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Where do we stand as a nation relative to chemical residues in our food? How safe is our food supply? What do we know about the pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics, hormones, and taste enhancers added to most of the foods we buy at our supermarkets? Are these substances toxic and therefore dangerous? Is there any scientific evidence to suggest that we should avoid these chemicals when possible? Is it true that toxic overload from these food chemicals and other environmental sources may be a significant cause of autoimmune disease? Should those of us with immune system illnesses be any more concerned than the general healthy poublic about eating foods containing these chemical residues?
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A wide variety of synthetic chemicals possessing pesticidal action have been used in agriculture in this country since the early 1940s. The major families of these chemicals include chlorinated hydrocarbons (or organochlorines), organophosphorous pesticides, carbamates, and a newer class known as the pyrethoids. The residues that researchers most often are finding today in our food, in decreasing order, are those of organochlorines, organophosphates, and carbamate pesticides. Other less commonly encountered pesticide residues include fungicides, herbicides, and fumigants.
In the United States, our scientific and medical communities have been slow to respond to the potential of these chemicals for causing illness. More germane to those of us with lupus, concern about the health implications of widespread pesticide use and its suspected role in autoimmune disease is just beginning to appear in the scientific literature. Attempting to remain outside the politics of this complex issue, my personal search through the literature on agricultural chemicals has led me to disturbing information that is particularly relevant for lupus patients.
Besides the many studies suggesting that these agricultural chemicals are toxic and potentially cancer causing, there are also studies questioning whether they actually can disrupt the immune system. Indeed, some of these studies indicate that food chemicals may affect the very cellular structure of the immune system. In the international publication Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, the authors of an article published in 1996 on the use of pesticides state:
Because of the wide use of pesticides for domestic and industrial purposes, the evaluation of their immunotoxic effects is of major concern for public health. The association between autoimmune diseases and pesticide exposure has been suggested. A potential risk for the immune system should [be considered], especially . . . in compromised patients [such as] children and the elderly. Epidemiological studies of diseases related to immunosuppression or autoimmunity - lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis - are warranted.
Certainly the chronically ill are as vulnerable as children and our aged population.
Many of us are aware that residues of these agricultural chemicals are present virtually everywhere on our planet today - in our oceans, lakes, soil, and water supplies, and even at the north and south poles, far from where they are used. They are damaging the wildlife in places as diverse as Florida, the rivers of England, the Baltic, the Arctic, the Great Lakes, and Lake Baikal in Siberia. The damage to wildlife as well as lab animals has served as a warning about symptoms that are on the rise in the human population.
These chemical residues are evident nearly everywhere in our food chain. Organochlorine residues are found in two main food classes: dairy products and meat, fish, and poultry. The remaining organochlorine residues are distributed among the other food classes; garden fruits and leafy vegetables contain half of them. The organophosphates are detected mainly in dairy products and potatoes. Many experts agree that toxic chemical overload, derived from residues in food sources and the broader environment, is a substantial threat to health and well-being in our world. My most burning personal question has been whether there is any evidence that these chemicals can cause autoimmune disease? Although SLE is not acknowledged by the medical community to be caused by environmental contamination, two news reports about unusually large numbers of lupus cases in two geographic areas suggest that there could be a link between environmental contamination and autoimmune disease.
The first of these reports concerns a mysterious cluster of lupus cases that developed in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, in 1994. Newspaper journalists discovered a ranch on the Mexican side of the border that had been dumping pesticides into streams and burning manure contaminated with pesticides. The ranch owners claimed that they could not afford to build a proper disposal system for the chemicals. Health department officials in New Mexico were examining the situation to try to determine whether toxic chemicals were a causative factor behind the lupus cases in that episode. They were unable to prove conclusively that the environmental toxins were causing lupus.
A more recent perplexing cluster of cases of lupus and scleroderma (another autoimmune disease) has been documented in South Boston. State Senator Stephen F. Lynch has asked the state government to investigate in the wake of the 1997 death of his cousin from South Boston. When Lynch began talking with people in the area, he suspected that there were an abnormal number of cases of these two illnesses in the neighborhood. "There seems to be something going on here," he said. "I'm not sure if it's environmental [but] it seems to cross ethnic lines." State officials have confirmed the unusually high number of these two autoimmune illnesses and are conducting a study to try to determine the cause. Lynch said there has been much speculation about possible environmental sources. Although it is unlikely that the health department will find conclusive evidence of environmental contamination as a cause of autoimmune disease in this instance, it seems prudent for those of us with lupus, as well as the general public, to remain alert to the possibility.
From my research, I've learned that the dangers of toxic chemicals are very real. They may make us ill and, equally alarming, also may hinder us from recovering from disease. According to Dr. Andrew Weil, these environmental toxins can damage the DNA, which contains the information needed for spontaneous healing. Without viable cellular DNA, we have little chance of ever regaining our health.
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