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13 June 2006
Breast Problems From Pesticides Cross Generations 
Alarming new research suggests that exposure to pesticides crosses the generations, and daughters of mothers who lived near areas of heavy agricultural use may be unable to nurse their children. Although the research was carried out by University of Florida (UF) scientists in Mexico, many of the offending pesticides are used in the United States, potentially exposing Americans to the same risks, said UF's Elizabeth Guillette. The study, in Environmental Health Perspectives, builds on previous research that showed that pesticides can affect when puberty begins. The researchers found the connection from mother to child among Sonoran Mayan girls whose mothers were exposed to chemical spraying. These girls did not develop the ability to produce milk, unlike their counterparts who lived a more organic lifestyle. In fact, some of the girls in the agricultural valley had no mammary tissue, or a minimal amount. "The results underscore the importance of women protecting themselves from manufactured chemicals beginning at birth because they stay in the body," said Guillette. Interestingly, the two population samples used in the study live about 50 miles apart in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora's Yaqui Valley and were almost identical except for their exposure to pesticides. The two groups split philosophically over the use of pesticides during the country's Green Revolution of the early 1950s, when large-scale pesticide-based agriculture came into practice. Valley residents embraced pesticides, herbicides and other agricultural chemicals, including spraying in homes, while the other group, which moved to the foothills, avoided them entirely. "These groups were the same in every respect, culturally, genetically and socio-economically, except for their use of pesticides," Guillette explained. "They had the same diet, the same child-rearing practices and the same school system." Although the farmers in the valley and the ranchers in the foothills had cousins and other extended family members living in the other community, they never intermarried because of their strong differences over pesticides. Although breast size was much larger in the pesticide exposed girls in the valley, they had much less mammary tissue, and sometimes none at all, Guillette said. "With the foothill girls, there was a direct correlation between breast size and mammary development, whereas with the pesticide-exposed girls there was none," she added. "In fact, we saw girls who were fairly well developed with absolutely no mammary glands." The pesticides in question are mainly organophosphates and organochlorines, used extensively in the Yaqui Valley, and many of these compounds are known to cross a pregnant woman's placenta to the developing child. "Many of these pesticides are popular in the United States, both for agriculture and for home use and lawn care," Guillette said. "We know the age for breast development in girls is occurring earlier and there is the potential that pesticides may be playing a similar role in the United States." Source: University of Florida
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