Contact: Maridith Geuder
A five-year study recently launched by a Mississippi State University toxicologist is examining the effects of pesticides on children's health.
Janice E. Chambers, Giles Distinguished Professor at MSU, has received a $1.26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on the ways agricultural chemicals act on the human nervous system.
Chambers heads the university's Center for Environmental Health Sciences, housed in the College of Veterinary Medicine. She also holds a $712,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to study the risks chemicals in flea collars may pose, especially to children.
"Our nation has an excellent quality of food, thanks in part to the development of effective pesticides," she noted. "Our study seeks to understand how these chemicals might affect children so that we can make appropriate decisions about pesticide use."
Research toxicologist Russell L. Carr, assistant professor of veterinary medicine, is a co-investigator in the study.
Specifically, their work will examine the effects of a certain class of chemicals, organophosphorous (OP) insecticides, which are used for agricultural purposes.
Children may be exposed to pesticides through agricultural drift--chemicals carried from the spray site by air--as well as by an adult bringing the chemicals home on clothes or by contamination of food, Chambers explained.
"There also have been cases in which some organophosphorous chemicals such as methyl parathion have been illegally used to spray homes," she added. That chemical typically is used to control cotton pests.
A particular concern is whether exposure to OP insecticides can alter the brain's biochemistry, leading to long-term changes in behavior and cognition.
To evaluate the risk, the MSU researchers will use rats as a model to test the biochemical effects on actual behavior. "We will expose the animals to levels comparable to those humans would actually receive," Chambers explained. Earlier studies have been based on in vitro laboratory research.
Chambers is a diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology and a fellow of the Academy of Toxicology Sciences. She has served on the scientific advisory panel of the Chemical Industries Institute of Toxicology since 1993. She has held a number of grants from NIH, EPA, and the United States Department of Agriculture, among others.
Carr holds a doctorate in animal physiology from MSU, with an emphasis in environmental toxicology. He has been a co-investigator on a number of NIH and EPA grants dealing with the effects of insecticides.