Damn, I hate it when this kind of stuff pops into my head.  I don’t have the right background to check out my hunches when something like this bites my Muse in the rump, thereby causing her to beat me about the head and shoulders until I write something on the subject.

Salon features an article to day under Techonology & Business, What’s in your body chemical cocktail?  This isn’t news to me; I’ve heard several times over the last handful of years about the growing bio-accumulation of chemicals in our bodies, not the least of which is pesticides.  The subject featured in the article learned of a high quantity of organophosphates – like the insecticide, Dursban – in her bloodstream.  It’s not high enough in quantity to make her sick now, but it’s unknown what the long-term repercussions are of chronic exposure to this class of chemicals.

Something clicked in my head about this, like the Muse whacking me with a ruler.  I’d just seen something on television within the last twenty-four hours about an unexplained and rapid increase in allergies to peanuts among children in this country.

Related?  Maybe.

Note at this link a Summary of the Hazards of Dursban (chloropyrifos); it appears that exposure to this particular organophosphate may increase allergic sensitization.  Is it possible that peanut allergies in children have increased because of a greater bioaccumulation of this chemical over the last several decades? Can chloropyrifos exposure in the young (assuming the levels of this chemical are the same as adults) trigger an increase in eotaxin or invoke other acute inflammatory response when exposed to a secondary trigger like peanuts?

Some have suggested that peanut allergies are hereditary; studies have shown a possible link.  Others have suggested that sensitization occurs because of prenatal or early and increasing exposure to allergenic substances; foods containing soy, nuts, peanuts all being potential triggers and now much more widely used than they were three or four decades ago.  Perhaps it’s not a gene that’s passed, but a bio-accumulation of a sensitizing environmental chemical in utero and beyond?

Another clue that stuck out in my mind from the television bit about peanut allergies is that they remain as rare in Asia as they used to be in the U.S.  This shoots in the tail the theory that early, increasing exposure is a factor; nearly all people use the allergenic foods widely in Asia, all the time.

But here’s the question I can’t readily research: at what point in time did organophosphates become a household product in the U.S.?  when did these chemicals become broadly used in U.S. agriculture?  Are there pockets of increased bio-accumulation which coincide with both usage of these chemicals AND an increased rate of peanut allergies among the population?

Is our increasing consumption of fresh produce treated with organophosphates, grown around the world, an explanation for the explosion of peanut allergies in the last five years?

Lastly, has the rate of peanut allergies in China simply not caught up to U.S. rates only because organophosphates are not yet as widely used?  Or because the Chinese have yet to bio-accumulate a critical mass of this chemical in their bodies through several generations?

It’s personal to me to know; I’m going to write a letter to some researchers to find out whether this has been studied.  An Asian friend, married to a Caucasian, has two sons; one of them is afflicted with an allergy to peanuts.  It’s challenging to this family because so much of what they eat of Asian foods contains allergens that are downright toxic to this cute little boy.  Is it possible that life in these contaminated United States are causal?  Or is it that he and his wife both work for a chemical company which manufactures organophosphate products?

I wish the answer would be something much more simple than the Muse suggests.  And I wish the answer would arrive faster than an incomplete solution like a peanut allergy vaccine.

2:21:52 PM    comment []

Yeah, I’m irked with the spouse again.  I can’t leave him alone with the computer.  He's got a Master's degree in engineering and I still can't trust him with certain kinds of technology.

I’ve gotten booted off my ISP ten times – count ‘em, TEN TIMES – this morning, along with getting a blue screen of death because of an IRQ error.

It all started when hubby messed with connections over the weekend, causing some weird errors.  To make matters worse, he loaded new software on the system.  The errors are now highly disruptive and making me very concerned; I don’t know if I should start ripping this system apart and fix it myself or if I should push back and make him deal with his mess.  I’d probably less upset about this if it wasn’t for the fact he’s already done one big boo-boo this autumn that cost me nearly a week’s time to diagnose and fix.

I think I’m going to have to migrate sooner than expected to my new laptop for blogging and the like.  It’s more difficult to type in quantity on the laptop, but at least I can lock it up and keep him from messing with it.

If this blog doesn’t get updated for a day or two, you know what happened.  Something crashed hard and I’m chasing hubby with a broom.

9:25:24 AM    comment []