Physicians are familiar with organophosphates (OPs) as a classic, though obscure, cause of cholinergic poisoning. Many opportunities for human exposure existsixty million pounds of OPs are applied as insecticides to sixty million acres of U.S. land each year, and, until recently, over one-fifth of Americans used these chemicals in their homes. Most physicians, however, still know little about the dangers that these pesticides pose to the developing nervous system. By the late 1980s, toxicologists increasingly recognized that toxicants such as lead and mercury, even at doses well-below the level required to cause symptomatic poisoning, could induce subtle, yet permanent, neurological deficits if the exposure occurred during critical periods of brain development. In the early 1990s, scientists and regulators began to realize that developmental neurotoxicity (DNT), as this phenomenon was called, could also result from OPs. In 1996 Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), marking a major turning point in the regulation of hazardous chemicals. Prior to the FQPA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based its calculations of pesticide risk on adults and largely neglected the increased susceptibility of infants and children. The new law took a precautionary stance, protecting the vulnerable neural and physical development of the fetus and child with the inclusion of a 10-X safety factor, and shifting the burden of proof from health advocates to the pesticide manufacturers. The ensuing ten-year battle between health groups, pesticide manufacturers, and the EPA over the laws enforcement now provides an instructive lesson into the complex scientific, political, and economic world of environmental health, and serves as a relatively successful example of effective policy improving public health.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:YALE_med/oai:ymtdl.med.yale.edu:etd-08092007-145203 |
| Date | 04 February 2008 |
| Creators | Jackson, Brendan R. |
| Contributors | John Harley Warner |
| Publisher | Yale University |
| Source Sets | Yale Medical student MD Thesis |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://ymtdl.med.yale.edu/theses/available/etd-08092007-145203/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Yale School of Medicine or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds