Posted at Wednesday, June 07, 2006  EDT  

Critics blast Ottawa over leaked research

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT,  ENVIRONMENT REPORTER

Health Canada says it mistakenly gave an internal government document supporting the safety of 2,4-D, a controversial herbicide banned in many communities as a possible health hazard, to an industry representative who has lobbied for the use of the weed killer.

The document was given to Ken Pavely, a spokesman for the IPM-PHC Council of Canada, an Ontario-based group that supports moderate pesticide use. After he distributed the document, it was posted on the website for the Weedman, a lawn-care franchiser, as a sign that the federal government gives the herbicide its seal of approval.

The action has raised concerns among environmentalists about the objectivity of Health Canada, the country's pesticide regulator, which is now in the final stages of what is supposed to be an impartial review of the safety of 2,4-D.

The department's Pest Management Regulatory Agency is expected to issue a final ruling on the safety of the herbicide, which is used to kill dandelions and other broadleaved plants, in early 2007. It issued a preliminary assessment indicating it favoured continued use of the product in February, 2005. A Health Canada spokeswoman said the government sent out the report in error. The department subsequently asked Weedman to take the report off its website, and the lawn company complied.

Edith Lachapelle, the spokeswoman, said she can understand why some people might accuse the agency of bias because the report was released but said, "It was a mistake."

The herbicide is the target of an aggressive campaign by environmentalists and public health advocates, who say it is hazardous to spray 2,4-D close to homes, and an equally aggressive lobbying effort by some lawn-care companies defending its continued residential use.

About 30 per cent of Canadians, including all residents of Quebec and those in major cities, such as Toronto, live in jurisdictions where use of 2,4-D has been banned.

One of the main health worries about 2,4-D is its possible link to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer whose incidence has been increasing around the world for the past 25 years for unexplained reasons. Many epidemiological studies have found that farmers who use large amounts of the herbicide for weed control have elevated rates of the cancer, but other studies have not established such a link.

The Health Canada document, written by Ms. Lachapelle, was a detailed rebuttal to a scientific paper by Canadian researchers in the April edition of Paediatrics and Child Health. The paper concluded there is a growing body of medical literature on the herbicide that "persuasively" links it to cancer, neurological impairment and reproductive problems.

However, Health Canada dismissed those concerns and said it has "determined that [2,4-D] is acceptable for use when label directions are followed," and it also said it is not a carcinogen.

Dr. Meg Sears, a consultant who worked on the pediatrics paper, said she was dismayed that Health Canada would dispute the research without even contacting her. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency "basically sits in the lap of its industry partners and throws pot shots at the medical community without ever engaging them," she said in an interview. "It really does seem they're acting with and for the pesticide industry and not for the health of Canadians."

The document was distributed outside of government by Rob Ward, a manager in the PMRA's regulatory affairs department, who, in an e-mail obtained by The Globe and Mail, told Mr. Pavely he should "feel free" to forward the document to others in the pesticide business.

Mr. Ward declined to comment, and Ms. Lachapelle said he has been told his actions were an error. The federal government has a policy of sending out such reports, but only to provincial and territorial government officials, not to those in private industry.

Mr. Pavely gave a different explanation about why he had to return the document. He said Health Canada contacted him and told him the information was incomplete and therefore shouldn't be passed around. "I got a call from Health Canada saying that it shouldn't have been distributed. It wasn't a complete document," he said.

Health Canada is reviewing the fate of 2,4-D under a program to determine whether pesticides registered for use before 1995 meet modern health and environmental standards.

Since the government said last year that it was leaning toward allowing continued use of 2,4-D, a number of studies have appeared suggesting it is harmful. The results of one study, published in Cancer Causes and Control, on U.S. farm workers associated it with a 280-per-cent increase risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; another, in Toxicological Sciences, found that doses of the herbicide and testosterone caused the proliferation of human prostate-cancer cells.