Nexus - 0604 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS PESTICIDES & HERBICIDES ARE POISONING EUROPE Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which has risen by 73 per cent in the US since 1973, is probably caused by several commonly used crop sprays, say the scientists. Lennart Hardell of Orebro Medical Centre and Mikael Eriksson of Lund University Hospital found Swedish suffer- ers of the disease were 2.7 times more likely to have been exposed to MCPA, a widely used weedkiller, than healthy peo- ple (Cancer 85:1353). (MCPA, which is used on grain crops, is sold as Target by the Swiss firm Novartis.) In addition, patients were 3.7 times more likely to have been exposed to a range of fungicides—an association not previously reported. The patients were also 2.3 times more likely to have had contact with glyphosate, the most commonly used herbicide in Sweden. Use of this chemical, sold as Round-Up by the US firm Monsanto, is expected to rocket with the introduction of crops such as Roundup-Ready soya beans that are genetically modified to resist glyphosate. The researchers suggest that the chemi- cals have suppressed the patients’ immuni- ty, allowing viruses such as Epstein-Barr to trigger cancer. (Source: By Fred Pearce and Debora Mackenzie, New Scientist, 31 March 1999, ) recorded in Europe between 1550 an 1700 happened during a time of very low solar activity. According to Drew Shindell, a climate researcher from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City an lead author of the new study, a key piece of the puzzle was missing. Previous stud- ies neglected to take into account the effects of increased solar activity on the ozone layer or the complex chemistry of the upper atmosphere where most of the high-energy radiation, including ultra-vio- let radiation (the kind responsible for cre- ating the ozone layer) gets absorbed. "When we added the upper atmosphere's chemistry into our climate model, we found that during a solar maximum, major climate changes occur in North America." The changes, according to Shindell, are caused by stronger westerly winds. Changes also occur in wind speeds and directions all over the Earth's surface. "Solar variability changes the distribu- tion of energy," said Shindell. "Over an 11-year solar cycle, the total amount of energy has not changed very much. But where the energy goes changes as wind speeds and directions change." (Source: News release, NASA/Goddard Spaceflight Center, , , 12 April 1999) Ra is not what it used to be. A new study reveals that much of the precipitation in Europe contains such high levels of dissolved pesticides, that it would be illegal to supply it as drinking water. Studies in Switzerland have found that rain is laced with toxic levels of atrazine, alachlor and other commonly used crop sprays. "Drinking water standards are regularly exceeded in rain," says Stephan Miiller, a chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology in Diibendorf. The chemicals appear to have evaporat- ed from fields and become part of the clouds. Both the European Union and Switzerland have set a limit of 100 nanograms for any particular pesticide in a litre of drinking water. But, especially in the first minutes of a heavy storm, rain can contain much more than that. In a study to be published by Miiller and his colleague Thomas Bucheli in Analytical Chemistry this summer, one sample of rainwater contained almost 4,000 nanograms per litre of 2,4-dinitro- phenol, a widely used pesticide. Previously, the authors had shown that in rain samples taken from 41 storms, nine contained more than 100 nanograms of atrazine per litre, one of them around 900 nanograms. In the latest study, the highest concentra- tions of pesticides turned up in the first rain after a long dry-spell, particularly when local fields had recently been sprayed. Until now, scientists had assumed that the pesticides only infiltrated groundwater directly from fields. Miiller warns that the growing practice of using rainwater that falls onto roofs to recharge underground water may be adding to the danger. This water often contains dissolved herbicides that have been added to roofing materials, such as bitumen sheets, to prevent vegetation growing. He suggests that the first flush of rains should be diverted into sewers to minimise the pollution of drinking water which is not usually treated to remove these herbi- cides and pesticides. Meanwhile, Swedish researchers have linked pesticides to one of the most rapidly increasing cancers in the Western world. LINK BETWEEN SOLAR CYCLE AND EARTH'S CLIMATE JUNE — JULY 1999 NEXUS -7