HeartMath as an Integrative, Personal, Social, and Global Healthcare System.

COVID-19 is a recent major event, adding to planet Earth's contexts of chaos, crime, injustice, illness, and violence. The HeartMath system has produced research evidence for scientific interventions that alter contexts characterized by chaos and stress, promoting health, coherence, and interconnectedness. This study provides an updated overview of HeartMath as an interdisciplinary, scientific, coherent, integral heart-based healthcare system, operated locally through various initiatives and globally through the Global Coherence Initiative. The HeartMath approach integrates ancient and contemporary, indigenous and mainstream, popular and folk, Eastern, Western, and African forms of healing. The HeartMath interdisciplinary, personal, social, and global vision and mission have considerable theoretical and practical potential for promoting planetary health, education, and development.

Biological monitoring use in refining the exposure assessment of agricultural operators.

OBJECTIVES: As part of the re-registration process for agriculturally active ingredients conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), exposure and risk assessments are conducted for operators who mix, load, or apply agricultural products. The exposure assessment is typically based on a combination of data obtained from the Pesticide Handlers Exposure Database (PHED) and assumptions on various application parameters, such as application rates, hectares treated, and the like. However the exposure data from the PHED may not reflect current work practices for clothing as per the EPA worker protection standard and the improvements made in engineering controls for packaging, mixing-loading apparatus, and application methods. Thus the exposure assessments may overestimate the true exposure. METHODS: This study consisted of 23 replicates of workers mixing, loading, or applying a formulation of ethoprop nematicide insecticide to potato fields as part of their normal work functions. The study was conducted at 13 separate sites in the south-central part of Washington State in the United States. Biomonitoring was conducted in which the urinary excretion of ethoprop and its principal metabolite was monitored on the day of exposure and for 3 days thereafter. RESULTS: The exposure values estimated with the use of the PHED were approximately 26 to 51 times higher than the actual exposures determined in the study. CONCLUSIONS: The monitored absorbed doses found in this study should be considered representative of the range of potential absorbed doses resulting from ethoprop use with engineering controls under the conditions of this study.

Biomonitoring for farm families in the farm family exposure study.

OBJECTIVES: The Farm Family Exposure Study was conducted to evaluate real-world pesticide exposure for farmers, spouses, and children. METHODS: Eligible farm families from Minnesota and South Carolina were randomly selected from a roster of licensed private pesticide applicators. Eligibility required that the family include a farmer, spouse, and at least one child between the ages of 4 and 17 years, that the family live on the farm, that the farmer planned to apply one of the target pesticides [glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D)] to at least 10 acres (4.1 hectares) of land within 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of the house. For each family member, geometric means were calculated for 24-hour composite urinary samples, with a 1 ppb (part per billion) limit of detection, the day before, the day of, and for 3 days after the application. RESULTS: For the farmers, the peak geometric mean concentrations were 3 ppb for glyphosate, 64 ppb for 2,4-D, and 19 ppb for the primary chlorpyrifos metabolite. For the spouses and children, the percentage with detectable values varied by chemical, although the average values for each chemical did not vary during the study period. The applicators had the highest urine pesticide concentrations, children had much lower values, and spouses had the lowest values. Exposure to family members was largely, though not exclusively, determined by the degree of direct contact with the application process. The exposure profile varied for the three chemicals for each family member. CONCLUSIONS: The data of this study indicate the importance of chemical-specific considerations when exposure assessments are planned in epidemiologic studies.

Farm Family Exposure Study: methods and recruitment practices for a biomonitoring study of pesticide exposure.

PURPOSE: The Farm Family Exposure Study was initiated to characterize pesticide exposure to farm family members around the time of one pesticide application in a manner that will facilitate exposure assessment in epidemiologic studies of pesticides. METHODS: A sample of farm families with children was recruited by randomly selecting farmers from lists of licensed pesticide applicators in Minnesota and South Carolina. Eligible families were selected from among those who planned to apply one of three chemicals, glyphosate, 2,4-D, or chlorpyrifos, as part of their normal operations. The applicator, spouse, and all children in the family ages 4-17 years were included in the study. The applicator and spouse completed self-administered questionnaires addressing demographics, farming practices and potential exposures to them and their children. Field observers documented the application, recorded application practices, equipment, potential exposures, and the presence of children or spouses in the immediate vicinity of pesticide activities. All study participants were asked to collect each urine void for 5 days, 1 day before through 3 days after the application. Pesticides were measured in 24-h composite urine samples with a one part per billion limit of detection. RESULTS: Of 11,164 applicators screened, 994 families met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 95 families were enrolled. Enrollees were similar in most characteristics to their peers who were not participants in the study. In total, there were 106 applications, 10 of which involved more than one chemical. This resulted in urinary data for 48 farmers and spouses and their 79 children for glyphosate, 34 farmers and spouses and their 50 children for chlorpyrifos, and 34 farmers and spouses and their 53 children for 2,4-D. Compliance with the 24-h urine collection was particularly good for the adult participants. There were more missing samples for children than for adults, but overall compliance was high. CONCLUSION: The Farm Family Exposure Study should provide insights about pesticide exposure under real world conditions and thereby facilitate improved exposure assessment in epidemiologic studies of agricultural populations.