Dutch scientists call for better pesticide screening

A team of Dutch researchers has called for the introduction of a stringent new screening procedure to determine whether pesticides might be implicated in the rapidly increasing prevalence of Parkinson’s disease.

The scientists, who laid out their proposal in a peer-reviewed paper published last month, wrote that a growing body of evidence suggests that pesticides are at least partially responsible for the rising number of cases of the neurodegenerative disorder.

However, they said that current international screening procedures are ‘inadequate’ for assessing specific Parkinson’s-related risks and presented their own four-stage alternative, which they stressed should be applied to both new and existing pesticides.

One of the study’s authors, Bas Bloem, was quoted in an accompanying press release as saying that: ‘We are still largely in the dark about the safety of these substances. The current admission criteria for pesticides provide insufficient insight into the risk of Parkinson’s and other brain diseases. We now propose a clear plan of action to properly assess safety.’

The researchers have indicated that they are now entering into talks with industry and regulatory authorities.