Stay safe garden organically
Pesticides Use has been linked to Brain Tumours
Do you use pesticides on your pot plants? Beware you may be increasing your risk of cancer.
Organic gardening is a healthy lifestyle choice. Not only is there the plus of good nutritious food but a recent study suggest that those who use pesticides on the garden run a risk of developing a brain tumour.
Organic gardeners adopt methods of pest control that are potentially safer than the willy-nilly over use of synthetic sprays which may leave residues on the fruit and vegetables.
A study shows that those who use pesticides and weedkillers are more than twice as likely to develop a brain cancer.
Courses in agricultural studies teach potential farmers and rural workers how to protect themselves against the effects of the toxic chemicals they use. Workers are asked to wear complete body covering protective suits, hoods and respirators. Even so, farm workers have a much higher risk of developing brain cancer than people in other occupations.
New research suggests that not only farm workers but home gardeners are at risk. Should you routinely use pesticides even on your pot plants you increase you risk level.
Published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine ,a study by French researchers asked over 200 people with brain tumours about their use of pesticides. This group was then compared with a healthy group. The healthy group had similar backgrounds and age.
The study indicated that the group with brain tumours had used more pesticides. The findings showed that those who used pesticides in home gardening were 2.25 times as likely to develop a brain tumour.
In a similar piece of research, British scientists have suggested a link between using pesticides in the garden and Parkinson’s disease. The British report warned that the risk of Parkinson’s disease was increased by about 40%.
This gives a further reason for purchasing organic foods.
Organic gardeners have long been aware that they are trying to act responsibly towards the creation of a sustainable environment by managing the inputs to their garden and ensuring that nothing runs off from their garden that could do some ecological harm. Following the Second World War the newly developed chemicals resulted in the Green Revolution and an apparent growth in crop yields. Gung-Ho overuse of products and wide spread misuse resulted in the ecological problems so powerfully stated in Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring
Synthetic pesticides cause a number of problems.
- They are washed off plants and p
- bly into streams where they poison the fish.
- Some pests survive and the speci
- uilds up an immunity meaning that stronger and stronger chemicals need to be used.
- They get into the food chain res
- ng in species extinction.
- They are expensive.
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