One more report on the pile

It's something we've claimed, argued, suspected, believed, shown - and now there's just one more bit of evidence to add to the total. From the Scotsman (UK) for September 6:

Pesticides and other environmental pollution may affect unborn children – and play a role in the rising rates of childhood leukaemia, new research suggested today.

A study, unveiled at the First International Scientific conference on Childhood Leukaemia in London, indicated harmful environmental agents can cross the placenta from mother to foetus.

The study suggests the transfer could affect the immune system of the child, which could be linked to the increasing incidence of the disease.

Children in the womb are particularly sensitive to environmental agents, the scientists found, after carrying out tests on donated human placentas and pregnant guinea pigs.

This, of course, will make no difference to the naysayers. The case for the defense - that is, for the "safety" of pesticides - always rests on the same thin reed: lack of a clear connection, of a demonstrated causal factor. That is, in the absence of a proven precise mechanism by which a given pesticide can cause a given condition, it's "junk science" to blame the pollutant, no matter how strong the statistical connection - and no matter even if you show that toxins can cross the placental barrier.

While lack of precise vectors may be a valid argument in physics, it simply can't stand in epidemiology, where the incredible complexity involved - not to mention the virtual impossibility of isolating one effect from all others - makes statistical evaluations not only advisable but in fact the only way to proceed.

Just remember that the people who continue to insist on the "safety" of pesticides are the same sort of people who denied the dangers of tobacco on exactly the same logic.

Footnote: Perhaps trying to avoid being seen as partisan, the Scotsman refers to "unborn children" in the first paragraph and "foetus" in the second. But this raises a question: With the growing evidence of the risks to the fetus from environmental pollutants, when are the so-called "pro-life" fanatics going to come out swinging against the chemical industry and the conservative profit-mongers in government that enable it? Or is it that rather than being "pro-life" they are actually just "anti-woman?"