Canadians Against Pesticides - ABOUT CAPS
Cheap Web Hosting | Free Web Hosting | Dedicated Servers | Windows Hosting | Free Web Space | Trade Show Displays | GoDaddy Coupon Codes | FrontPage Hosting | Business Hosting
Mesothelioma Symptoms Is Your Home Toxic?
Learn About Mesothelioma Types Find Out How Cleaning Products
Get Local Advice In Your Area. Are Poisoning Your Family – Free
AroundMe.com Report
www.NoToxicChemicals.com
Search the Web
BAN PESTICIDES IN YOUR AREA!
JOIN A GROUP NEAR YOU
PESTICIDES
& CHILDREN'S HEALTH
ORGANIC LANDSCAPERS
About Us Message Health The Ban Solutions News
Law’n Order
With growing evidence of the dangers of pesticides, and a largely ineffective
regulation regime, a grassroots movement has taken up the cause against the
non-essential use of agriculture chemicals.
ALISON DYER
FRELANCE WRITER
Tragic circumstances prompted Sarah Dredge Cross of Corner Brook to get
involved with the banning of non-essential pesticides in her community. Her
grandson, who died of leukemia, worked directly with pesticides with a lawn
maintenance company. "He’d come home with his socks soaking wet with
them," she recalls. "He was never given protective gear to wear."
Although she has no proof, she adamantly believes that the pesticides were
absorbed into his bloodstream and were the cause of his death.
Three years ago George Thorne got a nasty shock that made him change his
behaviour. He had just applied a common herbicide to his Corner Brook lawn
when he noticed his then seven-year-old granddaughter was playing nearby.
Soon after taking her off the lawn, "she developed a rash, her eyes were watery
and she was breathing hard," recalls Thorne.
In neighbourhoods across Canada people and their pets
are getting sick and are pointing to the over-exposure to
pesticides as the culprit.
Her symptoms eventually subsided, but for Thorne the evidence was there. "Like
tobacco, I have no proof," he says, "but there’s too much of a correlation for it
not to be." "I gave up using pesticides after that." Although Thorne admits he
doesn’t know a lot about gardening, he tore up some of his sods and planted
shrubs, trees and flowers and now maintains them organically.
In neighbourhoods across Canada people and their pets are getting sick and are
pointing to the over-exposure to pesticides as the culprit.
At least 50 million kilos of pesticides are applied each year in Canada. A large
portion are sprayed on agricultural crops for pests and for cosmetic reasons
(such as producing blemish-free apples). Still, Canadians apply hundreds of
thousands of kilos of pesticides annually to their lawns.
"It’s a growth industry," says Julia Langer, director of Wildlife Toxicology with
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), citing industry data on home and garden
pesticides.
So why do we drench our lawns with pesticides? Perhaps the reasons are
several: the quest for a perfect green lawn, the belief that these products are safe,
and a lack of information on alternatives.
What are pesticides? They are poisons designed to kills weeds (herbicides),
insects (insecticides), and fungus or mould (fungicides). One problem with these
chemicals is that only a small percentage reaches the target. The rest gets into
our streams, rain, even our drinking water. And when one lawn is sprayed, aerial
drift can contaminate at least 40 others in the neighbourhood.
"Once a pesticide is registered - perhaps decades ago -
there’s no regular process to re-evaluate or de-register
it," says Langer, who claims that our regulatory system
has not kept up with all the 6,000 plus pesticide products.
"There’s a growing number of scientific studies showing the risks of pesticides,"
says Langer. Pesticides have been linked to leukemia, breast cancer, brain
cancer, non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma, birth defects, learning disabilities, asthma,
liver and kidney dysfunctions and other ailments, in humans and their pets.
More recently, disturbing information has emerged on the ability of some
pesticides to mimic hormones in people and wildlife. In other words, they can
disrupt reproductive and immune systems.
Children - because of their smaller size, developing systems and behaviour (such
as playing on the ground and putting things in their mouths) - are particularly
vulnerable to the effects of pesticides. A National Cancer Institute study in the
U.S. says that children whose parents use pesticides in their homes and gardens
are six times more likely to get leukemia.
Even family pets are not immune. "Dogs from homes with lawns that have been
sprayed with pesticides have a higher than average rate of the canine equivalent
of lymphoma. Cancer is now the No.1 cause of death in dogs," notes the Sierra
Club of Canada website.
Pesticides in Canada are registered under the federal Pest Control Products Act
(PCPA). Many organizations, including WWF, are calling for pesticide reform.
They point to the 30-year-old act, claiming is out of sync with the significant
changes that have occurred in the scientific understanding of pesticides and their
effects on health.
"Once a pesticide is registered - perhaps decades ago - there’s no regular process
to re-evaluate or de-register it," says Langer, who claims that our regulatory
http://www.caps.20m.com/lawnorder.htm
Page 1 of 2
