13/10/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19pykmj4vS/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Researchers have linked prenatal exposure to the common insecticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) with lasting disruptions in brain development and motor skills. The results suggest potential risks from continued pesticide exposure during pregnancy and early childhood.
CPF (0,0-diethyl-0-3,5,6-trichloro-2- pyridyl phosphorothioate), a chlorinated organophosphate, is one of the most widely used insecticides throughout the world. Only as recently as May 2025 was CPF listed under Annex A of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), meaning a global move toward elimination, though with exemptions for specific uses for certain countries. It has been banned in several countries, including the US (food crops and residential use ban mainly), UK, Thailand and New Zealand. In Australia it is not fully banned, but its use is being severely restricted and phased out in many cases. However, it is still widely used in India, and China, a major producer, is only gradually phasing it out.
CPF can enter the bloodstream through ingestion, skin contact or inhalation. In pregnant women, it crosses the placenta to reach the foetal blood stream, where concentrations are up to 4-fold higher than in maternal tissues, then it crosses the foetal blood-brain barrier to enter the brain.
This research is the first to show that exposure before birth can lead to long-lasting and widespread molecular, cellular and metabolic alterations in the brain, in addition to impairments in fine motor coordination. The study, conducted by scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and the Keck School of Medicine of USC, appeared in the journal JAMA Neurology.
The analysis focused on 270 children and adolescents enrolled in the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health birth cohort study, all of whom were born to Latino and African-American mothers. Chlorpyrifos levels were detected in their umbilical cord blood, and they later underwent brain imaging and behavioural evaluations between the ages of 6 and 14.
The findings revealed that higher prenatal exposure was consistently linked to more pronounced disruptions in brain structure, function, and metabolism, as well as slower motor speed and impaired motor programming. Evidence across multiple neuroimaging methods indicated that the severity of abnormalities increased directly with the level of CPF exposure, suggesting a clear dose-response effect.
Residential pesticide use (now banned) was the main source of exposure for these children. However, the ongoing use in the US still results in toxic exposure from outdoor air and dust, particularly near farming areas.
“Current widespread exposures, at levels comparable to those experienced in this sample, continue to place farm workers, pregnant women, and unborn children in harm’s way. It is vitally important that we continue to monitor the levels of exposure in potentially vulnerable populations, especially in pregnant women in agricultural communities, as their infants continue to be at risk,” said Virginia Rauh, senior author on the study.
The effects observed are not “subtle statistical blips”, they reflect consistent, measurable deficits. When you combine a β ≈ –0.27 (motor programming) with β ≈ –0.30 (fine motor speed), it shows a pattern: prenatal CPF exposure harms motor control broadly. Over years of schooling and development, these “small” average deficits may translate into significant disadvantages in learning, coordination and everyday functioning.
Note: the β (beta coefficient) is the standardised regression coefficient from statistical analysis; it indicates the direction and strength of a relationship. In psychological/neurodevelopmental testing, a 0.2 standard deviation (SD) is considered a small effect, 0.5 SD is medium and 0.8 SD large. So β ≈ –0.27 SD indicates a small-to-moderate impairment.
The authors concluded that prenatal CPF exposure was associated with altered differentiation of neuronal tissue into cortical grey and white matter, increased myelination of the internal capsule and brainwide impaired metabolism. Poor motor performance that endured into late childhood and early adolescence, likely as a result of CPF-induced oxidative stress and inflammation, was a key outcome. They suggest because other pesticides also induce oxidative stress and inflammation, minimising prenatal and early life exposure to these chemicals is likely important for optimal childhood brain development.
“The disturbances in brain tissue and metabolism that we observed with prenatal exposure to this one pesticide were remarkably widespread throughout the brain,” said first author Bradley Peterson.
Can you suggest credible herbal strategies that might help remove POPs like CPF from the body? And which of these might be safe to use in pregnancy, from the second trimester onward?
For more information see: https://scitechdaily.com/common-pesticide-linked-to-remarkably-widespread-brain-abnormalities-in-children/
and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40824645/
