CASE REPORT - Effects of Pesticides on the Immune System

The long-term consequences of chronic pesticide exposure in the parts per billion and trillion are unknown. However, the massive increase of cancer in the farming areas in the USA suggests an adverse relationship

 

Subject:   Effects of Pesticides on the Immune System------
Date:       Tue, 29 Aug 2000 07:55:51 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read part of a CASE REPORT - Effects of Pesticides on the Immune System -by WILLIAM J. REA MD AND HSUEH-CHIA LIANG MD from the Environmental Health Center-Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA.  To read the rest, click here: <A HREF="http://www.aehf.com/articles/A51.htm">

With pesticide use and exposure, and review of pesticides altering the immune system, this article shows data from four groups of patients at the Environmental Health Centre - Dallas, and two case reports are presented. These data not only revealed pesticides in most patient populations around the world, but also 81% out of 107 patients with initial exposure had depressed levels of T and B cells. There was a significantly greater frequency of several abnormal immune parameters in 40 proven chemically sensitive patients with more than two organochlorine pesticides than in 20 patients with less than two. Six patients showed improvement of various T- and B-cell parameters as pesticides cleared from the bodies.

Keywords: pesticide, immune system, immune parameter, chemical sensitivity, less polluted, environmental unit.

INTRODUCTION

Pesticides are toxic substances designed to kill insects. Other toxic substances which are designed to kill weeds, fungus, and act as fumigants are often included when discussing pesticides. These latter substances will be included only briefly in this discussion.

Pesticide Use and Exposure

The estimated total pesticide purchase by farmers in the USA increased from 184 million dollars in 1955 to 1 billion dollars in 1968 [1]. This increase in the sale of pesticides occurred in spite of the fact that harvested acres fell during this period from 335 million to 294 million acres. As the use of pesticides has increased over the succeeding years, the killing of insects has decreased by one half. Certainly these facts emphasize the failure of pesticides. In other fields, a search for new methods for solving a problem would be made. However, agriculture has been slow to do so. This was emphasized by the fact that the world market for herbicides, insecticides, and pesticides continued to grow, and these markets now have been estimated at 4688, 3190 and 1761 billion dollars, respectively, in 1989. Agriculture has applied 264 million pounds of pesticides in California in 1980 and 7.8 million pounds of these have been shown to be carcinogenic.

The long-term consequences of chronic pesticide exposure in the parts per billion and trillion are unknown. However, the massive increase of cancer in the farming areas in the USA suggests an adverse relationship [2]. The cancer rate in the nearly industry-free farming state of Iowa is about the same as the number one cancer-producing chemical dump state of New Jersey [3]. This is probably primarily due to the use of pesticide and herbicides in the growing of corn. In addition, the massive upsweep of chemical sensitivity has supported the fact that chronic pesticide exposure is harmful.

The following observations emphasize the fact that chronic exposure to pesticides is now a global problem.  Often, spraying in one area results in not only local contamination but, depending on weather conditions and patterns, may result in contamination hundreds to thousands of miles away. For example, one study on the spraying for a grasshopper epidemic in Central Africa showed those particular pesticides to be in Key West, FL, five days later. These were then traced up the eastern coast of the USA following the Gulf Stream to Bermuda and then off toward the UK [4]. Another US Environmental Protection Agency study showed farmers spraying in Lubbock, TX, with a particular pesticide which ended up in Cincinnati, OH, roughly 1500 miles north east [5]. As a result of the widespread use of pesticides, they are now found in air, food and water. Virtually 100% of the US food supply contains pesticides and herbicides [6]. If one realizes that pesticides are in air, food and water, it logically follows that they should be in humans. This is indeed the case as evidenced by a series of chemically sensitive patients seen at our center.

