"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...

A report on a recent government survey of UK pesticide usage:

``
TOXIC COCKTAIL IN FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
June 19, 20002 FOE

Friends of the Earth¹s analysis of the latest Government
survey of pesticide residue results reveal that a cocktail
of pesticides above legal and safety limits has been found
in a range of fruit and vegetables. The results were
published today by the Pesticides Residues Committee (PRC)
http://www.pesticides.gov.uk

http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...sumtabsrev1.pd
f
is the actual data in the report



Some of the key findings of the report a

* UK grown non-organic strawberries contained dicofol at
illegal levels. Dicofol is not approved for use on
strawberries in the UK. Dicofol is similar to DDT and is a
suspected hormone disrupter. The 3 organic strawberry
samples were free of residues.

The actual figures were
Concentration range number in that range
dicofol 0.02 (i.e. not found) 59
(MRL = 2*) 0.08 1
(MRL = 0.02*) 0.2, 0.2 2

as for the three organic strawberry samples being free of residues, I would
love to discover how they found this out because no where in the data
summary is the term organic used other than as in 'organic bromide' or
'inorganic bromide'

indeed doing a search through the entire document similar claims seem to
have been made with no actual reference to the data provided in the report

Jim Webster

In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: Jim Webster wrote - or quoted:

: : : :: 1) There is no direct health cost, due to the approvals testing.
: : : :
: : : :So you claim - yet pesticides kill thousands anually.

: :
: : Most pesticide deaths are likely to be lingering ones - rather than
: : straight poisonings. The cancer deaths are not likely to show up in
: : studies like this one.
:
: : most pesticide deaths are suicides or accidents where children have
: drunk
: : out of the wrong bottle.
:

: That has not been established - since the frequency of other
: pesticide-caused deaths has probably not been so well documented.

: wrong again, it is very well documented in the website whose address you
: posted

No it isn't.

The overall frequency of pesticide related deaths is not known.

For one thing not all the mechanisms of poisoning are yet known.

: I refer you to
: http://www.sums.ac.ir/IJMS/9934/abdollahi9934.html

: perhaps you should read web pages before you quote them
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

On Sat, 24 May 2003 12:30:00 +0100, Malcolm
wrote:


In article , martin
writes
On Sat, 24 May 2003 11:45:40 +0100, Oz
wrote:


It's just the same as cars and knives kill people when misused, as well
as a wide range of other unnatural causes of death. You wouldn't suggest
banning knives because some people kill others with them, for example.

Knives above a certain size are banned in UK.

ITYM, *carrying* knives above a certain size is banned.

which makes it quite hard to use them to kill people


The govt. is proposing to lock up people for up to 10 years for
killing people with a car.


--
martin

Xref: kermit uk.environment.conservation:42927 uk.rec.birdwatching:67353 uk.rec.gardening:144780 uk.rec.natural-history:14639 uk.business.agricultu113342

In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote/quoted:

: http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...umtabsrev1.pdf
: is the actual data in the report

: Some of the key findings of the report a
:
: * UK grown non-organic strawberries contained dicofol at
: illegal levels. Dicofol is not approved for use on
: strawberries in the UK. Dicofol is similar to DDT and is a
: suspected hormone disrupter. The 3 organic strawberry
: samples were free of residues.

: The actual figures were
: Concentration range number in that range
: dicofol 0.02 (i.e. not found) 59
: (MRL = 2*) 0.08 1
: (MRL = 0.02*) 0.2, 0.2 2

: as for the three organic strawberry samples being free of residues, I would
: love to discover how they found this out because no where in the data
: summary is the term organic used other than as in 'organic bromide' or
: 'inorganic bromide'

"Three of the samples tested were labelled as organic and did not contain
any residues."

- http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...rep-01rev1.pdf

[on page 22]

: indeed doing a search through the entire document similar claims seem to
: have been made with no actual reference to the data provided in the report

You've just demonstrated that your searching skills are not very good.

Can you be specific about what you think is not supported by the data?
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: Jim Webster wrote - or quoted:

: : : :: 1) There is no direct health cost, due to the approvals
testing.
: : : :
: : : :So you claim - yet pesticides kill thousands anually.

: :
: : Most pesticide deaths are likely to be lingering ones - rather than
: : straight poisonings. The cancer deaths are not likely to show up in
: : studies like this one.
:
: : most pesticide deaths are suicides or accidents where children have
: drunk
: : out of the wrong bottle.
:

: That has not been established - since the frequency of other
: pesticide-caused deaths has probably not been so well documented.

