An influential environmental lobby group has apparently lost a bid to have the federal government investigate the safety of 13 widely-used pesticides and insecticides before re-registering them this year.
The World Wildlife Fund alleges that the pesticides, including atrazine and endosulfan, can disrupt the proper functioning of hormones in animals and humans.
Their five-year registration expires Dec. 31, 1997.
In a December letter to health minister Allan Rock, Julia Langer of the WWF wildlife toxicology program asked that re-registration not be automatic.
“We urge you and the PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Agency) to use this expiry period to take concrete action which will gain a better understanding of the problem of endocrine (hormone) disruption, and to actually reduce the various kinds of risk some of these pesticides pose to health and the environment,” she wrote.
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But in a Dec. 24 interview, Langer said from Toronto that there had been no government response and she expected the re-registration to be routine.
“I’m feeling frustrated because the PMRA seems fixated on delivering to the industry,” she said. “They have made lots of commitments to industry to speed up the registration process but from the environmental perspective, we don’t see much coming back about what they are prepared to do about sustainability.”
Langer said other potentially dangerous chemicals will be coming to the end of their five-year registration during the next year and the pressure will be maintained on the government to investigate their safety.
Live up to standards
The WWF says manufacturers of the targeted chemicals should face conditions before re-registration is approved.
“The most universal recommendation is that Health Canada/PMRA require the registrants to provide evidence that their products do not disrupt the endocrine system of wildlife or humans,” she wrote to Rock.
“Targeting some of the most suspect chemicals is in line with the inevitability that testing of new chemicals and retesting older chemicals for endocrine disruption will soon become a standard of requirement.”
Close to 700 pesticides come up for re-registration at the beginning of the new year.
The 13 identified by the WWF as the most suspect and requiring investigation include: 2,4-D; Atrazine, Cyanazine; Carbaryl; Chlorpyrifos; Dicofol; Endosulfan; Lindane; Maneb, Metiram, Thiram, Zineb and Methoxychlor.
