Effects of exposure to pesticides and herbicides

Watch Video: Effects of exposure to pesticides and herbicides by Gary Hirshberg, ...
Effects of exposure to pesticides and herbicides | Kids in the House
KidsInTheHouse the Ultimate Parenting Resource
Kids in the House Tour

Effects of exposure to pesticides and herbicides

Comment
47
Like
47
Transcription: 
There's a lot of debate about whether GMOs are safe or not. But there's no debate that since they were introduced in 1996, they've led to the incredible proliferation of huge amounts of herbicides. Over 2500M more pounds of herbicides are now being used as a result of having GMOs out there. And the problem with that is when you use that many herbicides, you now create resistance by weeds, which means you use even stronger herbicides. So now we're using herbicides that the last time we used them was the Vietnam War. 24D, very dangerous, very carcinogenic. And now we're putting it on America's crops because of these GMOs. Now you could say, still what's the concern? As a parent, we have to understand that as a nation doesn't do any safety or health testing of what's the safe level of exposure to herbicides? If you're in Iowa right now, 60-100% of your rain water samples contain herbicides. But we don't know what the cumulative effects are, what the synergistic effects are of being exposed to multiple toxins. And any testing that is done is done on adults, not on children. So when you have children at their maximum time of brain development and body development and cell development, we don't know what the impacts of these chemicals are. What we do know now, and there have been recent studies that have backed this up, is that exposure to insecticides, herbicides, pesticides can absolutely affect brain development. We know that there's a likely link between ADHD diagnosis and pesticide exposure. We know that IQ development is now linked to brain development. We know that autism may well be linked to herbicide exposure. So it's in everybody's interest to (1) avoid them. But (2) be able to choose when we purchase foods those that require more use of these chemicals or less. And that's what Just Label It is all about.

Watch Video: Effects of exposure to pesticides and herbicides by Gary Hirshberg, ...

Transcript

Expert Bio

More from Expert

Gary Hirshberg

Gary Hirshberg is Chairman of Stonyfield Farm, the world’s leading organic yogurt producer, and Managing Director of Stonyfield Europe. He is also the Chairman and Founding Partner of “Just Label It, We Have the Right to Know,” the national campaign to label GE foods. Gary has received twelve honorary doctorates and numerous awards for corporate and environmental leadership including a 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award by the US EPA.

Avoiding Chemicals and Toxins
More Parenting Videos from Gary Hirshberg >
Enter your email to
download & subscribe
to our newsletter