: wrong again, it is very well documented in the website whose address you
: posted

No it isn't.

The overall frequency of pesticide related deaths is not known.

For one thing not all the mechanisms of poisoning are yet known.

just read the web page you posted a link to

: http://www.sums.ac.ir/IJMS/9934/abdollahi9934.html

Jim Webster

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote/quoted:

:
http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...sumtabsrev1.pd
f
: is the actual data in the report

: Some of the key findings of the report a
:
: * UK grown non-organic strawberries contained dicofol at
: illegal levels. Dicofol is not approved for use on
: strawberries in the UK. Dicofol is similar to DDT and is a
: suspected hormone disrupter. The 3 organic strawberry
: samples were free of residues.

: The actual figures were
: Concentration range number in that range
: dicofol 0.02 (i.e. not found) 59
: (MRL = 2*) 0.08 1
: (MRL = 0.02*) 0.2, 0.2 2

: as for the three organic strawberry samples being free of residues, I
would
: love to discover how they found this out because no where in the data
: summary is the term organic used other than as in 'organic bromide' or
: 'inorganic bromide'

"Three of the samples tested were labelled as organic and did not contain
any residues."

-
http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...rep-01rev1.pdf

[on page 22]

: indeed doing a search through the entire document similar claims seem to
: have been made with no actual reference to the data provided in the
report

You've just demonstrated that your searching skills are not very good.

no, it was a different document.

Let us however look at the document you quoted
22
Strawberries EU (Table 11)
Introduction
This survey was carried out as part of the co-ordinated EU programme. UK
strawberries are available mainly between April to October, but imported
varieties are available all year round from various countries, although the
majority of the imported strawberries available in the UK are of Spanish
origin.
This is an annual survey and this report gives the results for the whole
year.
A number of recently approved pesticides for use on strawberries, such as
fungicides from the strobilurin group, e.g. trifloxystrobin, have been
sought for
the first time.
Results 2001
A total of 179 samples of strawberries were tested for 42 pesticide residues
in
various combinations or suites (see footnote to Table 13). Half of the
samples
were UK origin and half were imported. Residues were found in 115 (64%)
samples. There were 4 MRL exceedances and 2 'technical' UK non-approved
uses. The MRL exceedances were as follows: dicofol (MRL 0.02 mg/kg2) was
found at 0.2 mg/kg in 2 UK samples; kresoxim-methyl (MRL 0.05 mg/kg3) was
found at 0.09 mg/kg in a UK sample; penconazole (CAC MRL 0.1 m/kg) was
found in a sample from Israel at 0.2 mg/kg. The 2 UK dicofol MRL
exceedances were also 'technical' non-approved uses because the approval
for dicofol expired at the end of June, and the samples were purchased after
this date and were found to contain residues of dicofol. However, it is
likely
that at the time the dicofol was applied to the strawberries it would have
been
approved for use. In addition, a number of residues were found with no
MRLs: bupirimate found at 0.02 - 0.8 mg/kg; fenhexamid found at 0.05 -
4.3 mg/kg; pyrimethanil found at 0.02 - 0.9 mg/kg; cyprodinil found at
0.02 -
0.1 mg/kg; trifloxystrobin found at 0.06 mg/kg. Risk assessments (see the
section on 'Dietary intake implications' for full details) have shown that
none of
the residues were of concern for consumer health. Seventy-eight (44%)
samples were found to contain up to 6 multiple residues. Three of the
samples tested were labelled as organic and did not contain any residues.
2 A new EC MRL of 0.02 mg/kg for dicofol was implemented on 1 July 2001.
3 An EC MRL of 0.05 mg/kg for kresoxim-methyl was implemented on 15 April
2001. No
previous MRL.
Chlorothalonil was removed from this survey due to difficulties likely to
have
arisen as a result of processing at ambient temperature.
Previous survey results
Results 1999
In the survey of strawberries carried out in 1999, residues were detected in
36 (80%) of the 45 samples tested. Nineteen (42%) had multiple residues;
one UK sample contained 5 individual pesticide residues. There were no
MRL exceedances. The residues found most frequently were bupirimate,
iprodione and pyrimethanil. This survey was the first time pyrimethanil was
sought in strawberries. In addition residues of vinclozolin (indicating
mis-use)
were found in 1 sample of UK origin below the EU MRL of 5 mg/kg.
Conclusion
The latest survey shows that residues were found in 64% of samples tested.
There were 4 MRL exceedances and 2 technical non-approved uses. These
results suggest a slight improvement on the occurrence of residues in the
samples tested, however, there appears to have been an increase in MRL
exceedances. However, none of the residues found were of concern for
consumer health.


