Are biotech crop chemicals to blame for argentine birth defects?

Dr. Damian Verzenassi, who directs the Environment and Health program at the National University of Rosario’s medical school, decided to try to figure out what was behind an increase in cancer, birth defects and miscarriages in Argentina’s hospitals.

“We didn’t set out to find problems with agrochemicals. We went to see what was happening with the people,” he said.

Since 2010, this house-to-house epidemiological study has reached 65,000 people in Santa Fe province, finding cancer rates two times to four times higher than the national average, including breast, prostate and lung cancers. Researchers also found high rates of thyroid disorders and chronic respiratory illness.

“It could be linked to agrochemicals,” he said. “They do all sorts of analysis for toxicity of the first ingredient, but they have never studied the interactions between all the chemicals they’re applying.”

Dr. Maria del Carmen Seveso, who has spent 33 years running intensive care wards and ethics committees in Chaco province, became alarmed at regional birth reports showing a quadrupling of congenital defects, from 19.1 per 10,000 to 85.3 per 10,000 in the decade after genetically modified crops and their agrochemicals were approved in Argentina.

Determined to find out why, she and her colleagues surveyed 2,051 people in six towns in Chaco, and found significantly more diseases and defects in villages surrounded by industrial agriculture than in those surrounded by cattle ranches. In Avia Terai, 31 per cent said a family member had cancer in the past 10 years, compared with 3 per cent in the ranching village of Charadai.

Visiting these farm villages, the AP found chemicals in places where they were never intended to be.

Claudia Sariski, whose home has no running water, says she doesn’t let her twin toddlers drink from the discarded poison containers she keeps in her dusty backyard. But her chickens do, and she uses it to wash the family’s clothes.

“They prepare the seeds and the poison in their houses. And it’s very common, not only in Avia Terai but in nearby towns, for people to keep water for their houses in empty agrochemical containers,” explained surveyor Katherina Pardo. “Since there’s no treated drinking water here, the people use these containers anyway. They are a very practical people.”

The survey found diseases Seveso said were uncommon before _ birth defects including malformed brains, exposed spinal cords, blindness and deafness, neurological damage, infertility, and strange skin problems.

Aixa Cano, a shy 5-year-old, has hairy moles all over her body. Her neighbour, 2-year-old Camila Veron, was born with multiple organ problems and is severely disabled. Doctors told their mothers that agrochemicals may be to blame.

“They told me that the water made this happen because they spray a lot of poison here,” said Camila’s mother, Silvia Achaval. “People who say spraying poison has no effect, I don’t know what sense that has because here you have the proof,” she added, pointing at her daughter.

It’s nearly impossible to prove that exposure to a specific chemical caused an individual’s cancer or birth defect. But like the other doctors, Seveso said their findings should prompt a rigorous government investigation. Instead, their 68-page report was shelved for a year by Chaco’s health ministry. A year later, a leaked copy was posted on the Internet.

“There are things that are not open to discussion, things that aren’t listened to,” Seveso concluded.

Scientists argue that only broader, longer-term studies can rule out agrochemicals as a cause of these illnesses.

“That’s why we do epidemiological studies for heart disease and smoking and all kinds of things,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a former EPA regulator now with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “If you have the weight of evidence pointing to serious health problems, you don’t wait until there’s absolute proof in order to do something.”