Why The French Wine Pesticides DO Matter

My friend, Dan Berger, has written his latest column on why the pesticide levels recently found in French wines really don’t matter (So-called ‘toxic wine’).

Dan’s point is that the levels of the chemicals found in wine are so small, they couldn’t even be measured a few years ago. And for that reason, they’re not harmful.

This accords with the adage that, ” the solution to pollution is dilution.”

While that paradigm still works for many substances that are directly, immediately and observably toxic (kills or damages cells), it can mislead when applied to Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs). These compounds interfere with the body’s hormones and are most active in amounts at very small nano and pico concentrations (parts per billion or trillion).

EDCs can imitate natural hormones and effectively increase levels or can block the body’s own hormones and result in lower levels. Some have other effects that are most striking in developing embryos and/or can be inherited by future generations.

I wrote about EDCs and other low-concentration pollutants last year (Toxic Irrigation: Major Study Indicts Chemicals Found in Recycled Wastewater Used For Vineyards And Other Crops) and have continued to follow the area in collaboration with Becca Yeamans (The Academic Wino).

Dan’s conclusions are not unreasonable given the fact that EDCs are a new area of science that has not been completely studied and which industry, academia and the U.S. government are still trying to figure out how to deal with. (See EPA: Policies and Procedures for the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program).

However, thousands of recent peer-reviewed, scientific studies on EDCs indicate that giving low concentrations of many chemicals a clean bill of health is not a wise thing to do.