Please Note, In the document you quoted it specifically says NONE OF THE
RESIDUES FOUND WERE OF CONCERN FOR CONSUMER HEALTH

As for organic passing or failing, in many commodities they didn't even test
organic, and 3 samples (as opposed to fifty or sixty conventional, seems to
be the limit.
Note also

Celery (Table 4)
Introduction
Celery has been sampled regularly as part of the rolling programme, mainly
due to concerns over MRL exceedances in imported sources, in particular of
Spanish origin (the main source of imported celery). Previous surveys have
also highlighted problems with residues in organic produce.

Jim Webster

"Hämisch Macbeth" wrote in message
...

"Oz" wrote in message
...
Remember france, for many years, exported three times the amount of
organic wheat than it produced. The fraud was caught, but it took years
and was exceptionally obvious.


What is the problem with that?
The consumer was happy that they were eating organic wheat and the
producer was getting a premium.

If you pay extra for something which is imposible to verify you deserve
to
be fleeced.


It's actually quite likely that falsely labelled organic produce has a
worthwhile placebo effect - it's a shame it was stopped as it probably had
a beneficial health effect for those who are prone to worry that the sky is
falling in.

Michael Saunby

Tim Tyler writes

Jim:
: wrong again, it is very well documented in the website whose address you
: posted

No it isn't.

The overall frequency of pesticide related deaths is not known.

What you mean is that there may be, or may not be, more than stated.
In short, you don't know, and nor does anybody else because it's
supposition.

What can be said is that there is no evidence of it, and the work done
on safety margins strongly suggests there are none.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes

:It does seem likely that these statistics are unlikely to cover many of
:the slower deaths from pesticide exposure.

: What slower deaths?
: Give me a government website giving these consumer deaths.

Ones from pancreatic cancer - for example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

....or liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

:Accidents. If the toxic chemical had not been around in the first
:place they would never have happened. In such cases it's harder
:to avoid pointing the finger at the pesticides making the environment
:a more dangerous place by their presence.

: So ban knives, cars and alarm clocks first.
: Rather than something that is completely safe when used as directed.

Whoa - I don't want pesticides banned.

[snip material about detecting fungal growth]

:::However, if they wind up on the produce, consumers should expect to
:::see them on the label.
::
::: No need, current use of pesticides leaves minute, usually undetectable,
::: residues which are perfectly safe.
::
::Levels of safety of most pesticides are not known.
:
:: ********.
:
:It's true. Science doesn't offer certainty - and there are a very
:large number of ways in which human health can be adversely affectd -
:it's impossible to test them all - and testing is usually the only
:way to be at all sure.

: Certainty is NOT the same as 'the levels of safety are well known'.
: Nobody can ever be certain about anything, so it's a moronic thing to
: say.

I'm merely pointing out that the safely of pesticides remains
open to doubt.

Government regulators have demonstrably been wrong before on the
subject - with unpleasant consequences.

:Of course there are ethical problems associated with testing
:pesticides on humans. This makes things even harder - often
:the very tests that are most needed can't legally be performed.

: They aren't needed. [...]

Not if you simply put your trust in the government regulators
as guardians of the truth, no.

They have a lot of pesticides to examine - and don't have
unbounded resources.

I expect to see more mistakes - though perhaps not quite on the
grand scale of previous screw-ups.

:: I quoted some of the info. ALL approved pesticides have a
:: full toxicology, far far more detailed than pharmaceuticals or
:: materials you find in the home (plastics and detergents for example).
:
:: And that is despite the fact that your consumption of residual pesticide
:: remnants and residues is at worst in microscopic quantities.
:
:Plastics tend to be inert.

: Take a look at pthalates used in plastic manufacture.
: Take a look at the carcinogenic properties of benzene (in your fuel
: tank).

Which is why I said "tend to be" rather than "are".

:Detergents are often poisonous.

: Yet you wash your veg for ten minutes in them.

Uh - how do you know how I treat my vegetables!?!

I never put my vegetables anywhere near detergents.

:I can easily believe more effort is put into testing pesticides
:than detergents - but that hardly means that they are safe.

