The European Parliament is concerned about food safety and human health. They asked a group of experts ... to review the possible health advantages of organic food and organic farming. Our report reviews existing scientific evidence regarding the impact of organic food on human health. The most important information in this report is about pesticides in food. In conventional food, there are pesticide residues that remain in the food even after it's washed. Organic foods are produced virtually without pesticides. Three long-term birth cohort studies in the U.S. suggest that pesticides are harming children's brains. Women's exposure to pesticides during pregnancy ... was associated with negative impacts on their children's IQ and neurobehavioral development. Also, one of the studies looked at structural brain growth ... and found that the gray matter was thinner in children the higher their mothers' exposure to organophosphates, which are used widely in pesticides. Pregnant and breastfeeding women, and women planning to become pregnant, may wish to eat organic foods as a precautionary measure because of the significant and possibly irreversible consequences for children's health. We know that the overly prevalent use of antibiotics in farm animals is a contributing factor in the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria - a major public health threat because this resistance can spread from animals to humans. On organic farms, the preventive use of antibiotics is restricted.
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Each summary is created using a consistent editorial procedure. The target length is approximately 16 lines of 11-point Arial text in a 650-pixel-wide column. Up to 25% of a summary may be set in bold to emphasize the most important ideas. Summaries are composed of verbatim excerpts presented in the same sequence as they appear in the original news source, with very minor editorial additions. Where material has been omitted between excerpts, the omission is indicated with ellipses (...). Any words added by an editor for clarity or context appear in [brackets]. Our original news editor was Fred Burks. Tod Fletcher edited most summaries from 2007 through 2014, and Mark Bailey has served as news editor since 2014.