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Agnet April 25/04
Pesticides too harmful to use in any form, doctors warn
'Pesticides are toast: councillor: Citywide ban is imminent after report links weed-killers to cancer, politicians suggest
EU ministers to rule on lifting GM food ban
New agriculture methods need to be debated
Fossilized forest changes view of prehistoric times: Ancient trees grew 300 million years ago when Newfoundland was part of Europe
The `fatal conceit' of Kyoto
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Pesticides too harmful to use in any form, doctors warn
April 24, 2004
The Globe and Mail/National Post/CP
The link between common household pesticides and fetal defects, neurological
damage and the most deadly cancers is, according to these stories, strong enough that family doctors in Ontario are urging citizens to avoid the
chemicals in any form. The frightening message came yesterday when the Ontario College of Family Physicians released the most comprehensive study ever done in Canada on the chronic effects of pesticide exposure at home, in the garden and at work. The study was quoted as saying that, "The review found consistent evidence of the health risks to patients with exposure to pesticides," naming brain cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and leukemia among many other acute illnesses. As well, the college found consistent links between parents' exposure to certain agricultural pesticides at their jobs and effects on a growing fetus ranging from damage to death. The risks, they concluded, can come even from residue on food, ant spray and the tick collar on the family cat. The researchers also found that children are far more vulnerable to the effects of pesticides than adults because their bodies are growing, they have a greater skin surface in proportion to their size than adults, they ingest more food for their size than adults and they often have
less-developed systems to excrete chemicals. Not only that, but after examining 12,000 studies conducted from 1990 to 2003 around the world, and winnowing that down to the most sound 250, the researchers said there is no evidence that some pesticides are less dangerous than others, just that they have different effects on health that take different periods to show up. They said they are preparing brochures for patients and education material for family doctors to fill them in on the findings. Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLifeÖ Canada, a trade association representing the large multinational companies that manufacture pesticides, was cited as questioning whether the college, a voluntary, not-for-profit association, really had the public's interest at heart in releasing the data, adding, "Pesticides used properly constitute no unacceptable risk to people's health or to the environment." He added that pesticides are highly regulated in Canada by federal health staff and must go through a raft of tests, including some on animals to see if the products cause cancer, before they are approved for use. Not only that, but the federal laws governing pesticides were tightened two years ago to make them protect children better and match more closely the tougher standards in the United States and in other countries, he said. He pointed out that other studies have shown that pesticide use also provides a safe and abundant source of fruits and vegetables in Canada, and that consuming these can cut cancer risks. Chris Krepski, a spokesman for the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, an arm of Health Canada, was cited as saying that a pesticide cannot be registered for use in Canada if it has the potential to cause birth defects, adding, "As long as they are used according to the label directions, they can be used safely." The massive scientific literature review comes as many cities across Canada are trying to ban the use of pesticides to make gardens and lawns pest-free and as efforts increase to get rid of mosquito larvae before West Nile season. Toronto's law came into effect this month complete with posters showing a dandelion and the caption: "Relax. It's just a weed." Cathy Vakil, of the Family Medicine Centre at Queen's University in Kingston and one of the authors of the report, was cited as noting that alternatives to pesticides are available in most cases and should be considered because the profoundly negative effects of some chemicals can be passed down through generations, adding, "People need to think long and hard if they want to take that risk for themselves, their children and their grandchildren for the sake of a golf-green lawn." She also noted that the pesticides used in Toronto's 200,000 storm sewers to kill mosquito larvae emit a product as they break down that is a retinoid, a family of chemicals known to cause limb deformities in fetuses. That chemical then washes into Lake Ontario and in turn into the drinking water of the Greater Toronto Area. Lorraine Van Haastrecht, spokeswoman for a lobby group representing companies that treat 100,000 lawns in Toronto, was quoted as saying Canada needs "healthy green spaces. What we see is parks reduced to massive weed infestations." Dr. Donald Cole of the University of Toronto, one of the review's authors, was cited as saying he could not say whether there's a safe level of exposure to avoid the risk of developing disease, adding, "Pesticides, as in many chemicals, are widespread in our environment, so we can't really say." But Cole was convinced of a link between pesticide exposure and a variety of neurological disorders, including mental and emotional problems, as well as diseases such as Parkinson's.
