PESTICIDE WARS
By Charles W. Moore
© 1998 Charles W. Moore
Marlene MacIsaac became environmentally ill three years ago following an adverse reaction
to antibiotic therapy. The Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, woman is now intolerant of a
wide variety of common chemical substances, her life literally turned upside down
by this illness.
Naturally, Ms. MacIsaac is apprehensive about the Nova Scotia government's aerial
pesticide spraying programs in her area. Adding insult to injury, her neighbor plans
to have the woodlot next door to her home sprayed with Roundup herbicide.
Doctors at the Environmental Health Centre in Fall River, N.S. advise her to leave
her home during the spraying and for some time thereafter, but where to go? Like
most environmentally ill persons, Ms. MacIsaac has trouble tolerating the air quality
in other homes or hotels, due to the load of indoor chemical pollutants our culture
regards as "normal." An environmentally-safe hostel operates near the Fall River
clinic, but it costs $65 per night plus travel expenses.
Eight-year-old Jaime Armstrong of Halifax, N.S., is in essentially the same boat.
Jaime is environmentally ill and has chronic high-risk asthma that developed after
she was exposed to pesticides at the age of nine months, when the Armstrong home
was fumigated for roaches. She is now allergic to a wide variety of chemicals and
natural substances, including dust, mould, pollen and scented laundry detergent.
Jaime can eat only 20 foods, and peanuts or garlic send her into potentially fatal
anaphylactic shock. She has been hospitalized 15 times, three of them in intensive
care.
Lawn chemicals sprayed on neighboring properties aggravate Jaime's asthma and other
sensitivities. Most homeowners in the Armstrongs' neighborhood compassionately agreed
to stop spraying their lawns after the situation was explained to them, but two
holdouts refuse, arguing that their right to dandelion-free lawns outweighs the little
girl's health. One asserted in a TV interview that the lawn care companies are "professionals"
who know what they're doing, and expressed faith that they wouldn't spray anything
dangerous on his lawn.
Consequently, Jaime and her mother, Nancy, have been obliged to cover their lawn with
plastic sheeting and move to the Fall River safe house while spraying proceeds.
Forest and lawn spraying are largely the same issue. Many of the chemicals involved
are similar. For example the herbicides "Vision," (forests) and "Roundup" (lawns
and agriculture) are essentially the same product.
Chemical companies, landscapers, and their compliant friends in government offer bland
assurances that lawn and forestry pesticides and herbicides are "safe." Unfortunately,
this judgment is more philosophical than scientific or medical. Presumably the pesticide
that started young Jaime on her journey of suffering was "government registered"
too. A large proportion of environmentally ill patients link the onset of their illness
to "government registered" pesticides used as directed by "professionals."
A General Accounting Office (GAO) report to the U.S. Congress found that 90% of pesticides
on the market lack even minimal required safety screening. Of the 34 most used lawn
pesticides,
only 2 have
reportedly
been tested
for long-term effects on humans and the environment
. Any testing done is performed by the chemical manufacturers, not the EPA or Health
Canada. "If a chemical company wanted to, they could start with a desired conclusion,
and skew the data, and the EPA would never know", notes David Welch, an entomologist
with the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.
Joseph Cummins, emeritus professor of genetics at the University of Western Ontario,
charges that Agriculture Canada has received at least $36 million from multinational
chemical companies to conduct research on their behalf. According to Prof. Cummins,
these payments for "research" are really thinly-disguised payoffs for approving the
companies' pesticides.
Herbicides and other pesticides are broad spectrum biocides that by their very nature
harm organisms other than targeted species, including homeowners and their families,
neighbors, and pets. Some of these chemicals were developed during World War II as
weapons (nerve gas), so it's not surprising that nerve damage in people and animals
is possible. The pesticide industry downplays this, claiming their chemicals are
heavily diluted, but these toxins are still extremely dangerous in small amounts.
As well, many components are classified as "inert", which allows them to go unlisted
on product labels. Some of these are more toxic than listed chemicals.
