My secondary article addressed the issue of a specific pesticide used in Salinas Valley region, California. “AHAD Linked to Pesticide Exposure by UC Berkeley Researchers” was written by Chris Hinyub in August 2010. The articles touches briefly on the study performed on the women in Salinas Valley to investigate brain development in children. The article explains that the pregnant women exposed to this pesticide were tested and found to have traces in their urine. The study then followed up on the children. The children were found to have had an adverse affect due to the pesticide exposure which suggested higher cases of ADHD.
I then read the primary resource which was a much more informative piece. “PON1 and Neurodevelopment in Children from the CHAMACOS Study Exposed to Organophosphate Pesticides in Utero” was written by Berkeley scientists and explained much more about the subject. The main methods of the experiment were testing the pregnant women’s urine as well as their blood along with the cord blood of the children. 353 two-year olds were then tested for mental development and psychomotor development. The result was that children’s neurodevelopment could be linked to the PON1 pesticide exposure. But that was just the very surface of the published work. It went on to talk about extensive research focused on many different development issues as well as diseases that may have been linked to the pesticide.
I found many differences in between the primary and secondary sources but mainly found that the secondary article just very much lacked in information and only reached a very specific point, one that wasn’t even the main point of the journal article. “The results were telling: women with higher chemical traces of organophosphates gave birth to children more likely to exhibit attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.” The article focuses only on the findings of a higher percentage ADHD in children, which was just a minor subject of the journal which suggested the result of so many problems. It wasn’t even a main subject at all. Results: “Children with the PON1-108T allele had poorer MDI and somewhat poorer Psychomotor Development Index scores. Children were less likely to display PDD when they or their mothers had higher ARYase and when their mothers had higher POase activities. The association between DAPs and MDI was strongest in children with PON1-108T allele but this and other interactions between DAPs and PON1 polymorphisms or enzymes were not significant.” The actual result of the study does not even mention ADHD.
Another major discrepancy I noticed when reading the two works were the age of the children studied. In the secondary article it states that 3-5 year olds were used. This I found strange because over and over in the journal article it explains that 2-year olds were the main test subjects. “while few ADHD symptoms in test group subjects were observed at age 3, it was found that symptoms dramatically heightened by age 5.” I suppose this statistic was used in the secondary source because he was so focused on the ADHD and not the rest.
“Scientists have also linked pesticide exposure to other neurological diseases including Parkinson's.” In the very last sentence of the secondary article it mentions another neurological disease that could be caused by the PON1 pesticide. It doesn’t go into any further explanation. The primary work goes on and on to mention separate studies, giving credit to the researchers, done to suggest the dangers of the chemical.
One last minor thing I noticed was that although the article stated the women’s Mexican-American ethnicity, (which I did not understand the point of) it didn’t explain that they were mostly working on the farms. “disease in children from primarily Latino farmworker families in the Salinas Valley” The primary resource explains that most of the women were farm workers, explaining the high exposure to the pesticide.
While the secondary article did open eyes to the dangers found with this particular pesticide, I found it was lacking in information. The study it used as its primary resource had little to do with the article itself. The primary source was very informative and gave a much broader view of the issue.
Cited work:
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/iEskenazi B, Huen K, Marks A, Harley KG, Bradman A, Barr DB, et al. 2010. PON1 and Neurodevelopment in Children from the CHAMACOS Study Exposed to Organophosphate Pesticides in Utero. Environ Health Perspect
http://caivn.org/article/2010/08/28/ahdh-linked-pesticide-exposure-uc-berkeley-researchers
by Chris HinyubFri, Aug 27th 2010
By Sarah Mark
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