dumbed-down by DOW! Ban Organophosphate nerve-agent pesticide Chlorpyrifos!

Since EPA Chief Scott Pruitt (ahem, #PolluterPruitt) rescinded the ban on Chlorpyrifos (pronounced Klor-Peer-a-foss), a steady flow of ALARM BELLS have flowed into my inbox indicating this pesticide is the most potent hazard to cognitive functions in the food supply. MAINSTREAM Environmental Groups: Environmental Working Group, Center for Science in Public Interest, Earth Justice and many more are flabbergasted and exasperated by EPA malfeasance.

Decades of data on tens of thousands of poisonings were cast aside to serve the profits of Dow Chemical. So ask yourself, can we trust Trump's bureaucrats to come thru on ROI for the 1.5 Billion Congress authorized for Brain Frontier research in the 21st Century Cures act? yahhh right! In no uncertain terms, this betrayal of farm communities and produce consumers is driving Autism & ADHD diagnosis rates.

April being Autism Awareness Month, Earth Month, and Minority health Month, I took the initiative to FINISH the most thorough article on the Chlorpyrifos saga, Intercept's piece "Poison Fruit" published Jan 17 2017. Overcoming my own ADD, it's now transferred over to my channel, like a book-on tape. I hope this helps, so instead of staring at the screen for god-knows how long, you can listen to me for 70min (while you workout, to dishes, drive etc!). Enjoy, knowledge is power!!

Need some Dirt on Dow in just a few minutes?

Here's a selection of staggering facts uncovered by Pulitzer-worthy reporter, Sharon Lerner, sure to instill your impatience for organic transitions, food safety, and farm worker justice!

"According to the EPA report, “Chlorpyrifos Revised Human Health Risk Assessment", 1- and 2-year-old children risk exposures from food alone that are 14,000 percent above the level the agency now thinks is safe."

"The 2014 CHARGE study, found that the nearby application of agricultural pesticides greatly increases the risk of autism. Women who lived less than a mile from fields where chlorpyrifos was sprayed during their second trimesters of pregnancy...had their chances of giving birth to an autistic child more than triple"

"Used on more than half of all apples and broccoli sold in the U.S., chlorpyrifos makes its way into the vast majority of American kitchens. The chemical has also been found in 15 percent of water samples taken around the country between 1991 and 2012 by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment Program."

"German chemist Gerhard Schrader first documented the effects of the chemicals on the human nervous system while trying to develop pesticides to protect food for the Nazi war effort. As Schrader noted in 1936 after he and a colleague were severely sickened by a mere drop of organophosphate that landed on a lab bench near them, people who were exposed choked, shook, vomited, and sweated. Because exposure sometimes led to seizures, comas, and death, the discovery spawned the use of organophosphates as weapons and Schrader spent much of the war producing one of these first nerve agents, Tabun, at a secret Nazi lab."

"SHORTER-TERM DANGERS of the chemical were already apparent by 1996, when the annual number of chlorpyrifos poisonings, which can cause twitching, tremors, slurred speech, and even paralysis and death, reported to Poison Control Centers in the U.S. reached 7,000. It was also becoming clear that children were particularly sensitive to the pesticide, which was available in many household products used to kill cockroaches, termites, fleas, and other bugs."

"Calwell’s discovery that Dow had withheld critical information about its chemical led to the EPA fining the company $876,000 in 1995."

"The Berkeley study, known as CHAMACOS (for the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas), was studying women and children in California’s rural farming communities...When compared to the children with the lowest prenatal exposures, the CHAMACOS kids who had been most highly exposed also tended to have lower IQs, poorer cognitive function, abnormal reflexes, and an increased risk of attention problems."

"Several scientists have attempted to estimate the cost of the “silent pandemic of neurotoxicity” that’s resulted from this and other toxic exposures. The TENDR scientists noted that chemicals, including chlorpyrifos, have already contributed to an “alarming increase in learning and behavioral problems in children.” An estimated 10 percent of American children are now diagnosed with ADHD, and one in 68 American children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, amounting to a 17 percent increase over the last decade."

"David Bellinger, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, sliced the burden another way, estimating that exposure to organophosphate pesticides, including chlorpyrifos, has collectively cost American children almost 17 million IQ points. In Europe, researchers have even tried to put a price tag on the neurodevelopmental problems caused by chlorpyrifos and other pesticides each year: 120 billion euros, or $126 billion."