Yet another pesticide is linked to triggering PD. The culprit is called Ziram.

Anyway, the zinger is the work exposure findings:

instead of looking just at whether people lived near fields that were sprayed, they looked at where people worked, including teachers, firefighters and clerks who worked near, but not in, the fields.

They found that the combined exposure to ziram, maneb and paraquat near any workplace increased the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) threefold, while combined exposure to ziram and paraquat alone was associated with an 80 percent increase in risk. The results appear in the current online edition of the European Journal of Epidemiology.

What is going on with those findings? People at work are more exposed more than home? Any ideas?

article linkhttp://www.news-medical.net/news/201...s-disease.aspx

Laura

I noticed I got migraines and there was a strange smell in my office at least once a month many years ago. There was a clear correlation in my migraine log and the insect spray schedule. I asked for them to stop spraying MY office. No doubt I was still exposed and affected in other parts of where I worked. Anyone that lives in apartments or rental property probably has insect spray in their residence once a month.

The city of Houston spayed every evening for mosquitoes where I lived. I could hear the spray trucks coming from miles away and always brought my dogs inside. There is a clear link with organophosphates-cancer-other diseases of the central nervous system, which are documented more in the last month on national news. Most people use this type of poison in weed and feed or broad leaf weed killers or bug spray.

This includes spot-on and pyrethrum (made from innocuous sounding chrysanthemums) treatments for ticks and fleas most of us use on our pets. That is a toughie to get around I discovered. Pet any animal with spot on and you must be very careful to not ingest/eat/touch face after without washing hands. I spend hours removing ticks with safe shampoos etc. Fleas I can use orally administered tablets to control now thanks to the demand for safer control.

Treating my home for termites involved drilling holes in the concrete and drive every foot, injecting poison then caulking the holes. In areas where there was no concrete they just injected poison. A previous home was treated with Chlordane (now outlawed). In parts CA they have a requirement to tent and fumigate all homes that are sold and it is standard treatment for termites. This makes me wonder how much exposure we all receive and don't really think about. Of great concern is aerial spraying of crops in areas with no air conditioning.

There are trade-offs. Since the banning of DDT 3 billion human deaths due to malaria according to some studies. There is argument that the rebound of raptors has nothing to do with DDT bans and that the original study linking DDT and thinned eggshells was flawed.

Silent Spring flawed study http://dwb4.unl.edu/Chem/CHEM869E/CH...icals/ddt.html
We still must consider trade-offs regardless of disagreements. There is no doubt human deaths increased exponentially since banning DDT. Organophosphates are now next in line. Should we ban them or allow some of the population suffer from PD and other idiopathic neuro-degenerative disease? One million Americans with PD is less dramatic than 3 billion deaths due to malaria.

PD isn't killing people seems to be a popular retort. I struggle to justify this logic as I do billions of deaths due to DDT. Was it worth it and based on one study? Neurologic diseases are based on dozens of studies and supported by the NIH, CDC, and WHO.
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=5525
Study offers insight into link between Parkinson's and pesticides. Farmers have increased incidences of PD, which is a clear correlation to me.

Concerns with amalgam fillings are less clear (since dentists do not have increased incidences of PD). It would be expected that people working/drilling/fabricating fillings would show increased neurologic disease but they do not. I had my amalgam fillings replaced regardless using a dental dam so that I wouldn't ingest any of it regardless. Better safe than sorry.

While I enjoy all of my organic gardening since moving to CA I also don't have A/C so windows are mostly left open and my veges are all outside. Being a large agricultural center I do wonder what my neighbors spray on their yards or surrounding fields might use. I see signs when yards are sprayed to keep children and animals off until dry. I noticed this year to the consternation of my fuzzy dogs that burrs seem are very prolific in my yard. Obviously the previous renter used some type of broad leaf weed killer. I never used it in my back yard mostly fearing cancer for my dogs when I owned homes previously.

Organophosphate pesticides are used on school playgrounds and athletic fields. It appears we are surrounded by this stuff whether we are diligent at home or not. In the case of idiopathic PD it makes me wonder whether we set up particularly children (including prenatal) or those with a genetic predisposition to PD to develop it by making it almost impossible to avoid exposure even with something as innocuous as non-organic produce (big in the news this month).

It's prohibitively expensive to buy organic. I can drive less than a mile and be amidst fields of produce. Most are not organic and end up in groceries all over the US. I goggled "organophosphate pesticides NIH neurology Parkinson's" limiting to only the last month finding MANY hits on prenatal exposure, ADHD/asthma in children, dermal contact with sprayed flowers and relationship to neurologic disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247187/

Scholarly Articles for organophosphate NIH neurology Parkinson’s was interesting. It seems we may not be able to avoid it in restaurants (where pesticide spray is mostly mandatory to pass Health Inspections to control roaches, rodents etc), most buildings and businesses, even parks where you appreciate the lovely landscaping to allow your kids to roam free without worry of dangerous insects or burrs/weeds.

Unless we as consumers ($$ spenders) demand safer environments in public places and products there won't be a change. The NIH has enough data to show that only 5% of PD are genetic based and 95% are due to exposure to toxins in the last link I provided above. I'm sticking to WHO, NIH, & CDC.
The press, as with DDT and one flawed study, starts uproars that change the world. What if one such uproar included contaminants causing neuro-degenerative disease? 4,420,000 disability-adjusted lives per year
http://www.who.int/entity/ipcs/featu...pesticides.pdf

Many of the same pesticides cause cancer.
http://www.who.int/heli/risks/toxics.../en/index.html
WHO reports 772,000 deaths by pesticide caused disease each year, 186,000 poisonings & identifies 150 carcinogenic pesticides.
http://www.organic-food-for-everyone...nic-foods.html