: It does, because they must pass ALL the tests to be approved.

You presume an exhaustive set of tests. A false presumption.

::Scientific investigations have difficulty showing things are
::safe in long-lived organisms like us. Lifetime trials are
::frequently required - probably across multiple generations -
::before you can claim something is safe with much in the way
::of certainty. Such trials have not been performed in humans.
:
:: They have been performed in a range of mammals and appropriate safety
:: levels set. If you followed your dictum then we should not be using any
:: modern plastics, paints and other things found in life. Indeed many of
:: them have been shown to be toxic, yet they are still used because people
:: want their utility.
:
:I don't mind other people eating pesticides - if they choose to.

: Remember antibiotics are a pesticide, too.

Of sorts.

: One little pill probably contains more than a lifetimes exposure to
: pesticide residues.

On what scale?

:Basically what I want is more ability to control my own level
:of pesticide consumption - so I can down-regluate it in areas
:I am concerned about.

: Then don't buy organic. [...]

You seem to have "a thing" about organic produce.

It seems to be contrary to the evidence suggesting pesticide residues
are lower on organic produce.

:Doing that today would restrict the diversity of foods available
:in my diet.

: Tough. Grow your own food.

Yes, I do. I just have not yet managed to grow *all* my own food.

:: Labs are not particularly 'low disease', no high accumulation
:: of animals ever is.
:
:Yes they are. Disease is often a function of the environment.

: Quite, and packing lots of animals together tends to a high disease
: challenge.

For some diseases - whereas very many other infectious diseases are
completely absent, since their germ line was not present in the
founders - and there's no outside contact.

:Lab animals are in a highly artificial environment - and face
:different challenges. For example normally there are no predators.

: Predators are not diseases.
: Few farm livestock have predators either.
: No difference there.

We are not talking about farm animals.

We are talking about pesticide trials on animals - and whether they
are an adequate model for humans.

Humans certainly *are* hunted on occasion - mainly by other humans.

::I don't regard today's level of testing pesticides to provide
::much more than minimal protection.
:
:: Then you are an idiot or quite ignorant about it.
:
:I mean that it's minimal compared to what it could be - not that
:it doesn't protect people from pesticides at all.

: At 50M quid a hit, more than has been spent on plant toxin research
: since the dawn of time, it's most certainly not minimal but (in the view
: of manufacturers) excessive overkill.

:In other words the safely level could usefully be many times higher -

: How?

In most cases by using less.

:and the risk could be made many times lower.

: How do you know?

It stands to reason that we are not yet on the pinaccle of pesticide
safety. We are still in the biotech dark ages - there's very much we
don't know - and ignorance is dangerous.

: We are using the safest products ever found right now.

I don't doubt that - and safety will hopefully continue to improve.

::: Obviously you couldn't use the same safety spec as for pesticides as
::: you would have few, probably no, allowed food plants.
::
::I think you'll find eating no food at all kills you fairly rapidly.
:
:: Yes but:
:
:: 1) I could select less toxic plant foods.
:: 2) I could use low toxicity cultivars.
:
:Well only up to a point - eventually you will run out of less-toxic
:foods to switch to.

: Indeed, but you could influence it.

I do try to do that. I also try to have a very diverse diet -
in an attempt to prevent too much of any one thing causing harm.

: Of course the big problem, and why no significant work has been done, is
: that everyone expects plant toxins to be so dangerous that all vegetable
: foods would have to be banned for safety reasons. Nobody wants to go
: down that route.

Frankly, I can't see it as a likely scenario.

:: Noting the strong relationship between plant toxins and pest resistance
:: (it's why the toxins are there in the first place) it would almost
:: certainly be safer to use plants bred for low toxin production and use
:: the much safer pesticides to control the pests.
:
:You seem heavily in favour of spending pesticide research dollars
:on eliminating natural food toxins - perhaps by breeding.

: Hardly. We would need more and much better pesticides to keep pests off
: the very highly disease susceptible plants that would result.

:/Eventually/ I would rather have safe man-made toxins to deter
:predators than poisonous natural ones. However - currently -
:many of the natural toxins have their upsides - often in the
:form of cancer prevention.

: Claims rarely (if ever) supported by solid evidence.

I don't agree. There is pretty extensive evidence for the anti-cancer
activity of many plants - IMO.

