Why did it take so long to phase out a toxic pesticide?

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings We are accustomed in this country to our governments moving slowly and often secretly. It’s a problem that comes up in so many of the stories we cover on this podcast. If only we had started doing this when we first noticed if only this information had been made public sooner, if only. It didn’t feel sometimes like the folks in charge were asleep at the switch. Often this is an existential thing. We can feel it happening and we can see the slow progress, but sometimes you can watch it happen in real time. Like today’s story, for instance, which explore. Red flags raised by the government’s own scientists about the risk of a commonly used pesticide. It looks at the length of time those risks were allowed to just sit with the government, while at the same time people who understood what was happening. Watched as Europe and the United States immediately called for a halt to the use of this pesticide and phased it out in a matter of months. And yes, Canada eventually did the right thing and followed the leader, but even there, our phase out is longer and slower. It lasts three years instead of. Which means this pesticide is still in use right now. So what is this chemical? Why is it dangerous? Why is it still being used, and why do these things always have to take so long to get right? I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the Big story. Mark Faucet Atkinson is a reporter and writer covering food, climate, plastics, and the environment for Canada’s national observer. Hi Mark.

Mark Faucet Atkinson Hello.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Thanks for joining us. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I will start with a simple question then. What is CLO fos and what is it used?

Mark Faucet Atkinson It’s an insecticide. It’s actually a, a nerve agent that was invented during World War ii. It was until quite recently, used very, very widely as an insecticide. Both on crops and agriculture, on everything from wheat to canola to broccoli, and it’s also used in structural uses. So like buildings, for instance, if you’re trying to prevent termites. And it’s also used in forestry for some forestry uses. And then it was commercialized in 1965 by Dow Chemical. As an alternative to D D T that was nominally safer. That’s how it was kind of branded at the time and it was very, very widely used. So like in Canada, the, the documents referred to in the story I was publishing, that’s kind of what led us to talk today had between 2008 and 2016, farmers were using about 360,000 kilograms a year. And that’s just the one chemical of cloots. So often pesticides are, Like the, the product itself that’s going on the field is made from a blend of chemicals. We only monitored a specific chemical going in. So essentially what I’m trying to say is the amount of pesticides used is bigger than those 360,000 kilograms.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings It’s just that the unique ingredient in them of CLO flow is, was that amount that we were using annually. And what can it do to people? Do we know about the risks of exposure to it? How dangerous is it as a chemical?

Mark Faucet Atkinson So we’ve known about acute exposure risks for ages. So essentially if you’re, you know, if you’re in the fields handling it or somehow rather end up exposed to it kind of quite acutely, it can cause nausea, vomiting, and kind of, you know, it acts on, on the nervous system. Right. And then there were several studies that came out kind of starting in 2000 and then going right through up until recently that are showing brain damage and fetuses. So kind of neural development damages. And then there’s also just recently, and actually this is what was behind the EU ban on the pesticide, the EU determined that there was a risk of genotoxicity. So impacts on essentially how the, the gene expression in cells and, you know, kind of linking that back to cancer. So a lot of not great things associated with it. Um, and some of them from very small doses, you know, like ex acute exposure leads, you know, nausea, vomiting. Like the eu for instance, band was, you know, they couldn’t quite determine what the, the threshold of danger was, so they, they just banned it because it could be very, very low.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right. So you mentioned we started finding this stuff out in about 2000. You also just mentioned the EU has banned it. Can you kind of walk us through that timeline? Like when did these concerns really start to crystallize and it, the band happened across the pond and what are we doing about it in Canada right now? So, probably the earliest. Studies were starting around 2000 and there was kind of a steady trickle right?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Over the next 20 years, essentially on the regulatory side. What happened is in Canada we started, so under a Canadian pesticide law, the government’s supposed to review pesticides every 15 years called reevaluations. So for CLO Iho, that reevaluation started in 1999 actually, and was kind of chugging along until about 2007, at which point in the US there were, you know, growing concerns around the pesticide coming out of independent, you know, kind of some of those studies that I mentioned in, you know, in the early two thousands and the US E P A actually got sued by a bunch of. Health and environmental groups and labor groups over, its kind of continued allowance of this pesticide. That case started in 2007 and ended in 2021, but meanwhile, Canada kind of looked at this happening in the States and I was like, huh, let’s wait and see what’s going on. At least this is what you know, the record seems to suggest. He kind of said, well, let’s wait and see what’s gonna happen with the states, which is typical. We usually follow the EPA A. So essentially the entire Canadian review was put on pause until about 20 15, 20 16. Meanwhile, in the States, this lawsuit was ongoing. It was about to be banned right at the end of the Obama administration. Trump kind of reversed that decision, so there was a four year extension. Once Biden came in it, it got banned quite quickly over, you know, over to health concerns. Meanwhile, in the Uk they were doing their own regulatory and, you know, health assessments and determined again, kind of in, you know, around 2019, 2020 that there were issues and, and the US it was banned for all food uses and agricultural uses in 2021. Meanwhile, in Canada, we followed the EU and the. Decided to phase it out in 2021 on a three year phase out timeline, which means that according to timeline, the final use of it I think is permitted right at the end of this year in, in 2023. So during all that time, you know from, from the point that. The studies began to show, uh, just how dangerous this might be, leaving acute exposure aside because assumedly, uh, farmers and others are taking precautions.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings What do we know about how much of this stuff has made its way into food and water? I guess what I’m trying to get a sense of is, you know, it sounds really scary. The average Canadian, have they been exposed to this stuff?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Chances are, you probably have at some point. So the, looking at the, the Canadian data every a few years, the government does kind of a, a, a national health survey looking at a bunch of different indicators, including kind of urine tests. So in a, I think it’s 2017, they determined that the pesticide or a pesticide, like a breakdown product of the pesticide was found in 99% of urine tested. So quite common there. On the food side, they also test for food residue. There, the, the residue occurrence was significantly lower, both in Canada and the states. It was around 2%. So you can kind of take that, you know how you will definitely, if you’re, you know, if you’re eating organic food, they don’t use pesticides, so your chances of exposure are less. Right. But that 99% of in, in your end is, you know, chances are you’ve, You know, people have been exposed whether those doses are dangerous or not. The, you know, the Canadian federal government says, no, we, we don’t believe that, that that is, that poses a danger, particularly cuz the, the trace amounts on food aren’t very high. Um, the EU has taken a different course and said there could potentially be a risk here, so we’re just gonna ban it. Entirely. And I understand, you know, there’s, there’s back and forth about what levels of risk are acceptable.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Can you explain what we know about what the levels are in, in drinking water in some places and, and how do we know when we reach a level that could be impacting people’s health and safety?

