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Advisory Committee on Health Effects of Endocrine Disruptors
The Supplement II to the Intermediary Report
1.4.2.2_10 |
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2. Pesticides
Three papers on the association of pesticide exposure and
infantile nerve development appeared between Jan .1, 2001 and
Oct. 31, 2004: a synchronic study, a case-control study and an
ecological study.
1) Synchronic study
Perera et al. (2003) studied effects of prenatal exposure to
environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs) and organohosphate pesticides on the body
weight, head circumference and body height of newborns for 116
African-American and 146 Dominican cases. PAH samples were
obtained from the subjects' room environment, ETS was estimated
by plasma conitine level, and organophosphate pesticide exposure
was estimated by plasma chlorpyrifos level. After adjusting for
confounders, prenatal exposure to high-level PAHs was correlated
with low body weights (p = 0.003) and low head circumferences (p
= 0.01) of African-American newborns. Chlorpyrifos exposure was
correlated with the low body weights (p = 0.01) and body heights
(p = 0.003) of all the newborns, the low body weights of
African-American newborns (p = 0.04) and the low body heights of
Dominican newborns (p < 0.001). PAHs and chlorpyrifos were
considered to be significant, independent determining factors
for the outcome of newborns.
2) Case-control study
Ruckart et al. (2004) estimated the association of
neurobehavioral development of children in Mississippi and Ohio
with exposure to methyl parathion (MP), an organophosphate
pesticide which was illegally used in their homes for pest
control. The exposed group consisted of 251 children who were
under six years of age when methyl parathion was applied in a
county of Ohio in 1994 and two counties in Mississippi in
1996-97. The control group was 401 children from the same
regions. The results of the Pediatric Environmental
Neurobehavioral Test Battery (PENTB) showed significantly lower
scores related to short-term memory and attention for the
exposed group. Differences in behavioral and motor development
between the groups were also reflected in their parents'
reports, but were not consequent in the two regions. Test scores
related to general intelligence, integration of visual and motor
skills, and multistep processing showed no difference between
the two groups. Methyl parathion might be associated with subtle
changes to short-term memory and attention and contribute to
problems with motor skills and some behaviors, but the results
of the study were not conclusive.
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