My old mom recently died from a combination of disorders, one of which was Parkinson's Disease which had severely limited her mobility for a decade. From Science Daily this morning comes news of chemical links to increased susceptibility to this devastating disease: "....people who simply lived near where farm fields were sprayed with the fungicide maneb and the herbicide paraquat. It found that the risk for Parkinson's disease for these people increased by 75 percent. Now a follow-up study adds two new twists. Once again the researchers returned to California's fertile Central Valley, and for the first time have implicated a third pesticide, ziram, in the pathology of Parkinson's disease. Second, instead of looking just at whether people lived near fields that were sprayed, they looked at where people worked, including teachers, firefighters and clerks who worked near, but not in, the fields. They found that the combined exposure to ziram, maneb and paraquat near any workplace increased the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) threefold, while combined exposure to ziram and paraquat alone was associated with an 80 percent increase in risk. The results appear in the current online edition of the European Journal of Epidemiology....." Considering the US governments choice in the 1970's to attempt cannabis interdiction from Mexico by aerial spraying of paraquat on the fields which resulted in a lot of Americans ingesting this poison, we should be seeing a bumper crop of new Parkinson's patients in the not-too-distant future. The complete article is here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110526152555.htm After seeing mom deteriorate over the years and become increasingly disabled from it, Parkinson's has become one of my many fears. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! She was born and raised in farm country. Do you have any friends or relatives with Parkinson's disease? Are you suffering from it yourself? Are you a yard fanatic who is always spraying chemicals on your' lawn in a vain attempt to control nature? Do you think your chronic exposure to these poisons has or will have no effect on your health?
I never have or ever will use anything but natural fertilizers to help my yard stay healthy. I usually spread rich black soil and then sand over my yard every 5 years or so as well.