Deadly smoke from burning pressure-treated wood
Subject: Smoke from neighbour's stove 'destroyed' family's health
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 12:51:28 -0500
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 dated:
Deborah Barrie suffers from heavy metal poisoning, and her
family and many of her neighbours also suffer from serious medical conditions.
She is convinced her problems were caused by arsenic-laden smoke drifting across
their
Deborah Barrie has heavy metal poisoning, memory loss and screaming headaches. Her husband, Paul, is fending off cancer. Both have degenerative disease that attacks the bones.
One daughter, April, has damaged lungs and their son, John, was forced out of college by bouts of vomiting and shaking. Only older daughter Tania is healthy. She lived at the present family home for no more than six months.
They are a family convinced they have been medically
wrecked by arsenic-laden smoke drifting across their
They say the toxic smoke came from a neighbour's garage
wood stove in which pressure-treated wood was being burned. This wood,
impregnated with chromium copper arsenate as a preservative, represents a
$750-million industry in
That may be changing. Early in March, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency ordered sales of pressure-treated wood for
residential use to stop by the end of December 2003, a move the Canadian
government and the industry is discussing. Home Depot in
And the City of
It is recognized by the pressure-treated wood industry and the Canadian government that arsenic leaches into the soil from the wood. It is also recognized that when the product burns, the chemicals do not break down, but are carried by the wind in smoke and ash.
"It has been destroying our lives," says Ms. Barrie, who has fought for years to convince people of the origin of her sickness. She has had difficulty proving the arsenic that impregnates pressure-treated wood is responsible.
About half of an arsenic dose is eliminated through urine
in three to five days, according to Dr. Ed Napke, an epidemiologist and the man
who introduced
What remains is stored, along with other heavy metals, in muscle, hair and fingernails. That is why hair samples are often used for detection.
Ms. Barrie consulted Dr. Napke about her illnesses. "There is no doubt she has suffered from arsenic poisoning and other things," he says. "When your immune system is knocked down and you are poisoned, your body becomes more susceptible to other things."
In Ms. Barrie's case, Dr. Napke says it is impossible to prove that arsenic is the culprit and that ash and smoke from burning of the wood is the cause.
Elizabeth Guillette, an American anthropologist and world authority on the effects of pesticides and poisons, knows Ms. Barrie and her case.
"With her, it's circumstantial, just like it is with pesticides. We cannot absolutely prove illness is because of this or that. You cannot take a person and give them long-term exposure to a pesticide or poison to see how they turn out. As a rule, it's done accidentally and that is what happened to Deborah," she said.
"You must trust the weight of evidence and how strong are the correlations," says Ms. Guillette. There is no way to prove arsenic has made Ms. Barrie sick, she says. "But the weight of evidence is so strong."
Warren Bell, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, is so convinced of the cumulative evidence in Ms. Barrie's case that he is prepared to take a public position in her favour.
"The overall documentation was sound. Therefore I took the position we could state our concern about the issue. There is no question (chromium copper arsenate) is toxic.
"The weight of evidence in Deborah's case is there."
In 1989, none of this support was available to Ms. Barrie and her family. There was no cumulative evidence. Even she had absolutely no idea what was wrong. She did not know then that arsenic is the only known human carcinogen currently approved for use as a pesticide.
Looking back, she remembers how her friends and neighbours treated her. "People don't understand what it does to you," she says. "The first reaction is that they think you're crazy. Doctors and health-care professionals misunderstand and assume you are mentally ill.
"Then your neighbours start wondering about you and avoiding you. Then you start losing your friends. Then you start losing your family. We have lost our savings, all our RRSPs, our credit cards are to the limit and my husband's job is threatened because of all the time he has lost being sick or taking care of me.
"Sometimes my kids would go to school and phone home between classes to see if I was still alive. No kid should have to go through that."
Ms. Barrie's husband developed a lump in 1998 that continued to grow until it was surgically removed -- along with the right half of his thyroid. There were two carcinomas in the tumour. Three months later, the left side of his thyroid was removed. Again, cancer was identified. He was 47.
"When we first went to the cancer clinic, the second question they asked was, had he breathed in toxic smoke?" Ms. Barrie says.
In April 1989, when the Barrie family moved into their single-family home on Catherine Street in Smiths Falls, a neighbour came knocking, offering a home-baked pie and a peculiarly prophetic welcome.
"I'm sorry. You are probably going to get sick. Everybody does," the woman said.
For several months, things seemed normal. Ms. Barrie got migraines, but that had been going on for years. The rest of the family appeared healthy.
Things changed in the fall, when April and John developed breathing problems. "Their bedrooms face the back of the house and the windows were open," says Ms. Barrie.
"The doctor said the children had allergies. Then they would go away to a friend's cottage and they would get well."
By the following summer, Mr. Barrie began to get bad headaches and urinary problems. Ms. Barrie's health problems also began to worsen.
"I started losing my memory. I couldn't focus on anything. I used to do income tax for all kinds of people then I couldn't even do my own," she said. "I couldn't think straight. I couldn't read. I kept getting worse and the doctor related it to my depression."
She took to gardening to take her mind off her problems. "That was a very bad idea. When I came inside after working in the garden I would vomit, shake, get the sweats. I didn't realize I was poisoning myself.
"Sometimes I asked doctors to kill me, I was in such horrible pain."
Meanwhile, the children continued to suffer. April
experienced respiratory difficulties. Only when she went to the University of
When John left home to attend
It wasn't until a 1996 incident that Ms. Barrie understood what might be causing her family's trouble. She was gardening that spring day and smoke was drifting across her back garden from the neighbour's wood stove. She inhaled the smoke and her body reacted almost immediately. "The pain was incredible," she said. "It was then that I realized."
Thus began protracted over-the-garden-fence negotiations. Ms. Barrie says she asked her neighbour what he was burning. He told her it was pressure-treated wood scraps and added he had been burning wood for years and did not intend to stop.
"I called the Ministry of the Environment and they asked for his name," she says. "I said no, I want your information on this to take over and show him."
It was not Ms. Barrie's intention to make trouble for her neighbour. When the ministry material arrived, she took it to her neighbour to explain the risks involved in burning pressure-treated wood.
When contacted by the Citizen, the neighbour did not want to discuss any issue related to Ms. Barrie.
Many neighbours gave her the silent treatment, branding her
a troublemaker whose actions could hurt their property values. Ms. Barrie did
not relent. She involved the Ministry of the Environment, her member of
Parliament, the area fire chief, the public health unit and the
When the ministry eventually tested the soil on her property in August 2000, it found levels of arsenic did not exceed provincial guidelines. No cleanup was necessary.
That Christmas, 41/2 years after the fight began, the neighbour installed an oil stove. Pressure-treated wood no longer burns in Ms. Barrie's neighbourhood.
© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id={719C497B-8ECB-467D-9C9E-642C0E474E4B}
Well Mr. Helliker, Dr. Mohammed B. Abou Donia,
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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