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Endless rows of lettuce, celery and broccoli, covered by silver plastic sheets, surround the Natividad Medical Center, a community clinic located in the heart of this agricultural town, often called the salad bowl of America.

At about 10:30 a.m., Salinas Valley resident Marie, a Mexican-American farm worker who didn’t want to give her real name because she is participating in a research study, troops into one of the center’s research labs housed in an old trailer with her two children.

She has brought her 5-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter in for their routine blood and urine sampling. The research station is littered with toys, kids DVDs and various puzzles and activities. While her daughter grabs some crayons and a coloring book, Helen Aguirre, a research worker, gently prods Marie’s son onto a scale to record his weight.

Marie’s children are among 300 from Salinas participating in a groundbreaking study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that tracks the health of children whose mothers were exposed to pesticides while pregnant. The 12-year study is being carried out by the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), a collaboration between UC Berkeley, the Natividad Medical Center, Clinica de Salud Del Valle de Salinas and other community organizations.