Demanding Clean Food and Water: The Fight for a Basic Human Right

For a generation that has grown up since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring , here is timely and important information about pesticide residue in food and water. Goldstein ( The Politics of Offshore Oil ) examines the use of pesticides on produce and the potential health effects, reviews the changes in agriculture and the proliferation of pesticides following WW II, and discusses regulation, risk assessment and tolerance of pesticides, noting that the latter is based on adult intake (cause for alarm, as children eat more fruit than do adults). Because pesticides are tested only for their active ingredients, Goldstein argues that the inert ingredients should be tested as well; she scrutinizes the Clean Water Act and describes groundwater contamination. The final chapter of this valuable consumer handbook offers alternate approaches to pest control. (Nov.)