Depressed Farmers and Depressed Americans "losing their minds" thanks to Corporate Greed and Pesticides
The US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in their landmark Agricultural Health Study studied a group of 89,000 farmers and other pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina. The mammoth study concluded that, "use of two pesticide classes, fumigants and organochlorine insecticides, and seven individual pesticides--the fumigants aluminum phosphide and ethylene dibromide; the phenoxy herbicide (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy)acetic acid (2,4,5-T); the organochlorine insecticide dieldrin; and the organophosphate insecticides diazinon, malathion, and parathion--were all positively associated with depression in each case group." The study showed that farmers with the highest number of lifetime exposure days to pesticides were 50 percent more likely to later have a depression diagnosis. The research linked long-term use of pesticides to higher rates of depression and suicide. Evidence also suggests that pesticide poisoning--a heavy dose in a short