:E.g.:
:
:L-Canavanine
:A Potential Chemotherapeutic Agent for Human Pancreatic Cancer
:http://www.szp.swets.nl/szp/journals/pb363194.htm
:
:Resveratrol - which belongs to a group of compounds known as stilbenes,
:which are spontaneously synthesized on the surface of grapes as an immune
:response to attack by fungal diseases - and improves heart health;
:
:Glycosides:
:http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/.../glucosin.html
:
:...and Phytoestrogens:
:http://www.herbalchem.net/Introductory.htm
:
:I'm not sure it would be a good idea to breed such "toxic"
:agents out of food - since one of the things they are good at
:killing is human cancers.

: They may also *cause* human cancers, cell killers often do.

Very probably - most things give you some sorts of cancer and
suppress others - but the net result is that the overall incidence
of cancer mortality falls - for a good many green vegetables,
anyway.

:The natural toxins have been around longer,
:our bodies have had a chance to get used to them -
:and there has been more opportunity for study.

: 1) So what if they have been around longer. Think strychnine.
: 2) Our bodies didn't evolve to consume a small range of food plants.
: Take out the brassicae and solanum groups and there isn't much left.
: 3) There has been virtually NIL study on plant toxins.

: So wrong on all three counts.

We know a fair bit indirectly about plant toxins from the study of
human nutrition. It may not have been medicine's most explored area - but
to say we know "virtually NIL" on the subject seems like an overstatement
to me.

::Eating fruit and vegetables is important to good health.
:
:: Eating healthy meat and veg is, and pesticides help enormously here.
:: Not only that, but the abundance of food available today is DIRECTLY
:: the result of the introduction of safe effective pesticides.
:
:...amongst many other modern farming techniques - including the
:use of machinery -

: Irrelevant. It does nothing more than could be and was done by hand
: (better).

You're mistaken there...

:and things like a global market in seeds and produce.

: That's always been there (not that it has any relevance to your
: submission).

....and there.

:I suspect that eventually mechanical barriers to pests will eventually
:make many of today's pesticides redundant.

: Dream on, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Rather obviously, I'm talking about growing a greater proportion of
things "under glass" - or in controlled environments.

You may have noticed that there's been something of a trend in that
direction over the last hundred years.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

Jim Webster writes

Results 2001
A total of 179 samples of strawberries were tested for 42 pesticide residues
in
various combinations or suites (see footnote to Table 13). Half of the
samples
were UK origin and half were imported. Residues were found in 115 (64%)
samples.

Remember residues means it was detected, the actual levels may well (and
probably were) far below the MRL.

Given 179 samples:

The MRL exceedances were as follows: dicofol (MRL 0.02 mg/kg2) was
found at 0.2 mg/kg in 2 UK samples;

1.1%

kresoxim-methyl (MRL 0.05 mg/kg3) was
found at 0.09 mg/kg in a UK sample;

0.6%

penconazole (CAC MRL 0.1 m/kg) was
found in a sample from Israel at 0.2 mg/kg.

0.6%

These are pretty low occurrences, still well below the ADI.

In addition, a number of residues were found with no
MRLs: bupirimate found at 0.02 - 0.8 mg/kg; fenhexamid found at 0.05 -
4.3 mg/kg; pyrimethanil found at 0.02 - 0.9 mg/kg; cyprodinil found at
0.02 -
0.1 mg/kg; trifloxystrobin found at 0.06 mg/kg. Risk assessments (see the
section on 'Dietary intake implications' for full details) have shown that
none of
the residues were of concern for consumer health.

No cause for concern.

Seventy-eight (44%)
samples were found to contain up to 6 multiple residues. Three of the
samples tested were labelled as organic and did not contain any residues.

1.7% of samples tested were organic.

Please Note, In the document you quoted it specifically says NONE OF THE
RESIDUES FOUND WERE OF CONCERN FOR CONSUMER HEALTH

Hardly surprising given the sensitivity of modern analytical techniques.

Celery (Table 4)
Introduction
Celery has been sampled regularly as part of the rolling programme, mainly
due to concerns over MRL exceedances in imported sources, in particular of
Spanish origin (the main source of imported celery).


Previous surveys have
also highlighted problems with residues in organic produce.

Quite.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote/quoted:

: : http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...umtabsrev1.pdf
: : is the actual data in the report
:
: : Some of the key findings of the report a
: :
: : * UK grown non-organic strawberries contained dicofol at
: : illegal levels. Dicofol is not approved for use on
: : strawberries in the UK. Dicofol is similar to DDT and is a
: : suspected hormone disrupter. The 3 organic strawberry
: : samples were free of residues.

