12/12/09

Antidote is currently funding a unique UK study on the effects of pesticides and pesticide mixtures on human health. The aim is to promote good science and get rid of animal tests. The regulatory authorities require pesticide chemicals to be tested on a rodent and a non-rodent species (Biocides directive 98/8/EC), which invariably means rats and dogs.

Not only are these tests extremely cruel, but the results they yield are meaningless for human health. Another major issue ignored until very recently by the regulatory authorities is the effect of mixtures of pesticides on human health. Animal toxicity experiments are designed to test one chemical at a time. Animal studies would not be able to cope with chemical mixtures. According to toxicopathologist Dr Vyvyan Howard, in order to test the 1,000 most common chemicals in unique combinations of three, we would need to conduct 166 million animal experiments. That simply isn't feasible, and even it it was, the results would not be relevant to humans.

Hence the rationale for applying toxicogenomics (the study of how genes respond to a toxic agent) and human cell lines. Using human cells means the study is relevant to humans, and using toxicogenomics yields results in 24-48 hours. Animal toxicity tests typically last 90 days. Toxicogenomics is also ideally suited to chemical mixtures because hundreds of tests can be carried out simultaneously on minituarised DNA slides.

We expect the study to be completed within about six months' time, after which it will be submitted to a peer-reviewed scientific journal for publication. Once that is achieved, we will press release our results to the media and also inform the EU regulatory authorities.

This study has used up more funds than were earmarked for it, which is why we are asking for donations to keep us going until the study is published, which will hopefully draw international attention to Antidote's important work in the field of human health.

To make a donation to help this important project please click on:
http://www.antidote-europe.org/
Click on the PayPal symbol ("faire un don") at the bottom of the page. Once the new window appears, change "France" to "Royaume Uni" (UK) and all the instructions will appear in English.