Chemical Supplier
Specialty & performance chemicals
Engineering plastics & polymers
www.mitsuichemicals.com
A GROWING LIST!
www.caps.20m.com
Canadians Against Pesticides
Mission Email Us DEMAND A BAN - CLICK HERE TO EMAIL THE PM
Chemical Supplier
Pesticides have been linked to leukemia, breast cancer, Specialty &
brain cancer, non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma, birth defects, performance
learning disabilities, asthma, liver and kidney chemicals Engineering
dysfunctions and other ailments, in humans and their plastics & polymers
www.mitsuichemicals.com
pets.
"Testing is very inadequate in my understanding. For one, testing is done one
Salt Damaged Grass
chemical at a time and doesn’t take into account the synergistic effects," she says
referring to combined exposures that can magnify the toxic effect. Fix lawns damaged by
salt Natural, Easy to
In fact, a study released just last month demonstrated that combinations of toxicuse, Free Shipping
www.natraturf.com
pesticides are far more damaging than any single one acting on its own.
Stahlbrand also questions the testing methods with regards to hormone- Asbestos Exposure
mimicking pesticides, saying that "the effects on our bodies may not show up Cancer
until later in life or in the next generation, so how do you test for that?"
Get Asbestos
Commercial pesticide application and signage is under provincial jurisdiction.
Exposure Cancer Info
More stringent signage requirements now include the pesticide name and a
government contact. Access 10 Search
Engines At Once.
www.Info.com/AsbestosExposur
"We’re very restricted at present," admits the PMRA’s
Somers about the agency’s inability to divulge Is Your Home
Toxic?
information on pesticide ingredients and relevant studies
Find Out How Cleaning
that reveal adverse effects. "It’s confidential...we require Products Are Poisoning
the registrant’s approval..." Your Family – Free
Report
So, armed with this information, can a homeowner find detailed information www.NoToxicChemicals.com
about pesticides applied to their, or to a neighbour’s lawn?
Chemical Pesticides
The pickings are slim from our provincial regulators. According to the PollutionConfused by
Prevention Division’s Web site, two common pesticides known by the trade Pesticides? Learn How
names Roundup and Ambush are "very safe to humans". But recent studies haveto Protect Your Lawn
shown the former to be linked to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the latter is Now!
considered to have hormone-disrupting effects. This lack of data on pesticides PestControl.LumaGardening.com
may mirror a problem at the federal level.
"We’re very restricted at present," admits the PMRA’s Somers about the
agency’s inability to divulge information on pesticide ingredients and relevant
studies that reveal adverse effects. "It’s confidential...we require the registrant’s
approval to give out information about their products."
According to Stahlbrand, frustration with the federal regulation process - from
the lack of a regular pesticide review process to a lack of access to information -
has forced people to turn increasingly to their municipal governments.
About 75 municipalities across Canada now have bylaws, or draft bylaws
dealing with the cosmetic use of pesticides on public and/or private property.
A proposed bylaw to phase out lawn and garden chemicals over a four-year
period in Halifax could make that city a model for other concerned Canadian
communities.
"Many have come to the issue because they have developed environmental
illnesses, or their child [has become ill], or their pet died and they believe it to be
a result of pesticide poisoning," says Stahlbrand.
Certainly that goes for Dredge Cross and Thorne who volunteer with the
Community Free of Pesticides Committee. Lobbying by this local organization
got the City of Corner Brook to change its policy on pesticide use.
"It’s not in written policy - not a ban. Rather than indiscriminately using
pesticides, we stay away from them," says Gerry Cole, Corner Brook’s
recreation liaison. "I’ve been working closely with the environmental group here
to get alternatives...we’re working on changing attitudes not policy."
Cole says that this will be the third year his department - responsible for open
spaces, parks, sports fields - will not be using chemical pesticides.
"To fill the environment with chemicals just for an aesthetic, because we don’t
like something, in my mind is just not an option," says Cole.
A similar trend is happening in St. John’s.
"At one time we’d spray to control weeds on sports fields. Now we tolerate
them," says Jim Clarke of the city’s Public Works. "It’s a risk management,
liability issue. How do you stop young kids and pets from getting in (on sprayed
areas)? It’s not worth the risk."
"There’s been no hue and cry. A few weeds don’t hurt the sports fields."
A battle cry has been sounded from a growing crop of national health and
environmental organizations calling for a moratorium on the cosmetic use of
pesticides.
"There’s enough of a concern that we should take some precautionary action,"
says WWF’s Julia Langer. "Science never gives an answer, but information.
There is enough evidence here that we should do something about it - especially
01/03/2010
Canadians Against Pesticides - ABOUT CAPS Page 2 of 2