[...]

: : as for the three organic strawberry samples being free of residues, I
: : would love to discover how they found this out because no where in
: : the data summary is the term organic used other than as in 'organic
: : bromide' or 'inorganic bromide'
:
: "Three of the samples tested were labelled as organic and did not contain
: any residues."
:
: - http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...rep-01rev1.pdf
:
: [on page 22]
:
: : indeed doing a search through the entire document similar claims seem to
: : have been made with no actual reference to the data provided in the
: : report
:
: You've just demonstrated that your searching skills are not very good.
:
: no, it was a different document.

Exactly - rather than look in the report cited you chose to only examine
some tables from it.

The full report contained the information you claimed was missing.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes

:It does seem likely that these statistics are unlikely to cover many of
:the slower deaths from pesticide exposure.

: What slower deaths?
: Give me a government website giving these consumer deaths.

Ones from pancreatic cancer - for example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...ed&list_uids=1
2594778&dopt=Abstract

sigh Pancreatic cancer mortality and organochlorine pesticide
exposure in California, 1989- 1996.


...or liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...ed&list_uids=1
0620518&dopt=Abstract

sigh Cancer mortality and environmental exposure to DDE in the United
States.

These are OC's banned in the early 70's you prat.

:It's true. Science doesn't offer certainty - and there are a very
:large number of ways in which human health can be adversely affectd -
:it's impossible to test them all - and testing is usually the only
:way to be at all sure.

: Certainty is NOT the same as 'the levels of safety are well known'.
: Nobody can ever be certain about anything, so it's a moronic thing to
: say.

I'm merely pointing out that the safely of pesticides remains
open to doubt.

Idiot, everything remains open to doubt, that proves nothing.
Now you really are clutching at straws.

Government regulators have demonstrably been wrong before on the
subject - with unpleasant consequences.

Indeed, but on pesticides in the last 10 years?

:Of course there are ethical problems associated with testing
:pesticides on humans. This makes things even harder - often
:the very tests that are most needed can't legally be performed.

: They aren't needed. [...]

Not if you simply put your trust in the government regulators
as guardians of the truth, no.

Excessively paranoid is how the chemical manufacturers describe them.
Usually products are approved for years before they get approved here as
a result.

They have a lot of pesticides to examine - and don't have
unbounded resources.

They do have unbounded resources, the chemical companies pay for it all.

I expect to see more mistakes - though perhaps not quite on the
grand scale of previous screw-ups.

Scale is important. Minor 'mistakes' in the usual refinement of
knowledge are to be expected. However I do not expect these to harm
consumers, the animal testing and the very large safety margins should
see to that.

:: I quoted some of the info. ALL approved pesticides have a
:: full toxicology, far far more detailed than pharmaceuticals or
:: materials you find in the home (plastics and detergents for example).
:
:: And that is despite the fact that your consumption of residual pesticide
:: remnants and residues is at worst in microscopic quantities.
:
:Plastics tend to be inert.

: Take a look at pthalates used in plastic manufacture.
: Take a look at the carcinogenic properties of benzene (in your fuel
: tank).

Which is why I said "tend to be" rather than "are".

Quite. Potential hazards found via pesticide research because there was
NO adequate testing of the plastic products.

:Detergents are often poisonous.

: Yet you wash your veg for ten minutes in them.

Uh - how do you know how I treat my vegetables!?!

I never put my vegetables anywhere near detergents.

Ah, so the URL suggesting you should was to mislead others.
Right.

:I can easily believe more effort is put into testing pesticides
:than detergents - but that hardly means that they are safe.

: It does, because they must pass ALL the tests to be approved.

You presume an exhaustive set of tests. A false presumption.

It's as exhaustive as can reasonably be done.
Much more exhaustive than is needed.
Covers the arses of the pesticide directorate.

:: They have been performed in a range of mammals and appropriate safety
:: levels set. If you followed your dictum then we should not be using any
:: modern plastics, paints and other things found in life. Indeed many of
:: them have been shown to be toxic, yet they are still used because people
:: want their utility.
:
:I don't mind other people eating pesticides - if they choose to.

: Remember antibiotics are a pesticide, too.

Of sorts.

Nope, they are.

: One little pill probably contains more than a lifetimes exposure to
: pesticide residues.

On what scale?

Take your pick, total active or therapeutic dose.

