Lawsuit slams lack of transparency in Health Canada’s management of chlorpyrifos
PMRA sticks to three-year phaseout despite evidence chlorpyrifos causes brain damage in children
OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE —
Ecojustice, on behalf of Safe Food Matters and Prevent Cancer Now, is headed to court to fight for greater transparency, consistency, and accountability in how Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) makes decisions regarding harmful chemicals that impact the health of Canadians.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday, the groups challenge the PMRA’s Second Phaseout Decision regarding the dangerous pesticide chlorpyrifos. This decision maintains the three-year phaseout period set out in a previous decision from the PMRA, also being challenged by the groups in court. By maintaining the three-year phaseout, chlorpyrifos pest control products will continue to be used, including on food, until December 2023.
Health Canada first cancelled all uses of chlorpyrifos in May 2021 with a three-year phaseout, due to a failure of registrants to provide essential human health …Read More
DELAY, DELAY … by the PMRA
PMRA delays deciding on chlorpyrifos, then delays ban for 3 years. Safe Food Matters and Prevent Cancer Now bring Court challenge.
A Health Canada agency is delaying the cancellation of the dangerous chemical, thereby exposing Canadians to continued harm. Chlorpyrifos is a hazardous neurotoxic pesticide, known for permanently damaging the brains of developing children.
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) didn’t cancel the chemical back in 2007 when it learned of the dangerous health risks, and it issued a cancellation statement only in May, 2021 – which allows continued “phase-out” use for another 3 years. The sales of this pesticide are consistently in the top 10 in Canada, so the quantities are significant.
Between 2007 and 2017, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published several human health risk assessments, linking chlorpyrifos to adverse neurodevelopmental effects. The PMRA said it would follow the EPA documents “in detail” and reassess them in the Canadian context. …Read More
Health Canada bans #Chlorpyrifos
MEDIA STATEMENT: After Green-lighting Chlorpyrifos in December, #Health Canada Finally Plans to Put Brain-Wasting #Pesticide Out to Pasture (delaying action for years, following rulings in EU, and US Federal Court of Appeals)
TORONTO/OTTAWA – A network of health and environmental groups applaud Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) for finally moving to ban the toxic insecticide Chlorpyrifos, 53 years after it was first approved for use in Canada. The Agency quietly issued a three-year plan to ban late last week.
In December 2020, the PMRA extended some uses for several years, following its first full environmental review since entering the Canadian marketplace in 1969. Absent, however, was the mandatory health impact assessment. The PMRA finally issued a staged ban—allowing for use in three more growing seasons—when it became clear that registrant-company health data was not forthcoming.
Canada’s slow phase-out risks ongoing harm as well as dumping of Chlorpyrifos. In April 2019, the …Read More
Who we Are/Contact
Safe Food Matters Inc. is a Canadian non-profit corporation, founded in 2016, dedicated to safe food and a safe environment. We work to improve regulatory policies to better protect human health and the environment.
Our current topics are glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, and GM (genetically modified/edited products). To see our collections on a topic, click on the topic link above, in a post or on the sidebar.
We are going to court over Health Canada’s 2017 re-registration of glyphosate. Please help with legal costs by donating through direct transfer to safefoodmatters@gmail.com or through our GoFundMe link. Every little bit helps! Thanks.
Email: safefoodmatters@gmail.com
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Notice of Objection: Chlorpyrifos (Environment)
Notice of Objection Chlorpyrifos (Environment)
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (“PMRA”) of Health Canada recently re-registered chlorpyrifos for spraying on mosquitos, in buildings, around structures, on trees (mountain pines and elm) and on outdoor and greenhouse ornamental plants. This chemical is highly neurotoxic, banned in Europe, and has been proposed for addition to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
How did PMRA do this? By not conducting a valid evaluation of the chemical. It separated out the assessment of risks to the environment from the risks to human health, which is not a justified approach. Then in its environmental risk assessment, it did not assess the extent of exposure in terms of concentrations in the environment as it was required to do. It used inaccurate information and faulty assumptions, it did not examine certain environmental harms, it made completely wrong extrapolations of the science from one species …Read More