Pesticides in Patient Populations

Studies performed at the Environmental Health Center (EHC)-Dallas have shown pesticides in most patient populations around the world. All individuals in the study groups from Australia, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the USA were chemically sensitive patients. Those from China were undetermined as to health status, but the South American Indians were virtually disease free. They were also pesticide free except for one individual. This group of individuals was protected by a thick jungle canopy, got their water from springs coming from the Andes and grew their own food. This set of environmental circumstances will probably not occur again on earth (Table 1).

Immune Effects

There are many substances in pesticides, mitocides, herbicides and fumigants that alter the immune system.  These include organochlorine, organophosphate, carbamate, pyrethrin and arsenical pesticides as well asmitocides such as Milbex. Pesticides can stimulate, suppress or deregulate the immune system. Most can do all three, depending on the concentration and duration of the dose, the virulence of the pesticides, mitocides, herbicides and fumigants on the immune system, as well as the total body pollutant load and state of nutrition of the individual. The simplest change on can see in the immune system is proteins altering to become haptens. These alterations can be caused by many substances such as toluene diisocynate. However, a fumigant, formaldehyde, is known to trigger the IgE mechanism, resulting in hapten formation [7]. It is suspected by some that other pesticides may also alter proteins [8].

Direct cytotoxic effects may be seen on cells. Mercury-containing insecticides and fumigants may trigger thiseffect [9].

Immune complexes between IgG and complement are known to occur with toxic chemicals. Many of the organochlorine pesticides are known to dysregulate complement [10, 11].

Direct T-cell triggering is found with many organochlorine pesticides. Often they cause suppression of the suppressor T-cells [12]. Numerous substances, such as DDT [13-18], hexachlorobenzene [19-21], and penta chlorophenol, may alter the bacteriocidal, viricidal and phagocytic ability of the neutrophils [13, 22]. They may also decrease the responder plasma cells in the lymph nodes [23, 24]. Many pesticides, such as DDT, will deregulate the basophil, thus preventing histamine release and anaphylaxis; however, they also suppress skin whealing capacity for immediate antigen reactions [18, 25-28]. Ishikawa has shown a correlation of high levels of organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides with the change of BehV et's disease [2]. Other BehV et's pesticides may alter the antigen recognition sites on cells [8, 29], resulting in the spreading phenomenon seen in many chemically sensitive patients. Also, receptor sites for substances such as hormones may be altered, particularly by organochlorines [8, 29]. Transport enzymes may be altered, damaging the sodium pump [8, 29].

Organochlorine pesticides that are known to alter the immune system are DDT [23, 24], chlordane [23], aldrin[30], lindane [30, 31], hexachlorobenzene [19-21], mirex [32], and arochlor (a PCB) [23]. Organophosphates that cause changes in the immune system are anthio [33], malathion [31], leptochos [34], chlorophos [10, 24, 35-37], and parathion [17, 23, 38, 39]. Carbamates are known to cause immune changes [23], as well as arsenicals [401, and mitocides such as chlorobenzylate [41] and Milbex [41]. Other substances, such as herbicides, are known to cause immune dysfunction. Those are the phenoxy herbicide barban [41], TCD dioxin [42-46], nonum [41], TEC furan [47], nitrophenols, diquat and paraquat [41]. Fumigants such as chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, formaldehyde are known to be on the animal carcinogen list and we suspect them to be carcinogens in humans [48] (Table 2).

PREVALENCE STUDIES

Studies in chemically sensitive patients performed at EHC-Dallas have confirmed these reports. The distribution of pesticides in the blood of a group of 200 consecutive chemically sensitive patients is shown in Table 3. Fifty out of these 200 displayed symptoms triggered by pesticides on inhaled double-blind challenge. In 107 of them who reported initial pesticide exposure, 81% had depressed levels of both T- and B-cells. These individuals also frequently showed symptoms of depression, impaired memory, impaired concentration, lack of energy and general inability to function, and it was noted that as pesticide levels decreased, brain function improved.

