Pesticides and Parkinson's Disease
N.Y. Times, November 5, 2000. Abstracted by the Vermont Parkinsonian, December 2000
An organic pesticide widely used on home grown fruits and vegetables and for controlling unwanted fish produces the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in rats that receive steady amounts of the chemical, scientists reported yesterday.
While it is too soon to say that rotenone causes or contributes to PD in humans, the scientists said the finding was the best evidence thus far that chemicals in the environment may be causing this disease.
This study, the first to implicate rotenone in Parkinson's disease, was described at a workshop on the neurobiology of disease, held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The workshop involved work carried out by Dr. Timothy Greenamyre and colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta.
Dr. John Trojanowski, an expert on neurodegenerative diseases at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia and the moderator to the workshop, said the findings amounted to 'a major breakthrough' in Parkinson's research.
Rotenone is extracted from the dried roots, seeds and leaves of various tropical plants, which produce the compound, in order to ward off insects and other pests.
Rotenone occurs in 680 compounds, marketed as organic garden pesticides and flea powders, said Dr. Caroline Tanner, director of clinical research at the Parkinson's Institute. It is often dusted onto roses, tomatoes, pears, apples and African violets, and even on household pets.
Because rotenone is naturally occurring, it is advertised as being safer than synthetic pesticides, she said.
Rotenone is also widely used in liquid form by fishery managers to destroy unwanted pest species. The chemical is added to lakes and reservoirs, where it kills all the fish by inhibiting their ability to use oxygen.
During the exposure to this chemical agent, the rats grew stiff, stopped moving as much, hunched over and developed tremors - just the same symptoms in Parkinson's disease in humans...