Safety Issues Regarding Pesticides

From a 2007 newsletter by the David Suzuki Foundation, an article about the safety issues regarding pesticides:

New report says children under six most at risk

PESTICIDE POISONING

By Dominic Ali

Those herbicides and insecticides in our tool sheds and garages seem harmless enough, even after we spray them in the summer to kill bugs and weeds. But these chemicals are actually sinister villains.

A new report by the David Suzuki Foundation, "Northern Exposure: Acute Pesticide Poisonings in Canada", reveals the surprisingly high numbers of pesticide poisonings in Canada, especially among children under age six.

Authored by Canadian environmental policy expert David Boyd, the report garnered national headlines when it was released. It is the sixth report in a series showing how environmental policies should be strengthened to protect the health of all Canadians.

In an earlier report, "The Food We East," Boyd found that approximately 1,000 commercial pesticides products for sale in Canada can't be sold in other countries because of health and environmental concerns. "To make matters worse," Boyd writes in "Northern Exposure," "negotiations are underway to further weaken pesticide residue limits in order to harmonize Canadian standards with American standards."

Mr. Boyd also found that although children under age six represent only 6.4 per cent of the total Canadian population, they experience as much as 64.5 per cent of acute pesticide poisonings. "Thousands of Canada's most vulnerable citizens, our children, are being needlessly poisoned. If that's not a wake-up call about the dangers of pesticides, I don't know what is," Mr. Boyd says.

Anti-pesticide bylaws have been passed in more than 125 municipalities across Canada because of the health risks involved. But, as Mr. Boyd, points out, more could be done to protect Canadians from unintentional pesticide poisoning.

Aside from the health costs of pesticide poisonings, there are also economic costs as well. In 1995, Health Canada estimated that four per cent of reported poisonings of Canadian children each year were due to accidental pesticide exposure. "Northern Exposure" estimates that these acute pesticide poisonings cost roughly $16 million each year.

So what can the government do to prevent future pesticide poisonings? Quite a lot, actually. For starters, different levels of government could enact legislation requiring all products in Canada to be sold in child-resistant containers, ban pesticides for cosmetic purposes, and increase funding to Canada's poison-control centres.

This report was funded by the Lefebvre Charitable Foundation and can be downloaded from www.davidsuzuki.org/publications.