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Eco-Summit
Vitality July/August 2000
By Helke Ferrie
This first ever gathering of politicians, doctors, scientists and activists revealed shocking truths about Canada’s shady dealings with the pesticide industry
On May 15 and 16, the first ever Eco-Summit 2000 took place in Ottawa - a now pesticide-free city. In fact, one can safely relax on the lawns of Rideau Hall’s lovely grounds because Governor General Adrienne Clarkson won’t tolerate pesticides - nor do any of the official residences, or Parliament. Organized by Liberal MP Karen Kraft Sloan, this was an environmental conference for parliamentarians. It brought together MPs, doctors, lawyers and activists to join environmental experts in forging a plan to help avoid collective suicide by chemistry.
And yet there was irony in the fact that the keynote speaker, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the world’s leading environmentalists with a breathtaking record of stopping polluters around the world, revealed that here in pesticide-free Ottawa, “the Canadian government [is] engaged, at its own initiative, in secret talks with the U.S. and Mexican governments [to] erode” the only provision in NAFTA “which allows citizens to force their own governments to enforce environmental laws.” He added that we “should demand that these secret talks stop immediately.” This revelation drew shocked gasps.
Kennedy observed that we are treating “the planet as if it were a business in liquidation ... to have a few years of pollution-based prosperity,” yet true prosperity requires “investing in our environment [as] an investment in infrastructure.” In a true free-market economy, instead of the corporate controlled economy we really have, Kennedy said, polluters would “not be allowed to internalize their profits and externalize their costs”, as the pesticide industry does world-wide. He pointed out that the “the big shots”, the faceless trans-national corporations, need to be faced and told “We are emissaries from the future. We want to know what you are doing with the things that don’t belong to you, that belong to our children.” Indeed, Kennedy received a standing ovation that seemed unending - yet none of the mainstream media even mentioned his visit to Ottawa.
The following day, University of Ottawa’s David Lean stated that in the early 1970s the entire biosphere was very nearly completely poisoned by PCBs. It was banned just in time, yet because PCBs travel by air and water, the highest concentrations are still found in the high Arctic. There sea mammals are so polluted that the Inuit should safely only eat a piece of meat daily the size of a sugar cube. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, observed that “we feel like an endangered species.”
Joseph Jacobsen did groundbreaking research for the EPA over two decades that proved the disastrous effect of PCBs and other toxic chemicals on child development. His research has been verified internationally, including in Canada. The developing brain is defenceless against these toxins and further endangered by contaminated mother’s milk.
Chemicals in Our Water Supply
Renowned Canadian ecologist, David Schindler, announced that within 50 years Canada’s water supply could be in a state of crisis, and by 2100 our fresh water fishers could completely disappear, if the relatively simple solutions that do exist are not implemented now. Schindler’s research showing how acid rain renders lakes unable to support life, was the basis for world-wide legislative changes. Indeed, the impact of pesticides and industrial chemical toxins on planetary ecology is profound. The poisoning and exploitation of the Aral Sea in the former Soviet Union caused human starvation, rampant infectious disease and economic disaster. The world’s groundwater supply is also dangerously polluted everywhere due to pesticides which travel through the ground in ways only barely understood. Ann Clark of Guelph University has shown how high intensity agriculture and its chemical addiction means that agriculture will be experienced primarily as an environmental hazard. Soil dynamically interacts with light and heat, sometimes greatly increasing toxicity of some chemicals. Furthermore, agricultural chemicals are commonly found leaching into the groundwater surrounding farms.
Deadly Chemistry Targets Human Organs
Two thousand years ago humankind was told, “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. Jesus meant non-violent people with gentle hearts. Today, within less than a century, humanity might redefine “the meek” as the roaches, mosquitoes, fleas, bacteria, and viruses as the inheritors of the earth. A mere three generations of chemists, and those who profit from their concoctions, have filled the earth, water, and air with thousands of deadly toxins.
