To the Editor,
Re: Nothing toxic about pesticide use in Canada, Letters, May 24.
Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLife Canada, claims there’s nothing toxic about pesticide use in Canada. CropLife’s members include Monsanto and Bayer.
Monsanto makes RoundUp. France sued Monsanto at least twice for falsely advertising that RoundUp becomes inert in soil.
RoundUp kills soil bacteria, leaches into ground water, mutates amphibians, and blinds animals whose eyes happen to rub against sprayed plants.
Bayer makes mosquito nets treated with neurotoxins banned in Europe, restricted in the U.S. Our governments pay $100/net so “poor Africans” won’t get malaria. Africans have sickle cell anemia, 50 per cent have one dominant and one recessive SCA gene and are immune to malaria and sickle cell anemia.
One-quarter have two dominant genes and die of SCA and one-quarter have two recessive genes and die of malaria.
By pushing neurotoxic nets on pregnant women and children – who are most affected by toxic chemicals – we not only change the balance of humans in nature, we change the entire African environment.
Neurotoxins affect all insects, including pollinators, so crops fail. Poor people use mosquito nets to fish in warm, acidic water (which increases neurotoxicity) so fish die. No crops plus no fish plus more sickly people equals starvation.
No doubt Monsanto can fix that with GMO seeds, right?
If Creutzfeldt-Jakob or “mad cow” disease results from cows eating prions of other cows, imagine what can result from eating GMO fish-flavoured tomatoes, or GMO cereal “dehydrated” with RoundUp. I drool just thinking about it.
Hepworth further asserts “only those products that meet Health Canada’s strict health and safety standards are registered for sale and use.”
Really? Please explain how a local exterminator was able to use mercuric chloride to kill carpenter ants in my house if it was so tightly regulated by Health Canada.
Mercury is the most toxic non-radioactive, naturally-occurring neurotoxin on Earth. Surely Health Canada should never have approved it in the first place.
Surely those same Health Canada scientists know that mercury from any source is equally deadly. But no, Health Canada banned or restricted all mercury-containing products except dental amalgams and compact fluorescent light bulbs. Clearly pesticides are safe in your mouth or over your dinner.
Nothing toxic about pesticide use in Canada? More like everything toxic about pesticide use in Canada.
Christel Martin
Nanaimo