Organic Diets Significantly Lower Children’s Dietary Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides

We used a novel study design to measure dietary organophosphorus pesticide exposure in a group of 23 elementary school-age children through urinary biomonitoring. We substituted most of children’s conventional diets with organic food items for 5 consecutive days and collected two spot daily urine samples, first-morning and before-bedtime voids, throughout the 15-day study period. We found that the median urinary concentrations of the specific metabolites for malathion and chlorpyrifos decreased to the nondetect levels immediately after the introduction of organic diets and remained nondetectable until the conventional diets were reintroduced. The median concentrations for other organophosphorus pesticide metabolites were also lower in the organic diet consumption days; however, the detection of those metabolites was not frequent enough to show any statistical significance. In conclusion, we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production. We also concluded that these children were most likely exposed to these organophosphorus pesticides exclusively through their diet. To our knowledge, this is the first study to employ a longitudinal design with a dietary intervention to assess children’s exposure to pesticides. It provides new and persuasive evidence of the effectiveness of this intervention

The Flanagan site: 6,000 years of occupation in the upper Willamette Valley, Oregon

2 p. Review produced for HC 441: Science Colloquium: Willamette River Environmental Health, Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon, Spring term, 2004.A print copy of the reviewed thesis is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: SCA OrColl E78.O6T64 198

The Flanagan Site: 6,000 Years of Occupation in the Upper Willamette Valley, Oregon

253 pagesThe culture of the Kalapuya Indians of the Willamette Valley, the largest interior valley in western Oregon, does not easily fit within the culture area schemes defined by anthropologists for native North America. Anthropologists have assigned the Willamette Valley to both the Northwest Coast and the interior Columbia Plateau culture areas. The Willamette Valley differs, however, in lacking the substantial anadromous fish runs which played such an important role in the subsistence practices of most of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest. As a result, the Kalapuya and their ancestors relied on hunting and gathering rather than fishing as their primary means of subsistence. Because of the limited material culture generally associated with the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Willamette Valley, relatively few comprehensive archaeological studies have been conducted in the region. As a result, many of the basic questions concerning prehistoric occupation in the Willamette Valley remain partially or wholly unanswered. The present study is focused primarily on refining the chronology of prehistoric occupation in this region, a basic prerequisite for approaching Willamette Valley prehistory on a regional basis. This study is based on the chronological patterns evident in the 6,000-year-old cultural sequence investigated at the Flanagan site, a task-specific seasonal camp in the Long Tom Sub-basin of the Upper Willamette Valley. The Flanagan site assemblage, representing the longest continuous occupation documented in the Willamette Valley to date, is used to define a temporally-significant projectile point typology. Changes in projectile point types as well as the frequency and distribution of other tools are used to define three cultural components at the Flanagan site. The major change in site use appears to correlate with the transition from the Hypsithermal to the Late Postglacial climatic interval. The Flanagan components are in turn related to three of the chronological phases proposed for the Upper Willamette Valley. The archaeological record from the Flanagan site provides a long-term perspective on the hunter-gatherer adaptations in the Willamette Valley which culminated in the ethnographically-known culture of the Kalapuya Indians

Exchange Items or Hunters' Tools? Another Look at Lanceolate Biface Caches in Central Oregon

While distant peoples undoubtedly procured obsidian from sources in central Oregon, it is likely that this activity was largely restricted to informal trade between individual hunters or small hunting groups during most of the prehistoric past. Certainly, there currently is no evidence that an exchange system on the scale envisioned by Scott et al. existed in this area during the time periods they suggested

Fish Remains from an "Open" Archaeological Site in the Fort Rock Basin, South-Central Oregon

This report presents results of test excavations at 35LK1016, an open archaeological site in Fort Rock Basin on the northwestern margin of the Great Basin. Found below the surface at the site, in association with chipped and ground stone tools and debitage, were substantial quantities of fish bone and other faunal remains. This collection of fish bone is the largest yet reported from an archaeological site in Fort Rock Basin. The findings made at 35LK1016 provide an example of the scientific potential of open sites in the Great Basin

Box plots of DVWA of MDA concentrations in 23 children 3–11 years of age for 15 consecutive days in which conventional and organic diets were consumed

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Organic Diets Significantly Lower Children’s Dietary Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides"</p><p>Environmental Health Perspectives 2005;114(2):260-263.</p><p>Published online 1 Sep 2005</p><p>PMCID:PMC1367841.</p><p>This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original DOI.</p> The top row of numbers on the -axis represents numbers of children

Box plots of DVWA of TCPY concentrations in 23 children 3–11 years of age for 15 consecutive days in which conventional and organic diets were consumed

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Organic Diets Significantly Lower Children’s Dietary Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides"</p><p>Environmental Health Perspectives 2005;114(2):260-263.</p><p>Published online 1 Sep 2005</p><p>PMCID:PMC1367841.</p><p>This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original DOI.</p> The top row of numbers on the -axis represents numbers of children