In 1947, six pests became resistant to DDT. By 1999, over 600 pests, exposed to some ten thousand more varieties of deadly toxins, began to thrive on them, even as application increased 12 fold. Today, pest resistance is observed to develop within a single generation: they adapt to the deadliest poisons. It is the pests that are fruitful and multiply, while the daughters and sons of Adam and Eve are dying in a worldwide epidemic of diseases which destroy our nervous systems instead of the pests’, our endocrine systems, our reproductive potential, our DNA’s ability to function, and our brains - not theirs.
Kay H. Kilburn, brain scientist and editor of the prestigious Archives of Environmental Health became world famous for proving how asbestos causes cancer. Today his work shows that the human brain is the true target of this deadly chemistry. “Our civilization reeks with chemicals. Human health has been sacrificed to economic growth and profits, the twin idols of our time,” he states. We have “perpetuated the myth that for humans to be content and secure, chemical warfare is justified.” He states categorically: “The use of pesticides in and about the home absolutely must stop. People must make peace with their insect coinhabitants of the earth.”
The Public is Waking Up - Worldwide
In 1996 the US passed the Food Quality Protection Act which initiated reevaluation of all pesticides commonly found in homes and garden sheds. Led by Dr. Philip Landrigan, the medical community informed the government that instead of the pests, our children are the victims. An entire class of organophosphates is on the block, many specific ones have been restricted, banned or are been voluntarily withdrawn by manufacturers. (Dow Chemical withdrew Dursban in the US, but in Canada Dow still insists that 3,600 studies prove its safety. Never having found even one such study myself, one wonders which team of scientists dreamed those up.)
Duke University’s neurotoxicologist M. Abou-Dania recently proved that there is no safe level for pesticides. He exposed lab animals to the lowest non-toxic levels of three commonly used pesticides individually, without any observable damage. However, when exposed to all three simultaneously at these low levels, the animals died. These toxins are commonly found together in household insecticides, flea collars and lawn care products at much higher concentrations.
On June 29, 1998, delegates from more than 100 countries gathered in Montreal to initiate banning the Dirty Dozen, the worst pesticides, PCBs, dioxins and furans, known as POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants).
In the UK, proof of the nervous-system damage sustained by thousands from organophosphates used in sheep farming forced government action. The Countess of Mar (current representative of the oldest peerage in the UK going back to the 10th century), a sheep farmer herself, nearly died from the stuff. Under the care of an environmental medicine physician, she recovered, and went on to lead the House of Lords in placing a moratorium on “sheep dip”.
The Countess wrote to me on March 9: “You seem to be having very similar problems in Canada. Truly independent scientists’ findings are always ignored in favour of those of the industry-funded scientists. I have made speeches in parliament citing intellectual corruption as a severe handicap. Those of us who know we are right must simply go on in the hope that, one day, someone in authority will see the light.” Indeed, some people in Canada are seeing the light, and will succeed in spreading it if we, the people, help them.
Liberal MP Marlene Jennings and her daughter learned their eczema was caused by chemicals in mosquito repellents. Wishing to use non-toxic natural products, she found to her dismay that Canadian licensing regulations assume only the use of toxic chemicals, thereby preventing natural substitutes from being marketed. As a result, she championed private member’s Bill C-388 to ban all cosmetic use of pesticides - to get them out of reach of children. (The highest infant mortality rate - almost 9 per 1,000 live births - is in Saskatchewan, a province which boasts the highest use of pesticides in Canada.)
In Defence of Weeds
Asked how to deal with the compulsive dandelion hater, Marlene Jennings said, “We stopped asbestos, we took lead out of gasoline, we stopped land mines, we led the world in the fight against tobacco - why can’t our citizens learn about pesticides?” (Right on, Marlene! The assumption that people are smart is the spirit of democracy.)
Speaking of the annual war on dandelions, the May/June issue of the International Journal of Integrative Medicine by L. Alschuler presents its verified medicinal uses. “When asked which herbs are indispensable, most herbalists would certainly name dandelion,” she writes. Observing that “the entire plant is therapeutic” she cites clinical studies and discusses its bio-chemistry. Different parts at various times of the year produce chemicals used as a diuretic, source of steroids, an anticarcinogenic in breast cancer, for immune regulation by boosting macrophage production, to prevent recurring kidney and gallbladder stones, and in the treatment of colitis, asthma and eczema.
