shelved saying there was no proof it did any harm. Would you feed your infant milk you know had traces of pesticides in it?
My parents own a ranch where we used a very affective herbicide for years. The herbicide, Shell 2,4,5-T, I believe a component of agent orange, was outlawed years ago. We have no idea what the previous land owner(s) sprayed. My father swears the water from our well is clean, but I have refused to drink it for over 30 years. Not because of any possible scientific link, but because I'm not an idiot.
Relative to Sparcboy's comments above and since the methodology of the article above has already been covered, I would tend to agree with your father regarding your well water. One needs to know what alternative source(s) you use for your water; I would be suspect of the source of most bottled water and its plastic packaging. Phthalates seem to be a real concern today that is not being very well addressed. Municipal water systems do very little to treat all the antibiotics and birth control hormones we flush down our toilets everywhere and release into our rivers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI too have lived on a Montana ranch for 70 yrs and have been drenched in many now-banned chemicals for days at a time. We welcomed the arrival of DDT, Chlordane, Dieldrin, Heptochlor, organophosphates, 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T and many more and sprayed DDT in swimsuits with high pressure hoses above cattle chutes (1950's) or on crops with open tractors and broadcast sprayers. All of these practices now would be heresy with new standards, PPE and safer chemicals. Many of those around me through that time have since died from many causes, mostly from smoking related cancers, heart problems and accidents; I don't recall any neurological events among them.
I think you should be more concerned about seat belt use, crime rates and breath on an airliner than your father's well water. The time is coming when having well water will be many people's greatest concern; we continue to act like ground water is infinite.
I think we have huge problems ahead with our water supplies, food production and all its related chemistry. Not using chemicals is not a viable option if we are going to feed everyone; perhaps we need to revisit population control. Nobody like how they did it but China is the only country to really address the basic problem!
It is my understanding that Parkinson's is not considered heritable except when it occurs in young people. (I have no idea of the accuracy of this statement but have read it numerous places over the years and have no citations for it.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy mother and her sister both had Parkinson's and were raised on a farm in rural Pennsylvania in the 1920s. They had two siblings, neither of whom has Parkinson's. My mother was the only one among the four of her generation to live on a farm through adulthood; my mother's four children all grew up drinking well water and so far none f us has Parkinson's. Two of us, however, have developed motor neurone diseases and three of us have AD/HD.
None of this constitutes scientific study, of course. However, I wonder if anyone, anywhere, is compiling these anecdotal accounts and making anything of them?
Hey mtrancher I'm pretty sure some of your friends that died from "Smoking Cancer" got it from dealing with all those pesticides. Most of them are labeled as cancer causing.
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