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P A N U P S
Pesticide Action Network Updates Service
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Two New Warnings on Pesticides & Chemicals
June 15, 2004

In April, Canadian family physicians issued a strong warning on the risks of
exposure to pesticides, noting the number of studies linking cancer,
reproductive problems and neurological diseases with commonly used pesticides.
The following month in Paris, medical specialists from Europe, Canada and the
U.S. released an International Declaration on Diseases Due to Chemical
Pollution, calling the number of untested chemicals in the environment "a
serious threat to children and to Man's survival."

The April report by the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) on the
chronic effects of exposure to pesticides contained sweeping recommendations to
cut pesticide exposures, including curtailing pesticide use wherever possible,
using personal protective equipment including respirators for home and
occupational exposures, and urging physicians to advocate for pesticide
reduction and screen their patients for pesticide exposure.

OCFP, a voluntary, not-for-profit association that promotes family medicine,
reviewed 250 peer-reviewed studies published between 1992 and 2003 on the human
health effects of pesticides. The researchers found compelling evidence of links
between pesticide exposure and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the incidence of which
continues to rise in Canada at the rate of 1 - 1.5% per year. Other findings
included associations between pesticide exposures and solid tumors, including
brain cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer and pancreatic cancer.

The family physicians emphasized the special vulnerability of children to
pesticide exposure, and reported both elevated risks of kidney cancer and
associations of pesticide exposure with brain cancer among children with
paternal exposure to agricultural pesticides. The study noted that some children
had an overall increased risk of acute leukemia if exposed to pesticides in
utero or during childhood, especially if those exposures included pesticides
used on lawns, fruit trees, gardens, or indoor insecticides.

The Canadian physicians' review also noted a "remarkable consistency" of study
findings on nervous system effects of pesticide exposure and on links between
occupational exposure to pesticides and reproductive effects, such as birth
defects, fetal death and intrauterine growth retardation.

The Paris declaration, in addressing the vast multitude of chemicals in the
environment , noted several alarming health trends as well including the
increase in chronic diseases, the rise in the global incidence of cancers at all
ages, the progressive increase since 1950 in non-smoking related cancers in
industrialized countries, the European annual increase of 0.8% in childhood
cancers, and rising rates of sterility, with 15% of European couples now
infertile.

Signed by 80 medical experts, including two winners of the Nobel Prize for
medicine, Jean Dausset and Francois Jacob, the declaration was endorsed by
cancer specialists, pediatricians, epidemiologists and toxicologists. Noting the
combination of chemicals in the environment made it "extremely difficult to
establish, on a epidemiological level" a definitive and causal link between
individual chemicals and subsequent health problems, the Declaration called for
implementation of the Precautionary Principle to protect public health. "The EU
2001 REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) initiative
details unprecedented, and overdue legislative proposals for the regulation of
industrial chemicals, based on the Precautionary Principle; this initiative
should be strengthened, rather than weakened following strong opposition by EU
and U.S. chemical industries."

Sources: Ontario College of Family Physicians Pesticides Paper,
http://www.ocfp.on.ca/English/OCFP/Communications/CurrentIssues/Pesticides/defau\
lt.asp?s=1; News Release, April 23, 2004, Comprehensive Review of Pesticide
Research Confirms Dangers,
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2004/23/c4416.html?view=Print;
International Declaration on diseases due to chemical pollution, in English,
http://appel.artac.info/anglais.htm; Specialists issue alert on chemicals and
health, ENDS Environment Daily, May 11, 2004,
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=16651.

Contact: PANNA

PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and reporting on
pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the mainstream media. It's
produced by Pesticide Action Network North America, a non-profit and
non-governmental organization working to advance sustainable alternatives to
pesticides worldwide.

You can join our efforts! We gladly accept donations for our work and all
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