Canadian government to review 23 pesticides banned in Europe

Monday, February 24, 2014 by: PF Louis
Tags: pesticides, Canadian government, safety testing

(NaturalNews) Have any idea of how many chemicals have been introduced into our environments since WWII? A half-decade ago, the count* was over 80,000. Some are used for Big Ag, some are in medicines and processed foods, toys and household items, and some of them are in the air and water.

Industrial chemicals, most of which are barely tested by the people who make them, are ubiquitous. Most toxicities are usually not realized until massive adverse health reports are made. We're the guinea pigs, the canaries in the coal mine for the chemical companies that lie all the way to the bank.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), what's left of it, is understaffed and overwhelmed by the constant barrage of newly manufactured chemicals. They're not yet caught up with the older chemicals that have been in commercial use for decades. The upper management positions at the FDA, USDA and EPA are corrupted by industry lobbyists and former industry insiders who take advantage of the revolving door system that promotes cronyism at the higher levels of industry and government.

Here's a "legal" trick that chemical companies use to hide their products' toxicity. Regulatory agencies only look at the active ingredients of pesticides and herbicides. But there are other chemicals in a product that are meant to boost the active ingredient. The exact formulas are withheld as proprietary trade secrets. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act supports this secrecy without regard to health or ecological implications. Corporate profits trump public welfare legally.

For example, Monsanto's Roundup contains glyphosate as its active ingredient, so that's all that gets tested. Since it's in several herbicides already, Roundup gets rubber-stamp approval without regard to the secret "inert" products that are actually adjuvants.

However, there has been another controversial study by the folks that brought us those rats with gross tumors after their long-term exposure to GMO corn and Roundup.

Seralini and the boys in the lab analyzed all the inert ingredients of nine major pesticides and discovered that all but one pesticide contained inert ingredients more harmful than their active ingredients. Roundup was the worst.

Sometimes it's the synergy of those ingredients combined, and sometimes it's one or two alone that can be worse than the active ingredients. (GM Watch, source below)

Canadian activists push for investigation of pesticides and herbicides used in Canada

In August of 2013, Ecojustice filed four lawsuits demanding that Health Canada examine 29 pesticides banned in Europe. Canadian federal law mandates that any pesticides or herbicides banned by even one nation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development must be evaluated for safety in Canada.

At first, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) of Canada refused. But then attorneys for Ecojustice started playing hardball with lawsuits demanding the regulatory agency to comply with federal law. So the agency agreed to review 23 of the 29 chemicals, one of which is a popular herbicide unnamed in the source article, probably Roundup.

Four of the remaining six chemicals still have limited use in Europe, and two are not used in Canada. So the six chosen to not be reviewed stands with both sides in agreement. Consequently, the PMRA requested that Ecojustice drop its lawsuit, considering it superfluous and unwarranted in light of their plans to review those 23 chemicals.

But Ecojustice lawyer Laura Tessoro disagrees. "The agency doesn't have a great track record of committing to doing special reviews under the act," she said. "This is basically the first time it's ever agreed to do them. In light of that, we need to keep the pressure on." (Toronto Star, source below)

The Ecojustice legal team placed the suit on hold but kept it on the books. Score one for Ecojustice.

Sources for this article include:

* http://rense.com

Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com

GM Watch:
http://www.gmwatch.org

http://www.motherearthnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://ehs-news.com

http://science.naturalnews.com