Study Examines Climate Changes and Resulting Exposure to Agricultural Chemicals and Pathogens

Newswise — A review article published in the April 2009 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) suggests that increasing changes in global climate and oscillations in atmospheric temperatures may shift the use and spread of agricultural chemicals and pathogens, resulting in potentially harmful human exposures. Although the authors focused their review on the U.K. agricultural environment, they wrote that some of their conclusions are applicable and relevant to other countries as well as to sectors other than agriculture. Potentially hazardous contaminants in agricultural farming include pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, plant toxins and pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Climate change is likely to increase U.K. populations' air- and waterborne exposures to agricultural contaminants, and the magnitude of the increases will depend on the contaminant type. For example, dust released into the atmosphere during tilling and harvesting is a key transport pathway for particulate and particle-bound contaminants, and soil dust is linked to a range of human health impacts. The authors predict that hotter, drier summers will lead to increased transfer of surface dust into the environment.

"The increase in human health hazards associated with climate change exposures can be managed through research and policy changes, such as monitoring farm-related pathogens and chemicals and their health effects, as well as the creation of experimental data sets and models for airborne dust transport and other exposure pathways," wrote first author Alistair B.A. Boxall and colleagues.

"Regulatory bodies involved in the control of pathogen and chemicals should also begin to consider the potential implications of climate change in their decision making."

"With the future spread of pathogens and chemicals in agricultural farming unknown due to the effects of potential climate change, research to determine the likely course of these pathogens and their effect on environmental health is warranted," said EHP editor-in-chief Hugh A. Tilson, PhD.

Other authors of the paper included Anthony Hardy, Sabine Beulke, Tatiana Boucard, Laura Burgin, Peter D. Falloon, Philip M. Haygarth, Thomas Hutchinson, R. Sari Kovats, Giovanni Leonardi, Leonard S. Levy, Gordon Nichols, Simon A. Parsons, Laura Potts, David Stone, Edward Topp, David B. Turley, Kerry Walsh, Elizabeth M.H. Wellington and Richard J. Williams. The development of this article was funded through a U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs interagency research project and the Joint Environment and Human Health Programme.

The article is available free of charge at http://www.ehponline.org/members/2008/0800084/0800084.html. EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/. Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing handles marketing and public relations for the publication and is responsible for creation and distribution of this press release.