HYDERABAD, Feb 21: Prof Mushtaq A. Memon of Washington State University said on Wednesday that a study had showed that pesticides could harm not only the people who were directly exposed to this environmental toxin but also their offspring.

The study conducted by him and his colleagues at the university had showed that the harmful effects of one generation's exposure to toxic chemicals could be passed down to future generations by changing the way an organism's genes functioned.

He said while delivering a lecture at a seminar organised under the research exchange programme of Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) and Washington State University at the university campus that the frequency of epigenetic effects was often several times more likely than the incidence of DNA mutations.

When pesticides were injected into the abdomens of pregnant mice during the period of a fetus sex determination, a significant percentage of male offspring exhibited increases in sperm cell death and decreases in sperm number, he explained.

He said that it should be noted that pesticide exposure had also been implicated as a possible mediator of decreases in human sperm count, he said and added that interestingly, when the male offspring from pesticide-treated mother mouse were bred to female offspring of pesticide-treated and non-pesticide-treated mothers, their male offspring also showed statistically significant changes in sperm function.

This pattern, he said, continued through four generations of male mice and it was also determined that this effect was passed on through generations by males (brothers and fathers) only.

The SAU Vice-Chancellor Dr. Bashir Ahmed Shaikh praised Prof Mushtaq’s work and said that it had revealed a new mechanism for inheritance of traits, a novel mechanism much faster than DNA mutation alone.

He said that it the main reason why there was a growing trend among pregnant women to switch to an all-organic pesticide-free diet while carrying their children.

He said that the organic agriculture had a great future and advised SAU scientists to embark upon this novel research project to address the growing medical problem and find out opportunities for biological control of pests.

BISE: The controller of examinations of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Hyderabad on Wednesday announced that the last date for submission of examination forms for SSC Part-I (class-IX) annual examinations 2007 was March 13, 2007.