Canada:  WHY WE NEED TO PUT A MORATORIUM ON THE USE OF PESTICIDES FOR COSMETIC AND OTHER UNNECESSARY PURPOSES  

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Subject:    Canadian Call For Pesticide Moratorium Vs. Your Demand Only Pesticide Poisons Be Used
Date:       Fri, 07 Jul 2000 08:34:04 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Lyndon Hawkins <hawkins@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>
          Senior Research Scientist
          State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation - Integrated Pest Management

Dear Lyndon, I thought you might like to visit a phenomenal web site and read about the following document Peter Wray, the EISC Webmaster just put up on the EISC  site.  "Pesticides Their Multigenerational Cumulative Destructive Impact On Health Especially On The Physical, Emotional And Mental Development Of Children And Of Future Generations Canadian Government Responsibilities And Opportunities".  Submission to The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development  February, 2000 - http://www.eisc.ca/pesticide_moratorium.html

PESTICIDES THEIR MULTIGENERATIONAL CUMULATIVE DESTRUCTIVE IMPACT ON HEALTH ESPECIALLY ON THE  PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN AND OF FUTURE GENERATIONS - CANADIAN GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITIES  AND OPPORTUNITIES

Submission to The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development - February, 2000

WHY WE NEED TO PUT A MORATORIUM ON THE USE OF PESTICIDES FOR COSMETIC AND OTHER UNNECESSARY PURPOSES

Recent research indicates that:

• Nowadays pesticides and other unnatural chemicals are detected in the body tissues of all people tested.

• Once released into the environment, the spread of pesticides and other chemicals cannot be controlled; traces of insecticides used in tropical areas have been detected in Arctic trees.

• Our children are born with a deposit of pesticides and other foreign chemicals in their bodies, caused by a shift of maternal pesticide “body burden” through the placenta; after birth, children “inherit” further load through breastfeeding.

• Pesticides have a cumulative multigenerational destructive impact on human health, especially behaviour.  Pesticides are a serious threat to the physical, emotional and mental development of children and future generations.

• We risk the continued existence of humanity as we know it, if we continue the indiscriminate use of pesticides.

Well Lyndon, I have only given you a small part of this document that calls for a moratorium an your "registered" POISONS.  If you want more click on the url and read.

Let us now compare some facts from the Journal of Pesticide Reform - Summer 2000.

Although California is home to less than 3 percent of the nation's cropland, 25 percent of national pesticide use occurs in California.  Between 1991 and 1998, reported annual pesticide use in California increased from 153 million pounds to 215 million pounds, an average of 6.6 pounds per California.  The national average is 3.1 pounds per person, less than half that amount.  Approximately one-third of the pesticides applied each year in California are what CPR and PANNA call "bad actors": pesticides that are acutely toxic, carcinogenic, toxic to the nervous system, reproductive or developmental toxicants, or groundwater contaminants.

The statistics above are based on reported use of only the active pesticide ingredients. The actual total of pesticide poisons released into California's environment is much higher.

Let us now look at how much contamination is caused by just one of your "registered" POISONS:  In California, Castro Valley Creek in Alameda County was contaminated with diazinon during all 22 storms sampled.  In three creeks in Palo Alto (Adobe, Barron and Matadero) diazinon was found in all samples tested and in a fourth creek (San Francisquito) diazinon was found in three out of four samples.  In Modesto, diazinon contaminated all stormwater samples collected from five different sites.  In Sacramento, diazinon was found in all samples tested over a two and a half year period.

A new NCAP report, Unthinkable Risk, provides a comprehensive and well-documented look at the specific topic of how children are harmed by "registered" pesticide exposures in school settings.

The 50-page report reviews government and scientific literature about how pesticides can persist in the indoor and outdoor environment, and the various ways that children can be exposed (e.g., through inhalation, skin absorption or ingestion).  The report also documents nearly 100 actual incidents, and cites additional reviews showing that literally thousands of children and school staff have been sickened by pesticide exposures at schools around the country.  Finally, the report offers a list of recommendations for parents, school districts and government policymakers.

Unthinkable Risk is available in Adobe Portable Document format (PDF) on NCAP's web site at http://www.pesticide.org/UnthinkableRisk.html.  Hard copies are available from NCAP for $7.00 ppd.

Well Lyndon, your demand that only "registered" POISONS be used to "control" pest problems in California has created quite a "legacy".  I think looking at the above many people would rather be a Canadian rather than a Californian.

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