system has not kept up with all the 6,000 plus pesticide products. because we can do something about it."

"We require a very comprehensive data package for any product proposed for SIDEBAR: Points on Pesticides
registration," contends Dr. Diana Somers, Acting Director, Health Evaluations
Division with Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), the branch of The following is a short list of common lawn pesticides and some the adverse
Health Canada that administers PCPA. health effects linked to their use:

Mary Mitchell, of PMRA’s Occupational and Bystander Exposure Section, says
that special risks to children, for example, are noted in the pesticide evaluation.
"We consider their exposure for all possible sources and all routes," she says.
That doesn’t convince people like Lori Stahlbrand, WWF’s Pesticide Reduction
Outreach Coordinator.
Herbicides:
2,4-D: This widely used herbicide, and one of the components of the defoliant
Agent Orange used in Vietnam, has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
(NHL), a group of cancers that is rapidly increasing in the industrialized world.
It has the potential to harm human fertility, reproduction and the development of
offspring and is a probable human carcinogen. Damage to the nervous system
may be irreversible when 2,4-D is absorbed through the skin. Existing medical
conditions such as asthma may be aggravated. Available in about 1,500 lawn-
care products in Canada, 2,4-D is banned in Sweden.

Glyphosate: Sold under the trade name Roundup, new studies link this chemical
to NHL, as well as gene mutations and chromosomal aberrations.

Insecticides:

Chlorpyrifos (Dursban) and diazinon: These are organophosphates, a type of

insecticide that affects the central nervous system. Chlorpyrifos has been linked
to brain cancers in children. Diazinon (such as Bug-B-Gon) is particularly toxic
to unborn children and infants.

Sources: Rachel’s Environment & Health Weekly, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture -

Forest Service, Sierra Club of Canada, Cornell University Cooperative
Extension Offices, and Toronto Environmental Alliance.

Freelance writer Alison Dyer lives in St. John’s

Finest Organic Fertilizer Lawn Sprinklers/Lawn Care Stage 4 Cancer Treatment

Natural and sustainable soil and Sprinkler Systems Sales and Increases Quality of Life in stage IV
animal care products from Fertrell. Service Complete Lawn Care Cancer Patients. 1-888-500-4673
www.FreshStartGrowers.com Services www.OasisOfHope.com
globalorganicsolutions.ca/

http://www.caps.20m.com/lawnorder.htm 01/03/2010