:Basically what I want is more ability to control my own level
:of pesticide consumption - so I can down-regluate it in areas
:I am concerned about.

: Then don't buy organic. [...]

You seem to have "a thing" about organic produce.

It seems to be contrary to the evidence suggesting pesticide residues
are lower on organic produce.

It's very rarely tested, and rarely for organic pesticides.

:Doing that today would restrict the diversity of foods available
:in my diet.

: Tough. Grow your own food.

Yes, I do. I just have not yet managed to grow *all* my own food.

Eat a smaller range or change your diet or get a bigger plot.

We are talking about pesticide trials on animals - and whether they
are an adequate model for humans.

It's the best you can have other than testing on humans.
This has been done on occasion, actually.
No interesting differences showed up.

: At 50M quid a hit, more than has been spent on plant toxin research
: since the dawn of time, it's most certainly not minimal but (in the view
: of manufacturers) excessive overkill.

:In other words the safely level could usefully be many times higher -

: How?

In most cases by using less.

Most farmers do use less wherever possible.
But you have to use enough.
This recent weather has made me increase my triazole level from the
normal 50% to 75%, and if it doesn't improve, 100%.

:and the risk could be made many times lower.

: How do you know?

It stands to reason that we are not yet on the pinaccle of pesticide
safety.

We may or may not be. I would hope for improvements, but many agchem
companies are cutting down on research due to the very high cost of
approvals.

We are still in the biotech dark ages - there's very much we
don't know - and ignorance is dangerous.

Biotech? You approve of GM cultivars?
I am amazed.
But yes, they could well help.

:: 1) I could select less toxic plant foods.
:: 2) I could use low toxicity cultivars.
:
:Well only up to a point - eventually you will run out of less-toxic
:foods to switch to.

: Indeed, but you could influence it.

I do try to do that. I also try to have a very diverse diet -
in an attempt to prevent too much of any one thing causing harm.

What crops are you growing this year, and what percentage of your total
food intake (calories) do home grown crops amount to?


: Of course the big problem, and why no significant work has been done, is
: that everyone expects plant toxins to be so dangerous that all vegetable
: foods would have to be banned for safety reasons. Nobody wants to go
: down that route.

Frankly, I can't see it as a likely scenario.

Indeed, but then you have a problem with high resistance varieties
(lotsa toxins) or more pesticide use (safer, lower levels of less toxic
compounds).

:: Noting the strong relationship between plant toxins and pest resistance
:: (it's why the toxins are there in the first place) it would almost
:: certainly be safer to use plants bred for low toxin production and use
:: the much safer pesticides to control the pests.

Left in case you figure out an answer.

:The natural toxins have been around longer,
:our bodies have had a chance to get used to them -
:and there has been more opportunity for study.

: 1) So what if they have been around longer. Think strychnine.
: 2) Our bodies didn't evolve to consume a small range of food plants.
: Take out the brassicae and solanum groups and there isn't much left.
: 3) There has been virtually NIL study on plant toxins.

: So wrong on all three counts.

We know a fair bit indirectly about plant toxins from the study of
human nutrition.

Actually we no sod all.

It may not have been medicine's most explored area - but
to say we know "virtually NIL" on the subject seems like an overstatement
to me.

Give me some examples of LD50, noel and content of a few food plant
toxins then.

:: Eating healthy meat and veg is, and pesticides help enormously here.
:: Not only that, but the abundance of food available today is DIRECTLY
:: the result of the introduction of safe effective pesticides.
:
:...amongst many other modern farming techniques - including the
:use of machinery -

: Irrelevant. It does nothing more than could be and was done by hand
: (better).

You're mistaken there...

Hardly, I am a farmer.

:and things like a global market in seeds and produce.

: That's always been there (not that it has any relevance to your
: submission).

...and there.

You are still wrong. Like most farmers I know a lot about seed
development and production.

:I suspect that eventually mechanical barriers to pests will eventually
:make many of today's pesticides redundant.

: Dream on, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Rather obviously, I'm talking about growing a greater proportion of
things "under glass" - or in controlled environments.

To feed the world?

speechless at the stunning level of ignorance

You may have noticed that there's been something of a trend in that
direction over the last hundred years.

Not in the UK, it's almost zero now other than for cut flowers.
Far too expensive.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

Tim Tyler writes

Exactly - rather than look in the report cited you chose to only examine
some tables from it.

The full report contained the information you claimed was missing.

