A multinational corporation with $3 Billion (US) in sales last year is using NAFTA to extort $100 Million (US) from our government for protecting the health of our citizens.

By Doug Tanner

In 1995, Canada banned the export of PCB-contaminated waste. In 1997, Canada repealed that ban after S. D. Myers, an exporter of the waste, threatened to sue them under NAFTA's chapter 11.

In 1998, Ethyl Corp. used NAFTA's chapter 11 to sue Canada for $251 Million because of our ban on a carcinogenic gasoline additive MMT. Canada realized it was going to lose the case and paid Ethyl $13 Million plus legal fees. Canada also repealed the ban and publicly declared that MMT was "safe", directly contrary to evidence from our national environmental protection agency.

November 6, 2001, a major U.S. chemical maker, Crompton Corp, is using NAFTA to sue the Canadian government for $100 Million (U.S.) after we recently banned the use of a canola pesticide called lindane. Crompton also wants the ban repealed.

The U.S. EPA regulates lindane as a group C chemical: a "possible human carcinogen". The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies lindane as "possibly" carcinogenic to humans. The International Agency for Research on Cancer lists Lindane as a possible human carcinogen and has been linked with breast cancer and birth defects. So Crompton is correct when it says that there is "no conclusive scientific evidence that [banning the use of the lindane product] is necessary to protect human health or the environment" (Emphasis added).

There are however, piles of evidence that non-conclusively link lindane with all sorts of nasty things. In the English town Lincolnshire, where lindane is used extensively on sugar beet crops, the incidence of breast cancer is 40% higher than the national average [1]. A study conducted in Iowa and Minnesota found a six-fold increase of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in farmers exposed to lindane pesticides [2]. And a recent Canadian study replicated these findings [3].

What makes lindane even more dangerous is that it is persistent in the environment (residues can be found in crops grown on land ten years after it was last used), spreads easily (it was estimated that between 12 and 30% of lindane applied as canola seed treatment may be released to the atmosphere [4]), and it is bio-accumulative. Which means that it accumulates in biological organisms (for example in the fatty tissue of humans), with greatest concentrations at the top of the food chain.

So even ignoring the dangers directly posed by the pesticide, we have to worry about Lindane accumulating in our bodies. Direct exposure to Lindane has well-documented adverse effects. Children treated with lindane shampoo have high rates of childhood brain cancer [5]. Lindane is a known hemotoxin-blood poison. In many case reports, lindane exposure from recommended dosages has resulted in blood diseases such as aplastic anemia [6]. Aplastic anemia, which has a high fatality rate, is a precursor to leukemia. Lindane is also a neurotoxin - nerve poison. In many cases, treatment with lindane shampoos has resulted in vomiting, seizures, brain damage, and comas. These adverse effects have resulted from the recommended dosages of this product [7].

Fears of bioaccumulation are not exaggerated. Recent data published by Codex Alimentarius, the international authority which determines Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) for potentially harmful substances in food, shows that a person consuming an average local diet in any region of the world will exceed the ADI for lindane by between 3.8 and 12 times [8]. Other data shows that the presence of lindane in human milk has been reported in countries throughout the world [9].

So it comes as no surprise that like other organochlorine insecticides (aldrin, dieldrin and endrin, heptachlor, toxaphene, and most famously, DDT), it is banned all over the world: more than 30 countries have a total ban on Lindane, with another 20 or so having it severely restricted [10]. In fact, even our close neighbor the United States prohibits it.

Lindane was introduced on the market in the 1930's when there were less stringent standards concerning pesticide use. This was back when they were approving things like DTT. If they attempted to introduce Lindane on the market today (especially taking into account all the evidence that supports but does not conclusively prove Lindane is a carcinogen), it would not be approved [11].

It's not like there aren't any alternatives to this product. In addition to non-pesticide alternatives, one new pesticide, Gaucho, is already approved by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) for use in Canada (July 1998). And this ban comes as no surprise, in 1998; the Canola Council of Canada announced the voluntary removal of lindane. As of December 31, 1999, companies would stop importing and manufacturing lindane. Companies could continue to sell and farmers to use lindane until July 1, 2001. This was all voluntary of course, so they simply ignored the voluntary ban and kept using it, with Crompton more than willing to supply them.

To sum it up, a multinational corporation with $3 Billion (US) in sales last year wants to extort $100 Million (US) from our government for protecting the health of our citizens. The chemical in question is banned all over the world, and would not be approved today if it were introduced on the market. And it is not a question of letting our farmers survive, because there exists a slightly more expensive alternative, which is already being used by their competitors in the US.

So once again, Capitalism has failed us. Corporations are going to be allowed to make a profit at the expense of our health and our wonderfully "democratic" government can't do a damn thing about it. What's the good in having democracy when un-democratic corporations call the shots? In any sane economic system, we would be suing Crompton for the decades of exposure to this deadly chemical, not the other way around!

Footnotes:

1. Women's Environmental Network, Lindane, 1994.

2. Cantor KP, Blair A, Everett G, Gibson R, Burmeister LF, Brown LM, Schuman L and Dick FR.

"Pesticides and other agricultural risk factors for non-Hodgkin's lyrnphoma among men in Iowa and Minnesota"

Cancer Res. 52: 2447-2455, 1992.

3. McDuffie HH, Pahwa P, McLaughlin JR, Spinelli JJ, Fincham S, Dosman JA

NON-HODGKIN'S LYMPHOMA AND SPECIFIC PESTICIDE EXPOSURES IN MEN: CROSS-CANADA STUDY OF PESTICIDES AND HEALTH

NOV 2001

4. Waite DT, Gurprasad NP, Sproull JF, Quiring DV, Kotylak MW

ATMOSPHERIC MOVEMENTS OF LINDANE (GAMMA-HEXACHLOROCYCLOHEXANE) FROM CANOLA FIELDS PLANTED WITH TREATED SEED

MAY-JUN 2001

5. Davis JR, Brownson RC, Garcia R, Beniz BJ and Turner A.

"Family pesticide use and childhood brain cancer"

Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 24: 87-92, 1993.

6. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

"Toxicological profile for alpha-, beta- gamma-, and delt-hexachlorocyclohexane (update)"

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Pub. No. TP-93.09, May 1994.

7. Solomon LM, west DP and Fitzloff JF.

"Lindane"

Letter, Arch Dermatol 126: 248, 1990.

8. The Pesticides Trust, 1998.

9. Moses, Marion

"Pesticides and breast cancer"

Pesticides News 22, December 1993, 3-5

10. UN Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, 1994.

IRPTC/UNEP database, 1995.

Pesticide Action Network North America, Demise of the Dirty Dozen, 1995.

Pesticide Information Update No. 22, PAN UK, August 16, 2000.

11. Jeff Rooker, the Food Safety Minister of Britain said that if this was a new chemical, it would not be allowed onto the market today. Press Release by the UK-based Soils Association, July 1999.