By the time I remember my grandparents, they had moved off of the farm and into town. My earliest memories were of my grandmother’s house, the warm aromas of chocolate chip cookies, or the spicy scents of ginger snaps fresh and warm from the oven. In a way, grandma had brought the farm with her. Her garden took up the entire backyard. The basement was filled with colorful jars of canned pickles, golden yellow pears, or reddish beats, all of which reflected the light streaming in from the oversize window wells. I remember the fruity smell of ripe purple concord grapes, and the excitement of the pumpkin patch in autumn. There were so many heart-warming memories at grandma’s house. But there were heart-breaking memories as well.
In a different way, my grandfather had also brought the farm with him. My grandfather was once a strong farmer raising both animals and crops. The pictures I saw of him show a smiling tanned young man in the heart of youth. He appears a warm and inviting personality. In one photo he stands next to my mother holding a baby, his smile radiates enough warmth to light up the whole black and white picture. Much like my aunts and uncles, I imagine him kind and clever. But it is only through the reflection of these personality traits in his children that I have gotten glimpses of the man that I really never came to know.
By the time I was old enough to remember my grandfather, his face drooped, he sometimes drooled, and his hands were always too shaky for him to feed himself. I remember grandma standing in the kitchen at the Osterizer and blending his food into a mushy puree. At each meal she would bring a plate full of multicolored mush piles and sit down to spoon feed him. Most of the time he said nothing. The hearty farmer who had been my grandfather, and looked so inviting in the pictures, was now deep in the throws of Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s is a disease four times more likely to occur in farmers exposed to pesticides and insecticides. Certainly my grandfather worked with pesticides. On the nights I was awoken by the sounds of screaming and moaning coming from the downstairs bedroom, grandma would tell me that the doctor thought that the Parkinson’s had spread to his brain. Insecticides, which are designed to target and disrupt the nervous system of pests, have been found to have neurotoxic effects on humans as well. A recent review of research (2008) on the neurotoxicity of pesticides found that pesticides may contribute to a range of neurodegenerative disorders, most notably Parkinson’s disease. The man who screamed in the night frightened me. He did not look like the pictures I saw or the stories I had heard about the gentle farmer tending to the draft horses and the cattle.
Another study done specifically on animal farmers like my grandfather, found a significant association between occupational exposure to herbicides and insecticides and the development of Parkinson’s disease, (Neurology, 1998). Two specific insecticide classes, organochlorines and organophosphorus compounds, have been significantly associated with Parkinson’s disease. Other risks of chronic exposure to pesticides include cancers, reproductive problems, and potential birth defects.
Of my six aunts and uncles raised on the farm, three have died of complications of cancer and one uncle had developed prostate cancer, but is a survivor. More than fifty percent of my grandmother’s children have developed some type of cancer but none have developed Parkinson’s disease. Nor have any of the grandchildren developed any form of Parkinson’s disease. Research indicates that, of the one million individuals living in America with Parkinson’s disease, only about five percent have an inherited form of the disease. Other forms are linked to environmental causes like pesticides.
I would have liked to get to know my grandfather. I can not help but wonder what my grandfather would have been like had he not been a farmer? Would he have developed Parkinson’s disease? Could I and all of my cousins had the opportunity to spend time with the man with the welcoming smile in the photos?
And I wonder, why would they sell such lethal chemicals back when he was a farmer? Equally important for all of the children and grandchildren of all of the farmers is the question, ‘Why do they continue to sell such lethal chemicals?”
Next post: Organoclorines-why?
References for this article:
Laura Marsh, M.D., is a geriatric psychiatrist, an
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and
director of the Clinical Research Program of the
Johns Hopkins Morris K. Udall Parkinson’s Disease
Research Center of Excellence.
Neurotoxicity of pesticides: a brief review
Costa, LG | Giordano, G | Guizzetti, M | Vitalone, A
Frontiers in Bioscience. Vol. 13, pp. 1240-1249. 2008
Pesticide exposure and risk of Parkinson's disease:
A family-based case-control study
Dana B Hancock1 , Eden R Martin3 , Gregory M Mayhew3 , Jeffrey M Stajich1 , Rita
Jewett3 , Mark A Stacy2 , Burton L Scott2 , Jeffery M Vance3 and William K Scott3
BMC Neurology 2008, 8:6 doi:10.1186/1471-2377-8-6
Of all the arguments I've seen, heard, or spoken for organic farming, this may well be the strongest. Certainly, it's the most poignant. We can argue about the costs and benefits of organic foods to us as consumers. But if the human cost of inexpensive, convenient, foods is a four-fold increase in the likelihood of getting Parkinson's to the farmer or a link to cancers, reproductive problems, or birth defects, I'd say we might need to rethink our habits as consumers, and with that, how we produce our food. Else, can we look some farmer or their grandchild in the eyes?
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