And showed you were misleading people. (again)

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

If you pay extra for something which is imposible to verify you
deserve
to
be fleeced.


It's actually quite likely that falsely labelled organic produce has a
worthwhile placebo effect - it's a shame it was stopped as it probably had
a beneficial health effect for those who are prone to worry that the sky
is
falling in.

Michael Saunby


it is an interesting point. I think that anyone with hands on food
experience knows that organic can taste better than some conventional. When
our house cow is dry we end up buying organic milk. This was because it was
the only milk we could buy that was not pasteurised, homogenised and
standardised. I came to the conclusion that these three processes render
milk virtually undrinkable. The organic we found was at least only
pasteurised so was merely disappointing as opposed to actively unpleasant.
The same could be said for meat. Because of the cost of organic grain, most
organic beef will be grass finished. Personally I am a great believer in
grass-finished beef because the flavour is so much stronger and superior to
grain finished (although the latter may well be more succulent.).
Our own milk which is not pasteurised, homogenised or standardised is better
than organic, our own beef, grass finished, is on a par with organic. In
these cases it is not that organic has any intrinsic advantages, it just
uses certain procedures that are known to give better flavour (or in the
case of milk, doesn't use certain procedures beloved of the supermarkets
that extend shelf life but ruin the flavour.)
As for any health benefit, it has been known for a long time that if you cut
stress you tend to feel better and your health will probably pick up. If you
are worried about various residues, then eating organic, even if
contaminated with the same residues, will probably reduce your stress level
and you will probably be healthier.
Because the levels that come through on conventional products are so low, it
almost certainly doesn't matter, from a health point of view, whether it is
being switched for organic or not. It is more a trading standards issue
rather than a public health issue. Something along the lines of buying knock
off designer label stuff in a street market.
Organic, if left to the producers, as opposed to the cliques who seem to
rise to the top of the certifying bodies, will almost certainly be produced
with rather more thought to flavour than to supermarket specifications which
are more about visual appeal. Indeed it will be interesting to see if the
flavour of organic produce degrades as the supermarkets start stocking more
of it, and start insisting on long shelf lives and visual appeal.

Jim Webster

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster
wrote/quoted:

: :
http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...sumtabsrev1.pd
f
: : is the actual data in the report
:
: : Some of the key findings of the report a
: :
: : * UK grown non-organic strawberries contained dicofol at
: : illegal levels. Dicofol is not approved for use on
: : strawberries in the UK. Dicofol is similar to DDT and is a
: : suspected hormone disrupter. The 3 organic strawberry
: : samples were free of residues.

[...]

: : as for the three organic strawberry samples being free of residues, I
: : would love to discover how they found this out because no where in
: : the data summary is the term organic used other than as in 'organic
: : bromide' or 'inorganic bromide'
:
: "Three of the samples tested were labelled as organic and did not
contain
: any residues."
:
: -
http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/committ...rep-01rev1.pdf
:
: [on page 22]
:
: : indeed doing a search through the entire document similar claims seem
to
: : have been made with no actual reference to the data provided in the
: : report
:
: You've just demonstrated that your searching skills are not very good.
:
: no, it was a different document.

Exactly - rather than look in the report cited you chose to only examine
some tables from it.
Lucky you pointed the other one out to me, after all I would have missed the
phrase

.. However, none of the residues found were of concern for
consumer health

The full report contained the information you claimed was missing.


you seem to have overlooked something

would you care to comment in detail on the report, I reproduce a section for
you

Results 1999
In the survey of strawberries carried out in 1999, residues were detected in
36 (80%) of the 45 samples tested. Nineteen (42%) had multiple residues;
one UK sample contained 5 individual pesticide residues. There were no
MRL exceedances. The residues found most frequently were bupirimate,
iprodione and pyrimethanil. This survey was the first time pyrimethanil was
sought in strawberries. In addition residues of vinclozolin (indicating
mis-use)
were found in 1 sample of UK origin below the EU MRL of 5 mg/kg.
Conclusion
The latest survey shows that residues were found in 64% of samples tested.
There were 4 MRL exceedances and 2 technical non-approved uses. These
results suggest a slight improvement on the occurrence of residues in the
samples tested, however, there appears to have been an increase in MRL
exceedances. However, none of the residues found were of concern for
consumer health.


Please Note, In the document you quoted it specifically says NONE OF THE
RESIDUES FOUND WERE OF CONCERN FOR CONSUMER HEALTH
Jim Webster