Pesticides are still dangerous when dry. Water and liquid chemical vehicles evaporate,
but toxic elements remain, releasing often odorless and invisible toxic vapors. In
areas where lawn spraying is common, they accumulate in a toxic smog throughout the
spraying season. Some pesticides remain active for years after application.
In the U.S., it is illegal to claim pesticides are "safe when used as directed" since
nothing can assure safety. However, Canadian regulatory and enforcement agencies
have routinely used this statement, sometimes adding rhetorically that "most pesticides
are safer than table salt or laundry soap."
Some lawn care companies claim that lawn chemicals are actually "good for the environment."
One stated that "a 50-by-50 foot lawn produces enough oxygen to sustain a family
of four"-- only true of land with tall grass and no lawn care. Pesticides, lawnmower
fumes and common lawn care practices cause net oxygen destruction.
And it isn't "just" formally diagnosed environmentally ill people like Jaime Armstrong
and Marlene MacIsaac who are hurt by society's to pesticide addiction . The U.S.
National Academy of Sciences reports that at least one out of seven people are significantly
harmed by pesticide exposures each year. Symptoms of pesticide poisoning are often
misdiagnosed as "flu" or "allergies," but more and more people are "beginning to
link feeling terrible with the fact the neighbors had the lawn sprayed the day before",
notes Catherine Karr, a toxicologist for the National Coalition Against The Misuse
Of Pesticides..
Sharon Malhorta, a registered nurse, has to leave her Pittsburgh home when lawn spraying
commences. Otherwise she suffers headaches, paralysis in her hands and feet, blurred
vision, speech difficulties, severe stomach cramps and muscle seizures. Her physician
husband was told by the lawn companies that their products were "practically nontoxic",
registered by the EPA, and not harmful to people or pets. He later discovered that
these chemicals are in fact neurotoxins.
Under pressure from neighbors, a Florida couple got their lawn treated. The lawn company
said the yard would be safe about an hour after spraying, but soon after playing
barefoot on the grass, the couple's 2 year old daughter developed a rash all over
her body, her urine turned dark brown, and she ran a high fever. Her hands and feet
swelled to twice normal size, blistered, and peeled, and her lips turned black and
bled. She never fully recovered.
Professional ice skater and pianist Christina Locek became chronically ill after a
her neighbor's lawn was sprayed with pesticides while she sunbathed in her backyard.
Her cat died within minutes and her dog died that same day. Six years later she still
suffered headaches, partial paralysis, vision loss, and blood disorders (New York
Times).
Some argue that such accounts are "anecdotal" and don't "prove" anything, but read
several hundred of them, all describing similar patterns of pesticide exposure immediately
followed by serious illness, and the "coincidence" notion loses credibility.
According to the U.S. EPA, 95% of pesticides used on residential lawns are possible
or probable carcinogens (American Cancer Society, 1991). In 1989 the National Cancer
Institute reported that children develop leukemia six times more often when pesticides
are used around their homes. The American Journal of Epidemiology reported that children
exposed to insecticides get more brain tumors and other cancers.
Studies by the U.S. National Cancer Society have discovered a definite link between
fatal non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL) and exposure to triazine herbicides (like Atrazine),
phenoxyacetic herbicides (2,4-D), organophosphate insecticides (Diazinon), fungicides,
and fumigants; all of which are used as lawn chemicals. A study reported in Newsweek
found that farmers who apply 2, 4-D, a weed-killer in 1,500 over-the-counter products,
have up to seven times higher than average risk of NHL. Lawn and forest spraying
may be an important contributing factor to a 50% rise in NHL cases over the past
fifteen years. A University of Iowa study of golf course superintendents also found
abnormally high rates of death due to cancer of the brain, large intestine, and prostate.
Nevertheless, die-hards insist that their lawns and woodlots are private property
that they are free to do as they please with. And indeed if they could contain the
affected air and water within the their property lines, they might have a just case.
However, they can't do that. Air and water are common resources that cross boundaries.
Your property rights end, at least morally, where they begin to infringe on mine.
No one should be forced to flee their home and the rightful use and enjoyment of
THEIR private property because consequences of a neighbor's activities--economic
or aesthetic--are drifting across the boundary.
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