By Linda Kaucher
The public has until December 16 to nominate any pesticides which it wants reviewed for safety purposes in the light of new research. Dr Kate Short from the National Toxics Network (NTN) is alerting people to their rights. Although new pesticides are subjected to a fairly rigorous procedure, a review of those that have been around for a long time may result in many being banned.
Short, author of Quick Poison, Slow Poison and long-time campaigner against the misuse of pesticides, believes that although we reap many benefits from pesticides, the industry needs good regulation.
According to Short, we have the wrong cultural attitude towards pesticide chemicals. They are available in supermarkets and people use them freely. "We can't train everyone to use pesticides properly", she says, "so they shouldn't be available to the public". Pesticides are presently regulated by the states, usually by agricultural departments, which, Short claims, have little interest or knowledge about their toxic impacts.
There are more than 450 pesticides registered in Australia, including insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, and there are many thousands of products available.
Herbicides may be sprayed anywhere, even in children's playgrounds. According to Short, they are often overused in a wasteful way, and alternatives like weeding and crop rotation are often not fully costed against chemical methods.
Herbicides may be used on riverbanks, and on rice and cotton crops, creating an extremely high potential for water pollution. Herbicides are by far the biggest section of the pesticides market.
There has been an exponential growth in the number of organic chemicals available, including pesticides in the last few decades. Many of them contain chlorine and chlorine compounds. These are fat-soluble and are very persistent in the environment. When they are ingested they go from the gut to the bloodstream, and into the cells and organs of the body. The growth in organo-chlorine pesticides has been mirrored by an increase in breast cancer.
There is now a strong correlation between DDT and PCB residues in breast tissue and breast cancer.
Children under five are most at risk from ingesting pesticides because they eat so much food, especially fruit, compared to their body weight. The youngest age group is even more at risk for this reason, and high levels of organo-chlorines have been detected in breast milk.
Pesticides are concentrated at the top of the food chain. Animals like hawks and sea eagles die from the high concentrations they accumulate.
Short points out that the persistence of pesticide chemicals in the environment tends to be greatly underestimated by manufacturers. Instructions and warnings on products fail to take account of how pesticides will be transported in the environment and where they will finish up.
Along with other participants in the NTN, Short feels that users of chemicals, like farmers, have a right to good information on what they are using, to allow them to make informed choices. Atrazine, for instance, which is freely available, is strongly linked to cancer, is neuro-toxic, toxic to an unborn child and may affect the immune and endocrine systems.
Recent reporting on the pesticide contamination of beef only questioned, at least for the first few days, how the export market was being affected. According to Democrat Senator Robert Bell, domestic market beef isn't tested at all. The states test export beef, but there is no agreed national standard. In addition, Bell said the federal government does not inform people of the history of sites which are used for food production and whether they are contaminated.
The National Registration Authority, set up by legislation last year, will only decide whether or not to register chemicals. Once they are registered, the authority will not monitor them, or control their use, or carry out any testing. Once chemicals are registered, they are unrestricted.
NTN is encouraging people to nominate for review those pesticides and chemicals that are freely available, for instance those in supermarkets and hardware stores.
Nomination forms are available from the National Registration Authority on (06) 272 5158, or contact the Toxic Chemicals Committee at the Total Environment Centre for advice on (02) 247 4714.