Unicef-United Nations Children’s Fund-published a discussion paper in January 2018 aimed at investigating the impacts of pesticides on children’s health. (1) This work was contributed by Baskut Tuncak, ‘United Nations Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes’.
‘Children are uniquely vulnerable to uptake and adverse effects of pesticides because of developmental, dietary, and physiologic factors. Exposure occurs through ingestion, inhalation, or dermal contact. Unintentional ingestion by children may be at a considerably higher dose than an adult because of the greater intake of food or uids per pound of body weight. Children exhibit frequent hand-to-mouth activity, and this is an important source of increased exposure in comparison with adults.‘ (2)
Children’s health is subject to peculiar risks from exposure to pesticides. Due to their ingestion (albeit in the form of residues in food, whose tolerance is in fact zero on baby food marketed in the EU), inhalation and skin contact. Through contaminated air, water, soils and objects.
The impact of toxic agents is in fact defined in relation to body weight, with exposure to geometric progress in smaller bodies. With peculiar incidence on children, in their early years, because of the serious damage to vital systems (nervous, endocrine and immune systems in particular) caused by pesticides already recognized as neurotoxic, genotoxic and carcinogenic.
The toxicity of pesticides on vital organs of minors is amplified up to 10 times, on kidneys, compared to adults. In varying proportions on liver, lungs and bronchi. But damage is expressed as early as the pre-natal stage, with malformations of the fetus, prevalence of miscarriages and premature births. Disruptions to the endocrine system in ages 0-4, increased occurrence of brain tumors and leukemias-as well as delays in cognitive development-in later years.
Amniotic fluids, placentae, umbilical cords, fetuses and breast milk in developing countries often carry traces of DDT and other agrotoxics, which are still used contrary to all logic and can remain in soils for hundreds of years. (3)
Toxic residues in food. Children in all communities and countries are also exposed to pesticides through the ingestion of fruits and vegetables. Studies conducted in 2016 by the Thai Pesticide Action Network found multiple residues of poisonous substances, also banned in Thailand, on 35%-100% of fruit and vegetables for retail sale.
Lo
child exploitation
in agriculture
engages at least 108 million children and minors of both sexes, ages 5-7 and up. Young slaves work in oil palm monocultures (as already documented by Amnesty International – and of
cocoa
, where they spray and inhale agrotoxics without any personal protective equipment.
This is the social cost of the ‘quality ingredients‘ of those who still claim and publicize its use, with apodictic claims of ‘sustainability‘ of their respective supply chains. Beware of documenting the working conditions, land robbery and deforestation of the planet’s green lungs-with greenhouse gas emissions set to continue for nearly a century after the colossal burnings-carried out in the name of bulimic profit greed.
The policy of the so-called developed countries should immediately adopt the detailed measures outlined in this report. (5) To break once and for all the neo-colonial vicious cycle that aggravates inequity and inequality by the day. (6)
La
realpolitik
deflected serving the Big 6 (who control 75 percent of the global market for agrotoxics and seeds) instead is holding the European Commission back from taking appropriate action on endocrine disruptors, after pushing it to renew glyphosate’s authorization.
While the palmamentari Italians Alberto Cirio (former v.mayor of Alba) and Fulvio Martusciello try their hand at getting Strasbourg’s ban on the words ‘without palm oil‘ e ‘GMO-free‘ on food labels.
Children First!
Dario Dongo
PS: It may be a coincidence, but the Unicef report under review does not appear to have been picked up much, an understatement, in the Italian press. How tight is the gag of big investors in advertising and news agencies, on information in Italy?
Notes
(1) UNICEF Report ‘
Understanding the Impacts of Pesticides on Children
‘, at https://www.unicef.org/csr/files/Understanding_the_impact_of_pesticides_on_children-_Jan_2018.pdf
(2) Roberts, James R., and Catherine J. Karr, ‘Technical Report: Pesticide exposure.
in children‘, Pediatrics, vol. 130, no. 6, Dec. 2012, p. 1766, at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/11/21/peds.2012-2758
(3) Reuben, Suzanne, ‘Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What we can do now – President’s Cancer Panel 2008-2009 annual report’, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Md., April 2010, p. iii, at https://searchworks. stanford.edu/view/11944288
(4) International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, ‘Combating ChildLabour in Cocoa Growing’, International Labour Office (ILO), Geneva, 2002, at www.ilo.org/public/english//standards/ipec/themes/cocoa/download/2005_02_cl_cocoa.pdf
(5) See document referred to in Note 1, pages 15-17
(6) Not forgetting the UN report 24.1.17 in which it was shown that it is possible to drastically reduce pesticide use without fear of reducing yields in agriculture on a planetary level. See https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade .it/progresso/pesticidi-omicidi-ed-ecocidi-nuovo-rapporto-onu
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
