Essay, Research Paper: Reducing Exposure To Chemicals

Organic food is grown using the practices and philosophies of organic agriculture. No synthetic pesticides are used. Choosing organically produced foods lowers the risk of getting various forms of cancer and other illnesses. Children are more prone to the harms of pesticides than adults are. Ingesting organic foods reduce the intake of unsafe synthetic chemicals.
Many synthetic pesticides cause cancer, disrupt hormones, harm the nervous or immune systems, and cause irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, lungs, and digestive tract. Pesticides are usually tested individually though the population is exposed to many chemicals at a time. The reactions between combinations of chemicals are rarely tested. Exposure to mixtures of pesticides is predominantly worrying. One chemical may initiate the conversion of another chemical into a harmful, active form. Some combinations may depress the immune system leaving the body more susceptible to disease. Alarming evidence shows increased birth defects, reduced sperm counts, and impaired sexual development.
Children are more susceptible to pesticide risks than adults are. Currently, legal residues (amounts of pesticides allowed by Health and Welfare Canada to remain on food) are calculated with adults in mind. However, children consume more food per kilogram of body weight than adults, their metabolisms and behavior are different. By age five, millions of children have ingested up to thirty-five percent of their entire lifetime dose of some carcinogenic pesticides. Children are also more vulnerable to ingested pesticides because their nervous system is not fully developed and their immature digestive tract absorbs toxic chemicals more readily. The average pre-schooler eats six times the amount of fruit and fruit products (the most likely to be contaminated) than an adult woman. Consequently, the average child receives four times more exposure than an adult to eight (of sixty-six identified) widely used carcinogenic pesticides. This relationship between pesticides and young children (as well as exposure while growing up) can lower intelligence, motor skills and functional ability of an average child. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that seventeen percent of American pre-schoolers are currently exposed through food to neurotoxic pesticides that can harm the nervous system at levels the government presently considers safe.
Hormone disruption should be by far one of the biggest health concerns for people exposing themselves to synthetic chemicals. Hormones are a necessary part of every biological process. Acting as chemical messengers inside the body, they give information to cells such as the time to grow, how to grow, and when cells should divide. This process can be disrupted by even incredibly low levels of some pesticides. The pesticides do this by inhibiting a hormone's ability to bind with the proper cell and deliver its message, or by mimicking natural hormones and binding to receptors sending a message to cells at the wrong time. At this time there are many examples of hormone disruption in wildlife: deformed and infertile bald eagles, enlarged thyroid glands in Great Lakes salmon and abnormal reproduction and development in other Great Lakes species. The connection between these problems and certain chemicals, including those present in a variety of pesticides, has been clearly defined. Epidemiological evidence for hormone disruption in humans is still not strong but, because human endocrine systems are similar to most wildlife, many scientists speculate that human endocrine systems are affected as well. They believe that environmental chemical exposure may account for decreasing sperm counts, and increasing rates of breast, testicular, and prostate cancers.
In an organic system, soil fertility is maintained and enhanced by building biological activity in the soil, thus providing a balanced nutrient supply for plant and animal life. Pests and disease are managed by the encouragement of a balanced host and predator relationship and the rise of beneficial insect populations. The well-balanced soils of an organic production grow strong healthy plants that taste better and contain more nutrients. By choosing organically grown foods, we can increase our chances of getting the nutrition we need.
The primary way to avoid dangerous synthetic pesticides is to choose organically grown foods. Avoiding chemicals is important because the pesticide residue found on commercially developed foods will destroy the human body's immune system, making the body vulnerable to disease and illnesses. Children would especially benefit from eating organic food because their immune systems are immature and weaker than those of adults. Synthetic chemicals will also disable hormones from sending messages to cells within your body. When not exposed to destructive synthetic chemicals, the body is allowed to perform all aspects of its innate behavior.