Once these chemically sensitive individuals are withdrawn from pesticides in the air, food and water in the less polluted environmental unit and de-adapted for a minimum of four days, many responses to pollutant challenge can be seen. Individual inhaled challenge of ambient doses of orthochlorophenol and 2,4,DNP pesticides resulted in triggering of the immune system as well as other related parameters. The case histories below, and Figs. 1 and 2, show illustrative cases.

In another series of patients studied at the EHC-Dallas, 66 proven chemically sensitive patients (9 males and 57 females), who had either environmentally triggered (essential) hypertension [23], porphyria [11, vasculitis [33] or multiple sclerosis [20] were studied. Table 4 shows the frequency of individual pesticides in the blood of this group. There was a significantly greater frequency of several abnormal immune parameters in the group with more than two organochlorine pesticides than in those with less than two (Table 5).

If one compares the means of T- and B-lymphocytes in these same patients with the 60 patients of a normal control group measured at EHC-Dallas, one finds significant differences at the 0.1-0.001 level. The white blood count (WBC), though in the normal range for both groups, was significantly lower - 5520 versus 7560 - in the group with more than two pesticides present in their blood, with resulting significance to the 0.001 level. The means of the blood cell parameters showed significant differences at the 0.01-0.005 levels in the WBC, lymphocyte count. T11%, T4%, T4/T8 ratio and B-lymphocytes count.

Further study showed improvement of various T- and B-cell parameters as pesticides cleared from the patients (Table 6). Other studies at EHC-Dallas have also shown a negative correlation between the cell-mediated immunity by delayed skin hypersensitivity and the total number and mean of organochlorine pesticides seen in the blood.

CONCLUSIONS

It is quite clear from laboratory and clinical studies that pesticides of all categories may influence the immune system resulting in human dysfunction. Improvement in immune parameters also occurs when pesticides are removed from the body as seen in six patients in Table 6. Further studies are clearly required, but clinicians should already be mindful of these phenomena when evaluating and treating patients with disorders of the immune system.

CASE REPORTS

Evidence that pesticides effect the immune system is emphasized in two patients. The first was a 41-year-old white female nurse who developed spastic tetanic contraction of her peripheral muscles. In addition, she developed intractable spastic vascular phenomena of her coronary, femoral, popliteal and dorsalis pedis arteries with resultant symptoms. When she was placed in the Environmental Unit for total load reduction and de-adapted for a week, her spastic phenomena cleared and her T-lymphocytes increased. An inhaled challenge of a pesticide (2,4,DNP) at an ambient dose (<0.0034 ppm) reproduced all the vascular and tetany problems including angina and loss of peripheral pulse. In addition, T-lymphocytes decreased to 19%. It took four days with a pesticide-free diet, water and atmosphere to allow the T-cells to return to near normal (Fig. 1).

The second patient was a 69-year-old female who presented in extremis, malnourished at a weight of 70 lbs, with a diagnosis of amyotophic lateral sclerosis, with inability to swallow. She went into respiratory failure and had to be placed on a respirator for total ventilatory support. As one can see by Fig. 2, the patient, who had lived near a high intensity pesticide-spraying, chicken-raising operation, had high levels of organochlorine pesticides and depressed T-cells. As she improved with prolonged ventilation and nutritional support, her T-lymphocytes increased and her pesticide levels decreased.

Well Mr. Helliker, your "registered" Poisons are obviously ineffective and extremely dangerous.  This report puts new meaning to the concept of pesticide/POISON drift!  The more I think about your refusal to allow the use of safe and far more effective unregistered alternatives to actually control pest problems - I now clearly realize why agriculture and the pest control community are not able to look for any real solutions to these obvious problems.  I would like to point out another analogy.  If some governmental "officials" had demanded we all must daily smoke a pack or two of cigarettes or smoke pipes or cigars years ago, then those governmental "officials" who made such demands would have to be held responsible rather that the tobacco companies.  You are going to be held responsible and perhaps liable for all of the contamination , death and sickness your "registered" POISONS cause - because you are and have been clearly demanding that ONLY your extremely toxic and ineffective POISONS must "legally" be used to "control" pest problems in California!

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