A critique of the World Resources Institute's report "Pesticides and the immune system: the public health risks"

Environmental Health Perspectives
J AcquavellaA Tobia

Abstract

A recent World Resources Institute (WRI) report concluded that pesticides are a likely cause of immune suppression for millions of people throughout the world. The gravity of this conclusion motivated us to review the scientific evidence cited in the report. The predominant human evidence came from cross-sectional studies conducted in the former Soviet Union. These studies were difficult to evaluate due to incomplete reporting and had obvious limitations in terms of subject selection, exposure assessment,lack of quality control, statistical analysis, adequacy of the comparison group, and confounding. The toxicologic evidence was comprised mainly of acute high-dose studies in which the exposure conditions resulted in systemic toxicity. The relevance of these studies to effects at typical human exposure levels is questionable. We did not find consistent, credible evidence to support the conclusion of widespread pesticide-related immune suppression. Nonetheless, the WRI report is an important document because it focuses attention on a potentially important issue for future research and brings a substantial literature of foreign language studies to the attention of Western scientists.

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Citations

Sep 7, 2006·Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine·Orjan Hallberg, Gerd Oberfeld
Jul 9, 2009·The Canadian Journal of Cardiology·Khalid F AlHabibWaqar Habib Ahmed
May 13, 2004·Toxicology·Sameeh A Mansour
Mar 17, 2007·Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. Part a·Karen M SemchukDonald G Irvine
Apr 5, 2017·Environmental Science and Pollution Research International·Nagah M HassaninRanya A Amer
Apr 1, 2016·Global Change Biology·Bärbel TiemeyerJutta Zeitz
Jul 17, 1999·Environmental Health Perspectives·R Repetto, S Baliga

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