They find the presence of pesticides in children in rural areas of Talca: one of these is prohibited for 18 years ago
At 18 years after the pesticide known as Paration - used in agriculture and considered highly toxic - was banned in Chile, an investigation by the Catholic University of Maule (UCM) showed that the chemical is still used, after its components were detected when performing urine tests on minors in rural areas of Talca and San Clemente.
Its use in fruit and vegetable crops was banned that same year in the United States, while in Spain it is from 1979, because it can have carcinogenic and neurotoxic effects.
The investigation monitored the organophosphorus pesticide metabolites - artificial products applied to control insect pest populations - present in the urine of smaller 48, whose samples were analyzed in the United States and yielded average levels of 1,8 micrograms of the chemical per liter urine.
María Teresa Muñoz, academic in charge of the research that has been carried out three years ago, added that "these communities are highly exposed to pesticides, not only because they live near agricultural land, but also because their parents work in the agricultural world and bring their they work with pesticides that they use inside the home, which is dangerous because they are not for domestic use.”
He explained that two measurements have been made and an intervention focused on increasing the perception of risk and enhancing self-care behaviors against exposure to pesticides in the rural areas studied.
“We also found other pesticides that we suspected would appear, such as Chlorpyrifos, Diazinon and others that are not organophosphates, such as Pyrethroids and Herbicide 2,4-D. The latter is also worrying, since it has effects at the reproductive level, ”he said.
The director(s) of the Agricultural and Livestock Service in the Maule Region, Ana Cabrera, added that "the parathion-based pesticide is an organophosphate-type insecticide, prohibited in Chile in all its formulations (ethyl and methyl) as of the year 2000, due to its high toxicity and the employment conditions of the time, which made it very dangerous for health”.
According to Cabrera, in its inspections in the region, the SAG has not detected the illegal sale or distribution of pesticides. “Inspectors carry out inspections of direct sales sites and distributors of these inputs, where samples of the products that are marketed are taken to verify their composition and that they correspond to authorized products,” he commented.
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