How Pesticides Can Hurt Us
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How Pesticides Can Hurt Us
Date:
Thu, 5 Dec 08:33:35 -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
The PEN http://perc.ca
Peace and Environment News - Volume 17. #9 November 2002
How Pesticides Can Hurt Us by Jacquie Johnson
Eight-year-old Alison Nolan-Leemmg often can't do her homework because she can't think properly She is often depressed and angry and experiences hand tremors and even convulsions and hallucinations When she rides her bike outside, she often feels so ill that she climbs off it, lies down on the grass, and has to be earned home During the summer months Alison and her mother, Linda, leave town often to get away from their home.
"We have a very safe home," says Linda "But we live in a very dangerous neighbourhood." Despite the fact that Alison and her mother have repeatedly hand-delivered letters describing how sick they feel, their neighbours still spray dangerous chemicals on their lawns every spring and summer.
Alison and Linda are among the estimated 15 per cent of Canadians with chemical sensitivities. Whereas the average person may notice a woman's perfume, for example, because of its strong smell, a chemically sensitive person may experience symptoms similar to an allergic reaction within minutes of exposure. According to doctors, the numbers of people with this sensitivity will only increase as time passes, unless something is done to reduce the presence of chemicals in our lives.
According to Dr John Molot from the Ontario College of Family Physicians, prolonged exposure to chemicals decreases the levels required to provoke a reaction And chemicals, points out Angela Rickman, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, are impossible to avoid If you eat vegetables, drink milk, breathe air, go swimming, you are exposed dozens of times each day.
Despite this, the pesticide industry is regulated according to the assumption of one exposure per person per day The regulations also assume that pesticides are applied to lawns exactly according to instructions, despite the fact that in 2001, 70 per cent of licensed applicators failed government inspections of their ability to follow application instructions Regulations don't take into account the greater sensitivity and frequency of exposure of children.
Also, only "active" ingredients (those that kill weeds, bugs, etc ) and a very few exceptionally toxic substances, such as formaldehyde, must appear on pesticide labels The approximately 479 "inert" ingredients currently in use in Canada do not have to appear on labels, and, because they are considered "business secrets," they cannot be shared between Health Canada (who collects the information) and other government departments, including Environment Canada.
This laxity of regulation is disturbing considering the dozens of ailments that have been attributed to pesticide exposure, including various cancers, childhood leukemia, hormone disruption (pesticides mimic and/or block estrogen receptors), neurological and cognitive disorders, immune system suppression, development of new allergies, chronic fatigue, reproductive and developmental defects, multiple chemical sensitivity, and, in the elderly, Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, prostate cancer, Parkinson's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease.
Many of these ailments are caused by chronic, long-term exposure, which is largely ignored by the research conducted by the pesticide manufacturers. As Molot explains to his patients, most of whom are women, "I can threaten to kill you or I can marry you and do it to you slowly." Either way, you die eventually.
Unfortunately, the current evidence against pesticide use will not stand up in court yet. But, points out Molot, neither did the link between cigarettes and cancer forty years ago. We aren't even close to understanding all the effects of exposure to chemicals right now, says Rickman And until we are, doesn't it make common sense to reduce our exposure as much as possible?
"We are the canaries," says Linda "We feel like lab rats " It's about time we got out of the mine.
For published articles describing the health effects of pesticides, check out the National Library of Medicine at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed
If you support the proposed by-law to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides in Ottawa, contact your local councillor before the December 18 decision at City Council.
Jacquie Johnson is interested in a clean environment.
If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us at list@safe2use.com.