The stories note that doctors found no clear link to harm to the fetus in
cases of pregnant women using the insect repellent DEET, which is commonly
recommended to prevent against mosquito bites and, potentially, West Nile
virus. Donald Page, executive director of an industry task force representing
chemical companies in Canada, the United States, Australia and Argentina,
was quoted as saying, "The decisions of several regulatory agencies and
expert panel reviews simply do not support the allegations that 2,4-D causes
cancer or poses a risk to human health," and that for example, that the New
Zealand Environment Risk Management Authority published a finding that
determined 2,4-D does not cause cancer.
Page accused Ontario physicians of ignoring some facts.
'Pesticides are toast: councillor: Citywide ban is imminent after report links weed-killers to cancer, politicians suggest
April 25, 2004
The Ottawa Citizen
A10
Daniel Tencer and Chris Cobb
According to this story, Ottawa city councillors in favour of a ban on garden
pesticides claim that the report from the Ontario College of Family Physicians
linking the commonly-used poisons to human cancer is evidence enough that
Ottawa should prohibit their use by next spring. Councillor Alex Cullen is cited as saying that will urge fellow councillors to pass a new bylaw before the end of the year that would prohibit cosmetic pesticide use by the spring 2005 gardening season. In 2002, council rejected a ban on pesticide use, opting instead for a plan that included a pesticide ban on city-owned lawns and a community education program aimed at getting a 70-per-cent voluntary reduction in use of the chemicals. That target seems unlikely to be met.
The city's anti-pesticide education program, and its efforts to get residents
to voluntarily change to non-chemical alternatives, seem to have fallen on
barren ground, the story says. According to Councillor Jan Harder, "The city
spent $400,000 last year teaching people about pesticide use, and cosmetic
pesticide use went up last year." Some councillors have criticized the city's pesticide-free policy, saying the city was not doing enough maintenance to keep its own property in good shape without the use of pesticides.
More than 50 municipalities across Canada have banned cosmetic pesticide use but the pesticide industry continues to challenge the legality of the bans.
EU ministers to rule on lifting GM food ban
April 25, 2004
Agence France Presse
Fabrice Randoux
BRUSSELS - EU agriculture ministers are to decide on Monday whether to lift a
five-year ban on bio-engineered crops, when they rule on allowing the import
of a type of genetically modified (GM) sweetcorn. By allowing the Swiss firm Syngenta to import the sweetcorn, called Bt-11, the ministers would effectively scrap a moratorium on the import and cultivation of GM products imposed by the European Union in 1999. But the ministers are widely expected to refer the thorny issue back to the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- which openly supports lifting the moratorium to encourage the GM industry in Europe. The freeze was imposed against a backdrop of public disquiet in Europe on the issue of so-called "Frankenfoods", at the initiative of Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg -- later joined by Austria and Belgium.
The United States, which has the world's biggest biotech industry, is leading
a group of 12 countries seeking to overturn the EU moratorium through the
World Trade Organisation. The EU's decision on Bt-11 has already been repeatedly delayed and a clear majority looked unlikely to emerge from Monday's vote -- in which case the matter will be referred to the commission.
New EU rules on labelling and tracing GM foods came into force on April 18,
introducing rigorous consumer safeguards that could make it easier for
Brussels to lift the moratorium.
New agriculture methods need to be debated
April 25, 2004
Saskatoon Sun
26
Terry Chamberlain, a former teacher who maintains an interest in farming,
writes that the exploding demand for organic foods and the European nations'
reluctance -- downright refusal in some cases -- to import GM products are in
part the result of idealized notions of a good old-fashioned family farm and
the efforts of thousands of activists who are busy lobbying governments and
consumer groups around the world to turn back the clock on advanced
agricultural technology. C.M. (Red) Williams, professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan and president of Saskatchewan Agrivision lists some of the promising biotech developments in progress, including new varieties of grain with enhanced disease resistance, higher protein, higher energy, more rapid fermentation and higher digestibility. Other researchers are working on using DNA transfer to produce varieties of crops that can be stored longer without spoilage (which now destroys 40 per cent of the world's food crops annually) and that have immunizational properties to combat disease in humans. Chamberlain points out that today's crop yields are many times higher than they were in past centuries and cites the argument that these gains could not have been made without applying modern technology, including the use of chemicals and genetic manipulation, and that food is therefore far more
abundant (feeding billions more than in earlier centuries) and safer than ever
before. Chamberlain commends organic farmers who claim that they can, under similar climate and soil conditions, match the yields of those who use conventional methods, pointing out that it takes years of effort to make the transition necessary for registration as an organic grower.
