Bev -
Do you remember when we used to stand
outside on Rodenberry Rd. and watch the sprayer
come by -- and spray us and the mosquitos with DDT?
Dad
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cheers for Canada!
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
April 23, 2008 Wednesday
Big retailers to pull pesticides off shelves
BYLINE: MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT, ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; PUBLIC HEALTH: WILL B.C. FOLLOW ONTARIO AND
QUEBEC'S BAN?; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 700 words
Home Depot, one of Canada's largest retailers, says it will
voluntarily stop selling traditional pesticides and herbicides by the
end of the year and will replace these products with less
environmentally harmful alternatives.
The move coincided with the announcement yesterday that Ontario will
join Quebec to become the second province to formally ban the
so-called "cosmetic use" of pest control products on residential
lawns, gardens and parks.
Public health advocates who have been lobbying for an end to spraying
to kill weeds and bugs around homes say the twin moves - by the
country's most populous province and by major retailers - hold out a
strong likelihood that Canada has reached a kind of tipping point on
pesticides, and will eventually become a nation of organic gardeners,
at least for residential areas.
"I would say that now that we have Quebec and Ontario, there is huge
pressure on the other provinces," said Gideon Forman, executive
director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the
Environment. "The next obvious one would be British Columbia."
There are also an estimated 140 local communities that have tried to
eliminate pesticide use through municipal bylaw restrictions,
according to a running count by environmentalists, and PEI has also
discussed instituting a ban.
Canadian Tire, the country's largest garden supplier, also said
yesterday it would pull pest control products from its Ontario stores
by the end of the summer, a step it has already taken in Quebec, and
intends to phase out sales elsewhere in the country where they are not
banned.
Retailers say the market is shifting away from these products.
"This is just the next evolution for the Home Depot in terms of always
providing our customers and our consumers with environmentally
friendly products," said Gino DiGioacchino, the company's
vice-president of merchandising.
For much of the past decade, Canada has been the scene of unusual turf
wars occurring almost nowhere else in the world over whether
homeowners should be allowed to spray their lawns - mainly to kill
dandelions for the sake of appearances. The activity had become almost
a right of spring in many areas before it became enmeshed in controversy.
The fight over spraying has pitted environmental and public health
advocates against pesticide manufacturers and lawn care companies, and
also embroiled the federal government.
Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency says home pesticides
"pose no unacceptable health or environmental risks" if label
directions are followed, even though two major provinces now disagree,
along with a number of the country's most influential public health
groups, such as the Canadian Cancer Society.
The PMRA refused to comment yesterday, but it is expected to issue
within days a new assessment vouching for the safety of 2,4-D, one of
the most commonly used lawn herbicides, and the main chemical affected
by the various provincial and municipal bans.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians has also rejected Health
Canada's position, and issued an influential study in 2004 linking
pesticides to such illnesses as leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,
while more recently, other research has associated pesticide exposure
with Parkinson's disease.
"There is no health benefit to these products and there is a lot of
science that shows they are connected with really serious illness,"
Mr. Forman said. "In terms of a cost-benefit analysis, there is zero
health benefit and the potential risk is enormous."
The actions in Canada are also in stark contrast to the United States,
where Home Depot's U.S. parent continues to sell these products
nationally, although it does face some local restrictions.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. food chain was the first retailer to remove the
pesticide products from its garden centres, in 2003, but until
yesterday, no other chains had followed suit.
Canadian Tire says is trying to discourage pesticide use by promoting
gardening and lawn care practices that are less reliant on chemical
sprays.
"We actually have been phasing out" the use of traditional pesticides
and "introducing a lot of eco-friendly options," said Lisa Gibson, a
spokeswoman.
-- jcu <wrote:
Study confirms Parkinson's-pesticides link
Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:47pm EDT
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Results of a family-based, "case-control" study
support a relationship between exposure to pesticides and the development of
Parkinson's disease (PD).
Prior studies have shown that people with Parkinson's disease are over twice
as likely to report being exposed to pesticides as people without the
disease, but few studies have looked at this association in people from the
same family or have assessed associations between specific classes of
pesticides and Parkinson's disease.
In their study of 319 Parkinson's patients and more than 200 unaffected
relatives, Dr. Dana Hancock from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and
colleagues found that the Parkinson's patients were 61 percent more likely
to report direct pesticide application than were healthy relatives.
Both insecticides and herbicides -- most notably organochlorines,
organophosphorus compounds, chlorophenoxy acids/esters, and botanicals --
significantly increased the risk of Parkinson's disease, the researchers
report in the online journal BioMedCentral (BMC) Neurology.
"Further investigation of these specific pesticides and others may lead to
identification of pertinent biological pathways influencing Parkinson's
disease development," the investigators suggest.
It's also worth noting, they say, that "the strongest associations between
Parkinson's disease and pesticides were obtained in families with no history
of Parkinson's. "This finding suggests that sporadic Parkinson's cases may
be particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of pesticides, but the
possibility of pesticides influencing risk of Parkinson's in individuals
from families with a history of PD cannot be ruled out."
SOURCE: BioMedCentral-Neurology 2008.
© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
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