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A groundbreaking new technology has been launched on Wednesday that will enable the general public around the world to find out their long-term exposure to pesticides for the first time, The Detox Project reported in a press announcement from Los Angeles.
To get your hair tested or to find out more about the project please click on this link.
The Detox Project, working alongside pesticide testing experts Kudzu Science, is enabling the public to find out their long-term exposure to a range of the most used pesticides in homes and in agriculture, using new and improved mass spectrometry hair testing technology.
The Detox Project Director, Henry Rowlands, stated Wednesday; “Hair testing has been used in forensic science for the last 30 years and we are helping to bring this expertise in to the public pesticide testing world. Hair has a memory and this will help our knowledge of long-term pesticide exposure to change forever.”
It is only recently that new developments in laboratory technology and science has enabled pesticides to be tested accurately in hair. Hair testing is now set to replace urine and blood as the preferred matrix for public pesticide testing for the following reasons:
- Hair testing shows your exposure to pesticides over a period of 90-120 days, whereas
- Urine Testing shows your exposure for approximately 14-21 days and
- Blood Testing shows your exposure for 2-3 days
Hair Testing also has some other wonderful advantages:
- Easy collection
- Easy transport
- Easy storage
- Enables continuous cost effective bio-monitoring over a year: 4 samples vs 100 for blood vs 26 for urine
The presence of pesticides in hair may result either from a significant and occasional exposure (known as acute exposure) or from exposure to low and regular doses from food, water or the environment (known as chronic exposure), or a combination of both.
Dr. Vincent Peynet, Director of Kudzu Science, stated; “Our initial testing will involve 30 of the most ubiquitous pesticides used in the home and 32 of the most ubiquitous pesticides used in agriculture. You will receive online results within 15 days of your hair samples being received by the Kudzu Science laboratory.”
“This is just the start, we are developing a variety of tests for the public, which will be released over the coming months,” Dr. Peynet added.
Some of the extraordinary recent developments in hair testing for pesticides have been reviewed and published by the Luxembourg Institute of Health and French Ministry of Agriculture.
Another peer-reviewed paper, published during an ongoing study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, concluded that ongoing exposure of children to environmental pesticides can now be sensitively detected by the analysis of children’s hair and house dust.
Hair testing for pesticides can now be used by NGOs, government regulators and the general public to change our knowledge of pesticides.
Rowlands concluded that “The Detox Project aims to use this extraordinary new tool to change how the general public views pesticides. We can only do this by showing people around the world how pesticides build up in their bodies over the long-term.”
To get your hair tested or to find out more about the project please click on this link.
Media and Public Contacts
Henry Rowlands, Director, The Detox Project: henry@detoxproject.org
Dr. Vincent Peynet, Director, Kudzu Science: vincent.peynet@kudzuscience.com
