Pesticides Worse For Kids

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Scientists have suspected for a while that like many substances, pesticides affect children and adults differently. It stands to reason: Kids have less mass to absorb chemicals, and their organs are still developing. But it’s hard to figure out exactly how toxins interact with children’s bodies—or how dangerous they are.

Some encouraging news: A team of U.C. Berkeley researchers  pinpointed an enzyme—called paraoxonase—that helps the body break down organophosphate pesticides. They found that until children reach age seven, they don’t have nearly as much of the enzyme as adults do:

Although it has been known that newborns have low levels of the paraoxonase enzyme, it was previously believed that paraoxonase concentrations reached adult levels by 2 years of age.

This assumption was based on one earlier study of 9 children. Now a new study of 458 children followed from birth to age 7 shows that paraoxonase levels continue to increase steadily until age 7. At age 7, the average paraoxonase level in children was similar to, but still lower than, adult levels.

The bad news: Organophosphates are cheap, and this mosquito season, an inexpensive pesticide will look awfully appealing to financially strapped cities.

 

 

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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