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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Pesticides too harmful to use in any form, doctors warn
  • Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 10:34:53 -0600

>From Huron County Federation of Agriculture (HCFA) and the Globe and Mail
http://www.hcfa.on.ca/cached.asp?id=4151
Pesticides too harmful to use in any form, doctors warn
By ALANNA MITCHELL
>From Saturday's Globe and Mail
UPDATED AT 1:25 AM EDT Saturday, Apr. 24, 2004


The link between common household pesticides and fetal defects,
neurological damage and the most deadly cancers is strong enough that
family doctors in Ontario are urging citizens to avoid the chemicals in
any form.


The frightening message came yesterday when the Ontario College of
Family Physicians released the most comprehensive study ever done in
Canada on the chronic effects of pesticide exposure at home, in the
garden and at work.


"The review found consistent evidence of the health risks to patients
with exposure to pesticides," the study said, naming brain cancer,
prostate cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and leukemia among
many other acute illnesses.


As well, the college found consistent links between parents' exposure to
certain agricultural pesticides at their jobs and effects on a growing
fetus ranging from damage to death. The risks, they concluded, can come
even from residue on food, ant spray and the tick collar on the family
cat.


The researchers also found that children are far more vulnerable to the
effects of pesticides than adults because their bodies are growing, they
have a greater skin surface in proportion to their size than adults,
they ingest more food for their size than adults and they often have
less-developed systems to excrete chemicals.


Not only that, but after examining 12,000 studies conducted from 1990 to
2003 around the world, and winnowing that down to the most sound 250,
the researchers said there is no evidence that some pesticides are less
dangerous than others, just that they have different effects on health
that take different periods to show up.


They said they are preparing brochures for patients and education
material for family doctors to fill them in on the findings.


However, Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLifeÖ Canada, a trade
association representing the large multinational companies that
manufacture pesticides, said he questioned whether the college, a
voluntary, not-for-profit association, really had the public's interest
at heart in releasing the data:


"Pesticides used properly constitute no unacceptable risk to people's
health or to the environment."


He added that pesticides are highly regulated in Canada by federal
health staff and must go through a raft of tests, including some on
animals to see if the products cause cancer, before they are approved
for use.


Not only that, but the federal laws governing pesticides were tightened
two years ago to make them protect children better and match more
closely the tougher standards in the United States and in other
countries, he said.


He pointed out that other studies have shown that pesticide use also
provides a safe and abundant source of fruits and vegetables in Canada,
and that consuming these can cut cancer risks.


Chris Krepski, a spokesman for the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, an
arm of Health Canada, added that a pesticide cannot be registered for
use in Canada if it has the potential to cause birth defects.


"As long as they are used according to the label directions, they can be
used safely," he said.


The massive scientific literature review comes as many cities across
Canada are trying to ban the use of pesticides to make gardens and lawns
pest-free and as efforts increase to get rid of mosquito larvae before
West Nile season.


Toronto's law came into effect this month complete with posters showing
a dandelion and the caption: "Relax. It's just a weed."


Quebec has already banned the most common lawn and garden pesticides
across the province starting next year.


More than 66 communities have also moved to adopt bylaws that would
limit pesticides, said Katrina Miller of the Toronto Environmental
Alliance, a group seeking a reduction in the use of pesticides.


The Canadian Cancer Society, the Learning Disabilities Association of
Canada, the Registered Nurses Association of Canada and the Ontario
Public Health Association have called for the bans as well.


Cathy Vakil, of the Family Medicine Centre at Queen's University in
Kingston and one of the authors of the report, noted that alternatives
to pesticides are available in most cases and should be considered
because the profoundly negative effects of some chemicals can be passed
down through generations.


"People need to think long and hard if they want to take that risk for
themselves, their children and their grandchildren for the sake of a
golf-green lawn," she said.


She also noted that the pesticides used in Toronto's 200,000 storm
sewers to kill mosquito larvae emit a product as they break down that is
a retinoid, a family of chemicals known to cause limb deformities in
fetuses.


That chemical then washes into Lake Ontario and in turn into the
drinking water of the Greater Toronto Area.


However, Lorraine Van Haastrecht, spokeswoman for a lobby group
representing companies that treat 100,000 lawns in Toronto, said Canada
needs "healthy green spaces."


"What we see is parks reduced to massive weed infestations," she said.


And Gavin Dawson, technical manager of Greenspace Services, the largest
company in Canada to treat lawns, said that while his company offers
pesticide-free service, only about 10 per cent of customers want that.
The rest want pesticides.


© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
======================
>From or Forwarded by: Chrys Ostrander
Chrysalis Farm at Tolstoy
Grower of Organic Produce and Botanicals
33495 Mill Canyon Rd.
Davenport, WA 99122
Phone: (509) 725-0610
"The purpose of agriculture is not the production of food, but the
perfection of human beings" Masanobu Fukuoka - "One Straw Revolution"





  • [Livingontheland] Pesticides too harmful to use in any form, doctors warn, Tradingpost, 05/11/2004

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