THE head of the US agency with the task of protecting people and the environment from toxic chemicals has condemned its legal powers as outdated and inadequate for ensuring the safety of thousands of industrial chemicals in widespread use.
“Over the past 30 years, EPA has only been able to require testing on around 200 chemicals produced and used in the US, and it has only issued regulations to control five existing chemicals determined to present an unreasonable risk (under the law),” Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson says.
Her testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier this month has direct implications for Australia’s regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.
The APVMA uses a similar process when assessing applications to register pesticides and other toxic substances for use in veterinary practice and agriculture.
The APVMA has registered agrichemicals such as endosulfan and carbendazim, which have been linked to human and animal reproductive and developmental disorders.
“This should be a wake-up call for the APVMA,” claims NSW-based fisheries veterinarian Matthew Landos, a member of the scientific taskforce investigating ongoing fish deaths, deformities and abnormal behaviour at a Noosa, Queensland, hatchery.
The incidents began in 2005 following establishment of a macadamia farm nearby.
Landos was called in by hatchery owner Gwen Gilson last year after the continued appearance of bizarre double-headed fish embryos and mass fish deaths.
A preliminary report conducted by pathologist Roger Chong of Queensland’s Biosecurity Sciences Laboratory found the deaths, deformities and behavioural abnormalities were consistent with exposure to types of pesticides and fungicides used to treat the macadamia trees.
In a series of controlled trials this year, Landos says, brood fish were collected outside the Noosa river catchment and spawned at the hatchery. The batch of larvae was split and a few were kept at the hatchery while the rest were reared away. Fish reared away were normal but the fish fed algae at the hatchery died when spraying began.
In a separate trial, mullet was collected from near the mouth of the Noosa River. Roughly half of the fish spawned had highly abnormal embryos, including three tails.
Queensland officials collected more mullet from the river itself and spawned them at a distant research station.
Only one pairing of fish was successful and the resulting embryos were normal.
Landos says the pesticides endosulfan and carbendazim were found in recent sampling, conducted by Queensland environment authorities, near the hatchery and in the Noosa River catchment.
He criticises the APVMA for not applying immediate restrictions on the use of endosulfan and carbendazim.
Last month, endosulfan was listed as a “persistent organic pollutant” under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, of which Australia is a signatory. APVMA spokesman Simon Cubit says the authority will wait until the convention “decides appropriate control measures” before considering whether to ratify the decision.
Cubit says the APVMA is aware of a resolution adopted in October by the National Drugs and Poisons Schedule Committee to reschedule carbendazim to the second highest level of concern, and will require updated labelling by May 2010.
And,
Cancer treatment and cures are the focus of a great deal of attention and discussion but cancer prevention and the environmental carcinogens that cause the disease are often neglected. In the first week of December a group of us met in Melbourne with Chanda and Nathan (director and producers) to talk about their film Living Downstream. The film is compelling watching for all those who are interested in the connections between cancer and man-made pollutants now spread throughout our environment. It is as pertinent for us in Australia as for those living in North America, as the pollutants (especially the PCBs and atrazine) are the same chemicals that contaminate our water, soil and atmosphere..
Based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream is an eloquent and cinematic feature-length documentary following Sandra during one pivotal year as she works to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links. Living Downstream is produced by The People’s Picture Company Inc. It will be available for film festival screenings beginning in January 2010 and will be available for conference screenings and educational uses in late 2010. For more information, please visit the website: www.livingdownstream.com
Contact details as below
Chanda Chevannes,
The People’s Picture Company
1522 Davenport Rd., Toronto, ON, M6H 2H8
p. (647) 343-2647 m. (416) 294-9121 f. (647) 342-2867
e. [email protected] w. http://www.theppcinc.com
