Professor advises not to play soccer after Btk spraying

Aerial Spraying Health risk cited - Professor calls for closure of soccer fields hit by Btk

As the second round of aerial spraying began over Burnaby on Monday morning, opposition to the controversial program continued to mount.

A letter from a retired genetics professor is trying to convince parents and sport officials to stop their children from playing soccer on the dozens of city-owned fields in the spray zone.

However, it appears his concern is having little effect on the parents of thousands of young soccer players in Burnaby.

Spokespeople for two of the largest youth soccer groups in the city either do not share the concern about possible ill health effects from the spray or they don't know who to believe.

"I'm in the same position most people are in - what side do you take? The government says there's nothing wrong with the spray and the environmentalists say there is," said Frank Palmieri, president of the Burnaby District Youth Soccer Association, who represents more than 4,000 youth soccer players between the ages of five and 18.

Since the spraying started, none of the parents in his association have raised concerns about the presence of Foray 48B, which contains the controversial active ingredient Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki, Palmieri said Monday morning.

That lack of concern is shared by a spokesperson for the BC Soccer Association who doesn't want to get involved in the debate. The spokesperson, who refused to give her name, said the association has no opinion on the safety of the spray, leaving any decision on using the fields to the city parks and recreation commission and the referee responsible for each individual game.

But the author of the letter in question, Dr. Joe Cummins, professor emeritus of genetics at the University of Western Ontario, truly believes that Btk poses a health risk, particularly for anyone who has an open sore when playing on a sprayed field.

In his letter, Cummins urges the "Burnaby Soccer Association" to keep children off the playing fields around Burnaby Lake for "several months" after the spraying, which is scheduled to continue until June 1.

If adopted, that recommendation would result in virtually no soccer in Burnaby for the entire summer.

"...this product is far from perfectly safe, and may eventually reveal itself as a toxic cocktail responsible for far-reaching consequences," says the letter.

"My suggestion to you, based on my particular area of expertise (Advanced genetics and environmental toxicology), is that you make every possible effort to relocate the games to fields where your children will not be constantly exposed to active Btk."

In a phone interview from Ontario, Cummins said his concerns have built up after 10 years of research on Btk that indicate the bacteria may aggravate allergies, fester in infected open wounds and cause respiratory problems in some people.

Although Cummins believes Btk is safe in relatively small doses, he does not support the wholesale aerial spraying of large areas - particularly the Burnaby Lake playing fields where the moths normally do not live.

Cummins claims his evidence comes from a Cuban study on the use of Btk in the war regions of Yugoslavia where a live Btk culture was taken from a person with an open wound and then was introduced to a mouse which then suffered toxic shock syndrome.

"I'm not in principle against the use of Btk as long as it's done rationally," he said. "If they go ahead and do spot spraying it would be satisfactory, but it's unconscionable to injure people and tell them the injury is acceptable. To me, that is very frightening."

But Tim Ebata, a spokesperson for the BC ministry of forests, the government agency responsible for the Burnaby Lake aerial spray program, believes Cummins is simply trying to whip up hysteria in the community.

"Well, basically he's incorrect," Ebata said from Victoria Monday afternoon. "I don't know where he gets his information and in our opinion he's fear-mongering."

Ebata said the cultured Btk taken from the soldier in Bosnia was identified in a French study to be a completely different variety of Bt that just happened to have the same last initial as the kurstaki form being used in the Burnaby spray program.

"This is not an opportunistic parasite as what he's describing. There really is no evidence linking Btk with any human disease. The literature does not support what Dr. Cummins is saying and that is after 30 years of use of the product."

Ebata believes the lone case of Btk causing a problem was with a farmer who splashed a concentrated form of the product onto his eye, which in turn developed a corneal ulcer.

Even in that case, Btk was only found to have been in the eye and may not have necessarily have caused the problem.

The buzz of airplanes was heard over the Burnaby Lake spray zone Monday and Tuesday mornings as the ministry of forests completed its second planned aerial spray of Foray 48B.

Ebata said there was a slight miscalculation on the amount of product needed Monday, forcing the planes to return to the sky on Tuesday. The ministry can spray four litres of Foray 48B per hectare in the 279-hectare area up to four times by June 1.

The third spraying will commence in seven to 10 days. A fourth spray will only be done if one of the previous applications doesn't stick.

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