As for pesticides in agriculture, the following gives pause for thought: Charles Walters, editor of Acres USA wrote to Alive magazine in June, saying that “weeds are an index of what is wrong, and sometimes of what is right.” Weeds like lambsquarters and pigweed tell the farmer the crop will thrive because insects will stay away, and cocklebur indicates good soil phosphate levels.
The three foot deep dandelion roots transport calcium and other minerals to the surface and enrich our food. Grassy weeds like foxtail prove soil pH is imbalanced; compost and aeration fix that without chemicals.
New Pesticde Report Both Frightening and Exciting for Canada
In June 1999 the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, chaired by MP Charles Caccia (PC), began a re-evaluation of pesticides, publishing its report May 16. More than 7,000 approved pesticides in Canada haven’t been evaluated in thirty years, most never.
The Pest Product Control Act guarantees complete confidentiality to the manufacturer, even with regard to toxic reactions, sales and use patterns. This Act is a gag order on the government, and also prevents all independent health and ecological research which necessarily would adversely affect sales.
Canadian doctors testified to the Standing Committee that they cannot get even the most basic information in acute emergencies from the Health Protection Branch nor from the manufacturer. In desperation, they phone the EPA in the U.S. where complete information on pesticide products is mandatory.
“It is high time,” the Report states, “that paramount interests ...be placed above the business interests of the pesticide manufacturer.” Most radical of all, the report recommends that legislation be passed to allow the government to inform the public of health hazards without asking the manufacturer for permission. As these manufacturers usually are transnational corporations, Article 1711.5 of NAFTA gives them the same protection from public responsibility as does Article 39.3 of TRIP (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), both treaties being subject to the World Trade Organization's rules preventing disclosure data on agricultural chemicals. Do we dare hope that Canada will protect its citizens from the World Trade Organization's global economic gang-rape?
Caccia’s report also recommends that organic farming should be encouraged through tax incentives and that Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome should receive “legal recognition”. Wow!! Every Canadian should read this report and jam the government’s faxes and e-mail server with ecstatic support! (The Official Opposition, however, will go down in history as having missed the boat totally: their appended critique extols the virtues of pesticides, perfect lawns and business considerations.) On a more sobering note, remember that even if this entire report is adopted and transformed into law without dilution, we will have just caught up with the U.S. and Europe.
Media & Government Turn a Blind Eye
In the Eco Summit round-table discussions with physicians and international law experts, it was most interesting to learn how frustrated parliamentarians are in trying to get something done. Brian Emmet, Canada’s first Commissioner of the Environment, lamented that even the most serious environmental concerns simply do not get the attention of the press. He seriously chided Ontario for its lax handling of polluters and lack of environmental law enforcement. The cosy relationship between “the big shots” (as Kennedy called the transnational corporations) and the top most levels of our government is so secretive and powerful that even the rest of our government doesn't know what to do. Indeed, MPP Karen Kraft Sloan observed in an article she recently wrote for The Hill Times (April 10), that prodding for changes comes primarily from non-governmental organizations, and government, which should be in charge, “keeps putting out little fires” instead of “making a dent in the challenges facing us.”
Canadians must take back their government’s agenda, David Schindler stated.
Conclusions
We stand at a crossroads. U.S. presidential advisor on cancer prevention, Sandra Steingraber, observed that the pesticide industry fosters a huge deception, namely that their products are necessary. The truth is out now, everywhere, and needs action.
The man who ended the Cold War, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1988 founded the International Green Cross, a global environmental organization which arose from his experience of the death of the Aral Sea and the Chernobyl disaster.
“I reject the view that things will somehow work themselves out,” he wrote (Time, Nov. 1997). “I am convinced that mankind can meet the environmental challenge if all of us join the cause, if all of us act.” That means that in every kitchen, bathroom and garden the Chemical War must stop. Now.
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