Comment on: Cancer Division Accused Of Hiding Dangers Of Cosmetic Pesticides
Click Here to Add CommentSubject: Comment on: Cancer Division Accused Of Hiding Dangers Of Cosmetic Pesticides
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:07:49 -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 dated: Sat 27 Apr 2002 from The Guardian (Charlottetown) - The Province A2 by Doug Gallant and Ron Ryder entitled: Cancer division accused of hiding dangers of cosmetic pesticides.
Sharon Labchuk of Earth Action says provincial Cancer Society localized national press release to omit all references to a new policy calling for ban on cosmetic pesticide use.
Earth Action has accused the P.E.I. division of the Canadian Cancer Society of concealing information from Islanders on the dangers of exposure to cosmetic pesticides.
Sharon Labchuk, a pesticide campaigner with that environmental group, says provincial cancer officials altered a media release from their national office to omit all references to a new policy calling for a ban on cosmetic pesticides.
Labchuk calls the editing of the national release shameful and is suggesting those responsible should resign.
But the executive director of the local division says the omission doesn't mean they have broken with their national body's stance on pesticides.
The original release from the national office was issued in March. The release Labchuk charges was altered was released in early April.
"What was going on in the minds of these people at the P.E.I. Cancer Society that they would try to avoid all association with a policy their organization has adopted and which, as a provincial chapter, they are obligated to support? But more importantly why would they deliberately withhold this information when it would most certainly encourage some people to avoid exposing themselves, their children and their neighbours to cancer-causing lawn and garden pesticides this summer?"
The paragraph included in the national release but excluded from the provincial release quotes Julie White, chief executive officer, Canadian Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute of Canada, as calling for ban on the use of "cosmetic" pesticides on lawns and gardens.
"There is compelling evidence that some commonly used pesticides cause cancer. We are very concerned about the environment. People should not be exposed to known carcinogens," White says in part of the edited section.
Vicki Francis, executive director of the P.E.I. Division of the Canadian Cancer Society, said they left out the pesticide-related statements because at the time of the press release their office wasn't well-enough briefed to talk about the cosmetic pesticide issue. The main thrust of the press release was to promote the society's April fundraising campaign.
"We localized the national press release to include the names of some local officers and we decided to leave out the material about pesticides," Francis said.
"At the time we sent out the release, the pesticide policy was in place but I didn't have enough background on it."
Francis said the P.E.I. division is onside with the Canadian Cancer Society as a whole in calling for the elimination of cosmetic pesticides.
"We support the national position on the ornamental use of pesticides," she said.
"I would have thought environmental groups would be pleased."
Labchuk says the public has come to accept that government and industry conceal and manipulate information on a regular basis but says it is "scandalous" for a registered charity, supposedly in the business of preventing cancer, to keep this information from the public.
She said Earth Action approached the P.E.I. Cancer Society in the past for support in its campaign against these pesticides but society officials refused.
"This makes us wonder what connections this organization has with both the agriculture industry and a provincial government that bends over backwards to support the potato industry.
The agriculture industry has always feared that banning cosmetic pesticides is only the thin edge of the wedge, and that agricultural pesticides could be next."
Well Mr. Helliker, Judging from the various articles in my pest control magazines the POISON industry is going to fight to "protect" their continuing use/misuse of your "registered" cosmetic POISONS. Where do you and your department stand on cosmetic pest "control", and how will you now deal with Fairfax?
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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