From foodconsumer.org
Combo pesticides more toxic than individual ones
By Sue Mueller
Feb 21, 2008 - 7:27:55 AM
THURSDAY FEB 21, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- Food often contains a mixture of pesticides. For instance, apply may contain up to 37 types of pesticides, according to foodnews.org. But you do not know how toxic they are although it is believed that individual pesticides should be less toxic.
A new study of combinations of pesticides and salmon led by Nat Scholz a fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that individual pesticides do not cause fatal toxicity, but a pesticide mixture could kill salmon.
"We have a pretty good handle on how to assess the health effects of single chemicals in conventional toxicity trials," Scholz was quoted as saying.
"But the real world is usually more complex, and exposures to mixtures of chemicals can be more of the rule than the exception. One of the major scientific challenges of our generation is to develop new approaches to anticipate and head off any ill effects of interacting chemicals."
The results not only offered some clues as to how to recover many threatened and endangered salmon populations through the Western United States but also pointed to the need for more research to be done to understand how combinations of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables may affect human health.
The study was scheduled to be presented in the symposium entitled “From Kitchen Sinks to Ocean Basins: Emerging Chemical Contaminants and Human Health” sponsored by NOAA’s Oceans and Human Health Initiative.