Pesticide regulations come under fire
Subject: Pesticide regulations come under fire
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 09:50:56 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read an article from The Globe and Mail entitled: Pesticide regulations come under fire - Chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects prohibited elsewhere, wildlife fund charges By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT, ENVIRONMENT REPORTER.
Dozens of pesticides banned by countries that consider them dangerous are legal in Canada, says the World Wildlife Fund, one of the country's largest environmental groups.
The pesticides have been pulled from the market elsewhere because research indicates, among other things, that they cause cancer and birth defects and are excessively toxic to wildlife.
The fund is concerned that its finding shows Canada's oversight of weed, bug and fungus killers is far too lax, a claim disputed by the federal agency that registers the products.
"Canadians and wildlife are definitely being exposed to pesticides regularly, including some pesticides that are considered too risky to have on the market in other countries," said Julia Langer, the wildlife fund's director of international programs.
The fund drafted a list of 60 pesticides that it believes are banned elsewhere, typically jurisdictions in Northern Europe such as Sweden, Denmark and Germany, and somewhat surprisingly, in many developing countries, such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where often it is assumed the rules are less rigorous.
Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency, or PMRA, the federal watchdog agency, was given the list. It confirmed that 59 of the items are legal for use.
But PMRA officials believe that Canadians are not at risk and they vigorously disputed claims of weak oversight of agricultural and lawn chemicals, in part because the United States has banned only six of the chemicals on the list.
"They're really a better comparison of whether people have to be worried or not than Denmark or Sri Lanka or Sweden," said Joan Butcher, a PMRA spokeswoman.
But some of the examples the agency cited of its aggressive regulatory action are less stringent than steps taken in other countries.
Ms. Butcher heralded the agency's restrictions on the herbicide dinoseb. The last legal use for the pesticide -- for killing black nightshade weeds on B.C.'s pea crop -- will end on Dec. 31. The government has progressively reduced the use of dinoseb since 1990.
By contrast, Sweden ended use of dinoseb in 1979, the United States in 1987. Many other developed and developing countries have banned it over concerns of birth defects, toxicity hazards and the danger to farmers who spray it.
The head of the PMRA section that evaluates pesticides in light of new evidence also contends the agency is doing a good job and lashed out at the WWF. Janet Taylor called the list "misleading" and "almost like mischief. It's so easy to throw them together and get people all disturbed about it."
She said the agency takes strong action whenever assessments show that chemicals pose unacceptably high risks. "We have looked at a lot of these chemicals in certain situations. We have adjusted the uses. We have mitigated the risks and we continue to do that through the re-evaluation program."
However, the re-evaluation seems to be going slowly, according to information provided by Ms. Taylor. She said the agency is reviewing the licences of the 406 pesticides registered before 1995, adding that the agency as a "target" completion date of 2006.
Canada allows about 500 pesticides, about three times the number by European countries such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark.
The federal environment commissioner criticized the pest agency in 1999, saying that chemicals in Canada are rarely re-evaluated, even though the government had been alerted to this need 13 years earlier. Nearly a third of the chemicals used in Canada were approved before 1960, when standards and research were far less stringent.
Source url: http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&date=20011020&dateOffset=&hub=environment&title=Environment&cache_key=environment¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1 --
Well Mr. Helliker, even though scientific research indicates, among other things, that your "registered" POISONS cause cancer and birth defects and are excessively toxic to wildlife, why do you Still demand they are the only "legal" way to "control" pest problems? Especially when all of them combined, including all of your banned and "voluntarily withdraw" POISONS have never eliminated even one pest species but, have created over 500 resistant pest species?
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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