Chinese herbal products are being contaminated with a toxic cocktail of pesticide residues, long-term exposure to which can lead to learning difficulties and reproductive abnormalities in humans, a new report warned today.
The Greenpeace East Asia report 'Chinese herbs: elixir of health or pesticides cocktail?', shows that Chinese herbal products were covered in pesticide residues considered highly hazardous by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Some of the residue levels were hundreds of times higher than European Union food safety standards.
The herbal products researchers tested include wolfberries, honeysuckle, Sanqi flowers, chrysanthemum and were purchased from nine stores, such as Tongrentang and Yunnanbaiyao, in nine cities across China between August 2012 and April 2013.
Nine samples showed more than 20 different kinds of pesticide residues.
"These test results expose the cracks in the current industrial agriculture system that is heavily reliant on toxic chemicals at the expense of human and environmental health," said Jing Wang, ecological farming campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia.
"Chinese herbs are trusted and used as food ingredients for healing purposes by millions of people around the world. They are an iconic part of our heritage we must preserve. Chinese herbs should heal, not harm people and must be pesticide free," Wang said in a statement.
Long-term exposure to pesticide residues in food may cause the toxic chemicals to accumulate inside the body. Chronic pesticides poisoning may lead to learning difficulties, hormone disruption and reproductive abnormalities.
The report revealed that 51 different types of pesticides residues were found on 65 sampled products. Also, 6 illegal pesticides in China (phorate, carbofuran, fipronil, methamidophos, aldicarb and ethoprophos) were found on 26 (40 per cent) of the samples.
Ten pesticides classified by the WHO as extremely or highly hazardous were found on 26 (40 per cent) of the samples.
Some pesticide residues were found in extremely high concentrations. For example, the fungicide thiophanate-methyl residue on the San Qi Flower was 500 times over the safety limit according to European maximum residue limits (MRLs) and thiophanate-methyl residue on honeysuckle was over 100 times that limit, the report said.
