In May 2007, a report was released showing a correlation between corn fertilizer and pesticide application and lasting impacts on children’s intelligence. The study was conducted in Indiana, a major corn producing state. The months of June through August have the highest levels of fertilizer and herbicide runoff from corn fields into surface water. Indiana children conceived June through August have the lowest scores on math and language tests, according to a study by University of Indiana Medical researchers. High nitrate and atrazine levels are suspected of affecting the normal production of thyroid hormones.
The study was based on looking at test scores of more than 1.6 million Indiana students in grades 3 through 10. The result was consistent across races and genders. Children conceived when fertilizer and pesticide application was the highest turned in the lowest scores in math and language tests!
The researchers also looked at data from 27 million births from 1996 to 2002 and found that premature births were highest for the year in June conception and birth defects peaked for conceptions during the months of the highest corn chemical applications! To read more follow this link: http://www.newfarm.org/columns/research_paul/2007/0607/testscores.shtml or do a Google search.
This is sobering information. Corn is likely to have an impact on even more little children this year. Because of the high demand for corn created by ethanol fuel production, 14.5 million more acres of corn were planted this year in the US than the number of acres in corn last year. Ethanol fuel from corn is looking more and more like a very poor solution to our oil and fuel needs.
There is one more question that needs to be asked. If the small minute amount of chemical that runs off in a rain storm, and gets further diluted in a large amount of water in a river or underground stream, affects an unborn child because its mother drank the water, what about effects of eating the corn itself? There is a large concentration of chemicals that are sprayed directly on the plant and chemicals that are absorbed by the roots that becomes part of the corn itself. Logically thinking, it would seem that there is an even greater potential for the pesticides and other chemicals to affect everyone’s intelligence regardless of what month they were conceived because we directly eat the corn, drink soda made from corn syrup, eat beef or chicken raised on chemical corn, or consume any of the many other products made from corn.
Is organic really worth the extra money? Yes, it is! Do you really want to eat or drink something that has conventional chemical and pesticide corn in it, or chicken or beef that chemical and pesticide corn was fed to? It is not just an issue about ourselves and our own families, but when we consume products made with chemical corn, we are supporting a farm where the chemical runoff from the field the corn was raised in is affecting other innocent little children for the rest of their lives.