Environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth [FOE] has urged the UK’s Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) to reject a request from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to withdraw long-standing safety advice that fruit and vegetables for children should be peeled.
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The advice was originally issued by the Government’s Chief Medical Officer in 1997 to reduce small children’s exposure to pesticides, including organophosphates which have been linked to brain damage in mammals. The recommendation is now routinely given by Government departments in response to inquiries from parents about pesticide residues in food, and is the only practical advice currently given about reducing children’s exposure to pesticides.
The FSA has recently recommended withdrawing the advice however, explaining that “misinterpretation” could imply that “only organic fruit should be supplied to the National School Fruit Scheme”, a scheme to give all young children a free piece of fruit at school each day to increase their consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables.
The FOE argues meanwhile that the FSA should focus on insisting that any fruit and veg supplied to schools is free of pesticides rather than relaxing safety advice.
Sandra Bell, FOE’s food and farming campaigner said: “It’s appalling that the FSA wants to scrap safety advice for children because it doesn’t want to include it with the new scheme for free fruit to be given to schools.
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By GlobalData“Although it’s important for children to eat more fruit and vegetables, this should not mean they are exposed to unnecessary health risks. Residue data shows that low levels of pesticides turn up in half our fruit and veg and that safety levels for children are sometimes exceeded These chemicals have been linked with brain damage and disruption of the hormone system.
“Children are more vulnerable to the effects of these pesticides.”
The FSA argue however that some of the pesticides which cause most concern, such as organophosphates (OPs), have been banned in the UK since 1997. It also believes that particularly high levels of pesticides in individual fruits or vegetables are no longer a problem. (High levels of OP pesticides in carrots were one reason for the advice being introduced.)
