Pesticides are personal
Scott Pruitt, Director of the EPA, has signed an order denying a request to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that has been linked to nervous system damage in children. Despite the fact that the EPA itself recommended that it be banned. To me, this is a highly personal issue.
Three months after our wedding, my husband and I learned that we would not be able to have children without medical intervention. With a severely low sperm count (400K per ejaculate, about 1% of normal), and poor motility (ability to swim) and terrible morphology (shape), we were out of luck, save donor sperm, adoption or medical intevention. After the immediate shock (there’s nothing quite like finding out your lineage is in question), I wanted answers. WHY? Bad habits of his 20s? Hormones out of whack? We got tests to help figure out what was going on, and narrow down probable causes: People who drink too much or do drugs often have a little bit less sperm, but not no sperm, so that wasn’t it. He had no varioceles (varicose veins in the testes that can block sperm and are easily treated with surgery); no history of mumps; no physical injury. The hormone panel revealed high follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and normal testosterone and prolactin levels. High FSH just meant that his body was struggling to produce sperm. Normal testosterone and prolactin levels meant that any hormonal or known genetic cause of azoospermia (low/no sperm count) were off the table. What we learned is that Jason’s testicles didn’t form properly — that one of them is less than half the size of normal. And testicular size matters because it indicates how many seminiferous tubules there are (where sperm get made).
I dug into research on infertility, combing textbooks for information. Process of elimination pointed to only one possibility: pesticides. And if my husband had grown up in New York City I would have dismissed this possibility immediately. But he didn’t.
My husband was born in 1975 and grew up in Castroville, CA. His father’s parents worked in what they called “The Shed,” a big warehouse where fruits and vegetables grown in the surrounding fields are processed and shipped elsewhere. The fields of Castroville grow the best artichokes, strawberries and lettuce in the country. And when his mom was pregnant with him she lived for a time in a house in the middle of the artichoke fields, drinking water that came straight from a well. In the 1970s a host of pesticides were used on the tasty flowers because artichokes are among the most difficult vegetables to keep pest-free (all those nooks and crannies for bugs to crawl into). The EPA was just getting started, and it was only a decade after Rachel Carson chronicled the damage that indiscriminate pesticide use was having on the ecosystems of places like the Monterey Bay area. Since then, research has confirmed that certain pesticides damage male reproductive organs and processes, often leading to infertility. Although many of the worst pesticides have been (or are in the process of being) banned, there are still places on earth where they are being used. In recent years, endosulfan, which is a significant endocrine disruptor, was found to cause infertility among cashew plantation workers in Indonesia, but its use continued. Here in the US we waited until 2012 for all use of endosulfan to cease. And of course there are thousands of other pesticides and chemicals like it that are still being used today.
It was 2011 when we first learned of my husband’s infertility, and at the time I believed we’d get a happy ending through the wonders of modern technology — there was no reason we couldn’t conceive by by way of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with in vitro fertilization (IVF). We went to the best clinic in our city, to the tune of about $23,000. But it failed- we got no usable embryos. And we’re still paying for it. I wish I could sue someone or something, but when I presented my theory about the pesticides to the urologist (since we have no proof, after all), he said, “yes, that could very well be the cause. But don’t plan on going all Erin Brockovich over it. Don’t forget, she lost. The chemical companies always win.”
It’s hard to explain the pain of unresolved infertility. You cry for the little people you thought you’d get to meet and love, but never will. Holidays are often the worst as the photos of delighted children opening Christmas presents or dressed up for Halloween dominate Facebook. Baby showers are painful, but you go because you want to be present for the people you love and you don’t want to be bitter or resentful. So you have a good cry and just go through it, day by day. We wanted twins. My husband already had the names picked out: Jack Owen and Josephine. I will always miss them.
The only agency that has worked to stop chemical companies from damaging humans in the US is the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1977 the EPA conducted an emergency study because male workers in Lathrop, CA were all of a sudden infertile after being exposed to dibromochloropropane, a commonly used pesticide. Use of the chemical was eventually phased out in the US, but it took decades for use to stop internationally, despite the known hazards. We need the EPA.
In 2011, when I first wrote about this, I had a lot of hope. Hope that IVF would work. Hope that my kids and yours would benefit from better science and greater awareness because we’ve mostly been screwed by how and what we consume and the powerful actions of the very wealthy few. I believed we could turn it around, partly by sharing my story, because we are safer when live and act in community; we are safer when we notice that what seems isolated and rare at the individual level has patterns and causes at the community level, and safer when we act together to make a difference. I believed there was a lot we could do about the tragedy of man-made chemicals damaging people’s lives.
But today, my hope is lost. Because today, we have an EPA run by someone who puts business interests ahead of human safety. Pruitt justified his move by arguing against the substantial evidence that chlorpyrifos is a dangerous neurotoxin, saying it just wasn’t good enough for him. Despite consensus agreement that we’d be better off being safe than sorry.
So what do we do? Well, my libertarian friends would say, “just buy organic.” And indeed, individual choice can indeed make a difference — we can choose not to purchase foods and other products with dangerous chemicals. But the reality is, buying organic is expensive. And, it doesn’t solve the ecosystem problems of chemicals leaching into our water supply. The only solution is for the EPA to stop the use of chemicals through regulations. Companies won’t do it on their own simply because they view my suffering as collateral damage in their efforts to be more productive and profitable.
I’ve encountered lots of Natural News-reading Trump supporters who claim to be pro-life, pro-family, and who were scared that Hillary Clinton was going to force vaccinate their children, and who think that all government regulatory agencies are evil. A political party that prides itself on being pro-life cannot in good conscience allow the use of pesticides that are dangerous to children and farm workers. And it pains me that they do not understand (or do not care) that government regulation gives us health. In fact, the EPA is the only agency that has ever had power to stop dangerous chemicals from continuing to harm children and the environment.
All I can say is, we must fight against Scott Pruitt’s industry-loving decisions, and must not allow budget cuts to render the EPA a relic of the past. Take it from me: our lives depend on it.
