Humans

De huidige bijensterfte mag deels in verband worden gebracht met het gebruik van landbouwgif met neonicotinoïde als werkzame stof. Recent onderzoek toont dit aan. De toelaatbaarheid van het gebruik moet daarom opnieuw worden beoordeeld. Een en ander blijkt uit een rapport van de EU-commissie milieu, volksgezondheid en voedselveiligheid. In ons land zijn ruim vijftig middelen op de markt met dit type gif erin. De Wageningse onderzoeker Tjeerd Blacquiere, adviseur van voormalig staatssecretaris Bleker, beweert al jaren dat het gif geen rol van betekenis speelt bij de massale bijensterfte van de laatste jaren. Opponent toxicoloog Henk Tennekes waarschuwt echter al even lang voor het 'desastreuze' effect op het zenuwgestel van bijen én andere insecten.

Pesticides used in agriculture are designed to protect crops against unwanted species, such as weeds, insects, and fungus. Many compounds target the nervous system of insect pests. Because of the similarity in brain biochemistry, such pesticides may also be neurotoxic to humans. Concerns have been raised that the developing brain may be particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of neurotoxic pesticides. Current requirements for safety testing do not include developmental neurotoxicity. We therefore undertook a systematic evaluation of published evidence on neurotoxicity of pesticides in current use, with specific emphasis on risks during early development.

According to a recent study by researchers at University of California, Los Angeles, people who have suffered a traumatic brain injury and lived in areas with exposure to pesticides may be three times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease. In UCLA's recent study, researchers compared a group of 357 people with Parkinson's to 754 people without the disease. All respondents lived in an agricultural area in central California. Using records of pesticide applications dating back to 1974, researchers tracked exposure to paraquats in the study. The research participants were also asked to report any head injuries suffered in their pasts that caused loss of consciousness longer than five minutes. The examination found that 42 of the 357 people with Parkinson's reported having had a traumatic brain injury compared to 50 of the 754 people without the disease. Moreover, those with Parkinson's were 36 percent more likely to report exposure to pesticides than those without the disease. Ultimately, the research suggests that while brain injuries and pesticides are individually associated with an increased risk of Parkinson's, the combination is associated with a greater threat of developing the disease.

Researchers at the university’s Faculty of Life Sciences have now discovered that a small stroke, also known as a silent stroke, can cause Parkinson’s disease. Their findings have been published in the journal “Brain Behaviour and Immunity”. Unlike a severe stroke, a silent stroke can show no outward symptoms of having taken place. It happens when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked for only a very short amount of time and often a patient won’t know they have suffered from one. However, it now appears one of the lasting effects of a silent stroke can be the death of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra in the brain, which is an important region for movement coordination.

If there’s one food group that Israelis love, it’s vegetables. In fact, all over the Middle East, vegetables are treated with love and presented at table in infinite artful ways. But health hazards lurk on the well-loved produce. According to Haaretz, 11% of produce tested by the Israel Health Ministry showed unacceptably high levels of pesticide residues. Of over 5000 samples taken from 108 kinds of foods, 56% had traces of different pesticides. A scary tomato yielded 50 kinds of residues, while a cucumber showed 30 types. 46 kinds of pesticides were found on parsley. Those are the main ingredients of the famous Israeli salad. Are Israelis indeed eating pesticides with every bite of salad? Studies like the one showing how pregnant Jerusalemite women have higher pesticide levels in their bodies than pregnant New Yorkers support this suspicion.

Even low-level exposure to a widely used group of pesticides can produce long-term damage to cognitive abilities, according to a study conducted by researchers from University College London and the Open University and published in the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology. The researchers conducted a meta-analysis on the data from 14 separate studies including more than 1,600 total participants on the association between neurological and cognitive function and low-level exposure to the group of pesticides known as organophosphates. "This is considered to be the method of choice in situations where research findings may be used to inform public policy," co-author Chris McManus said. "This is the first time anyone has analyzed the literature concerning the neurotoxicity of organophosphate pesticides, using the statistical technique of meta-analysis," lead author Sarah Mackenzie Ross said. "The analysis reveals that the majority of well-designed studies undertaken over the last 20 years find a significant association between low-level exposure to organophosphates and impaired cognitive function." The areas of cognitive function that suffered the greatest damage were information processing speed and memory. Other areas, such as language, suffered less.

Etwa drei Prozent der Bevölkerung leiden an Parkinson. Die Krankheit schreitet schleichend voran und zeigt sich in starren Muskeln, einem maskenhaften Gesichtsausdruck und zitternden Händen. Nervenzellen in der sogenannten Substantia nigra des Mittelhirns sterben nach und nach ab. Verschiedene Studien haben auffallend deutlich gezeigt, dass Menschen, die in der Landwirtschaft arbeiten und dabei Pestiziden ausgesetzt sind, häufig an Parkinson erkranken. Was schon länger vermutet wurde, konnten Forscher aus Dresden nun erstmals bestätigen: Die Forscher haben den Mechanismus entschlüsselt, wie das Insektizid Rotenon Symptome der Krankheit auslöst und verstärkt, teilte das Universitätsklinikum Dresden mit. Eine wesentliche Rolle dabei spielten Nervenverbindungen zwischen Darm und Hirn. Das Dresdner Forscherteam fand heraus, dass Rotenon zur Ausschüttung des Proteins Alpha-Synuclein durch die Nervenzellen im Darmtrakt führt. Es wird von Nervenzellen im Gehirn aufgenommen und im Zellkörper abgelagert, wo es die Zellen zerstört.

Los pájaros y las abejas son algo que la mayoría de nosotros damos por sentado como parte de la naturaleza. La expresión “enseñanza de los pájaros y las abejas” para explicar el proceso de la reproducción humana a los jóvenes no es una expresión accidental. Las abejas y las aves contribuyen a la esencia de la vida en nuestro planeta. Un estudio realizado por el Departamento de Agricultura de EE.UU. estima que “… tal vez una tercera parte de nuestra dieta total depende, directa o indirectamente, de los insectos de polinización plantas” 1.
La abeja de miel, Apis mellifera, es el polinizador más importante de los cultivos agrícolas. Las abejas de miel polinizan más de 70 sobre 100 cultivos que, a su vez Lamentablemente el 90% de los alimentos del mundo. Ellos polinizan la mayoría de frutas y verduras, incluyendo manzanas, naranjas, fresas, cebollas y carrots.2 Pero mientras gestiona las poblaciones de abejas han aumentado en los últimos 50 años, las poblaciones de abejas de colonias han disminuido considerablemente en muchos países de Europa y las naciones de América del Norte. Al mismo tiempo, los cultivos que dependen de los insectos para la polinización han aumentado. El fenómeno ha recibido la designación curiosa de trastorno del colapso de colonias (CCD), lo que implica que podría ser causado por cualquier número de factores. Serios estudios científicos recientes, sin embargo apuntan a una causa mayor: el uso de nuevos plaguicidas sistémicos altamente tóxicos en la agricultura desde alrededor del 2004

Greenpeace is door Argentinië en de Verenigde Staten getrokken om informatie te verzamelen over genetisch gemanipuleerde gewassen. In "Growing Doubt" / "Toenemende twijfel" ontstaat een rapportage over de verwoestende gevolgen van herbicide-tolerante gewassen en monoculturen op de economie, het milieu en de gezondheid (op het rode cc-knopje kan de taal van de ondertiteling worden gekozen):
http://www.greenpeace.org/austria/de/multimedia/Videos/Gentechnik/Growi…