Fossilized forest changes view of prehistoric times: Ancient trees grew 300 million years ago when Newfoundland was part of Europe
April 25, 2004
The Ottawa Citizen
A3
Randy Boswell
According to this story, the discovery of a 300-million-year-old petrified
forest in Newfoundland is forcing scientists to rethink their theories about
the initial "greening of the Earth" and the history of the carbon cycle that
regulates global climate.
The 200 gigantic fossilized trees, some nearly 50 metres tall and two metres
wide at the trunk, are members of an extinct species called cordaitaleans,
which evolved into conifers such as pine, spruce and fir. Found in a rocky
outcrop along a stream valley near the southwest coastal town of Stephenville,
the frozen-in-stone trees would have been among the biggest in the world
during the Pennsylvanian geological era.
And the presence of these giants at a site scholars believe was once a
mountain slope offers the first direct proof trees had migrated to the Earth's
high-elevation regions just before the age of the dinosaurs.
Researchers claim that this discovery provides the strongest evidence yet that
Pennsylvanian uplands were dominated by cordaitaleans, adding that „the
exceptional preservation of large tree fossils additionally allows the
architectural reconstruction of these upland trees for the first time."
As with any research that casts new light on the Earth's ecological history,
the Newfoundland discovery is expected to alter the way scientists reconstruct
the past climate of the planet.
The `fatal conceit' of Kyoto
April 25, 2004
The Toronto Star
Ken Green
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?
pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1082758210897&call_pageid=9
68256290204&col=968350116795
Dr. Kenneth Green, director of the Centre for Studies in Risk, Regulation, and
Environment at the Fraser Institute, claims in this story that a suppressed
report by the federal government evaluating the effectiveness of spending $500
million since the year 2000 to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases shows that the spending produced neither a reduction in gas emissions, nor the
development of new "cleaner" technologies.
An anonymous source that participated in the mid-term review is quoted in the
Star, saying, "We seriously underestimated the difficulty of getting
reductions and overestimated the payoff from new technologies."
The story lists government spending initiatives as including:
- "Action Plan 2000," which committed $210 million to promote technologies
that reduced greenhouse gas emissions in industry and transportation
- $125 million to cities to encourage them to use non-existent new
technologies
- $100 million was spent on promoting foreign demand for the non-existent new
technologies.
Governments are notoriously bad at "inspiring" development of new technologies and encouraging their adoption.
The idea that government can inspire the development of new, beneficial
technologies is an example of "industrial policy," a type of governmental
steering of industrial development thoroughly discredited outside the halls of
Ottawa.
Industrial policy relies on what the Nobel Prize-winning economist Frederick
Hayek called "the fatal conceit," that somehow, government planners have
special knowledge that markets, investors, and industry lack. As money flows into Kyoto-implementation programs, the story says, auditors are finally getting the information they need to show its futility. And it's not just in Canada.
European Union members are having trouble coming up with emission reduction plans in the face of escalating cost estimates, and EU Energy and Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has implied that the EU may have to reconsider its implementation of the protocol altogether.
Meanwhile, countries around the world are pointing out that Kyoto emission
targets are simply unattainable. He is the author of Global Warming: Understanding The Debate, a high school textbook recommended by the U.S. National Science Teachers Association.
Agnet is produced by the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph and is sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Plants Program at the University of Guelph, Agricultural Adaptation Council (CanAdapt Program), AGCare, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, ConAgra Foods Inc., Meat Livestock Australia, Pioneer Hi-Bred Limited (Canada), Monsanto Canada, National Pork Board, Syngenta Seeds, Inc. USA, JIFSAN, CropLife Canada, Canadian Animal Health Institute, Burger King Corporation, Southern Crop Protection Association, Ag-West Biotech Inc., Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, Syngenta Crop Protection, Feedlot Health Management Services, Institute of Environmental Science Research Limited , National Food Processors Association, Tactix Government Consulting, Inc., CanAmera Foods, Global Public Affairs, and Agri Business Group, Inc.
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