Mark Faucet Atkinson So essentially in, in drinking water in this site, I, I talk about in the article, we don’t have great monitoring, and this came up in the internal documents. I was reviewing that, you know, some of the, the government scientists were saying, well, we don’t have perfect water monitoring. And we, it’s not, we don’t essentially, we don’t really have great data on how common this is. We know that it’s widely used, but. Water monitoring isn’t super widespread. So what they did instead is, you know, the, the government has, has modeling systems essentially to try to figure out, you know, if it’s used in a certain way.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings What’s the likelihood that a dangerous amount will end up in?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Drinking water or, you know, could end up in the environment in a way that could harm people. These models, which they ran between 2016 and 2018 about, showed that there could potentially be a risk with the uses that were allowed at the time, which were kind of several agricultural uses, greenhouses, um, forestry buildings, but that wasn’t linked back to specific water monitoring data because the data wasn’t there essentially. One of the things that your article got at, and that I’d like you to speak about a little bit, is just how opaque was the government and its regulators during this time that all these studies were happening. I feel like we just found out about it when they decided to phase it out after the EU banned it. But really this had been going on for quite some time. There were concerns about this product. Oh, it was incredibly opaque. And that’s, that’s, that’s what these documents really show. There was a, a, a public announcement that the, you know, the reevaluation started in the nineties. There was a public announcement that it was pause, and then it was. Pretty much crickets until around 20 15, 20 16 when there was, uh, an environmental risk assessment that was made public. And then in 2021, early 2021, there was a very, very short decision where essentially they announced they were gonna phase it out, but without really much of a justification. So environmental groups are kind of like, what? You know what’s going on? nd actually sued, which then prompted the government to. In December of that same year, in December 21st, 2021, to put out a second. Decision also announcing a phase out, but with a series of justifications behind, you know, kind of why they were making this, this decision. But looking at the, you know, the internal documents that form the basis of the story, you can see that there’s tons of back and forth within the department where they’re debating no. What should be public? What shouldn’t be public.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Yeah. Can you get into that a little bit? Because it’s fascinating to see how, you know it.

Mark Faucet Atkinson It’s a relatively simple thing they’re trying to do here. They’re trying to phase out something that could potentially be dangerous and they’re debating how much to tell the public. Yeah. So I think the, the most striking one for me, um, striking example probably was around 2016. There was an environmental risk assessment that came out as part of the reevaluation process. And in that document, The initial drafts that kind of I saw looking through, you know, looking through these email chains had a section on the drinking water risk modeling, which the government had recently completed and showed that there could potentially be a risk to some populate, you know, some people, but there was still water monitoring issues around that and that was eventually edited out.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings There was a bunch of back and forth in over it, kind of, you know, various. People within the department wondering, well, you know, do we keep it in? Do we keep it out? How much should we put in? How much do we not put in?

Mark Faucet Atkinson And ultimately it was just entirely deleted. So the public document that came out didn’t even include any hint of that, and the can was kind of kicked down the road by the government saying, well, you know, we do this in two stages. We have an environmental assessment, and then we have a health assessment. We’ve done the environmental assessment, we’re good to do the health assessment. And then they phased it out, which means that. Process. That entire health assessment process never started. It, it, it never really got into gear. And it won’t now because the pesticide is banned

Jordan Heath-Rawlings So what does the government say now that the phase out is in place? Does that mean that they’re acknowledging that this is in fact harmful?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Oh yeah. Yes, definitely. And even the, the, what I had mentioned earlier, there were two decisions around the phase out. One that was very sparse. It was, it was literally a paragraph or two and then a second one. Almost a year later, that kind of laid out a bunch of of arguments.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings So they’re, you know, they’re definitely saying this, this poses a danger, so why phase it out then why not just ban it the way other countries have done?

Mark Faucet Atkinson So that’s essentially the, the government’s. Policy on all pesticides is to do a three year phase out as opposed to an immediate ban.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Why?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Their justification is it’s not dangerous. Their threshold, um, is, unless there’s a serious I imminent threat, they kind of go with the standard three year phase out. And you know, the logic there is it’s less disruption to business, et cetera. So we’re threading the needle here between admitting it’s harmful, but saying it’s not immediately dangerous. Yeah, there’s like a little lane in there. We’re, we’re driving on. That’s exactly it. As somebody who covers this stuff and, and who gets into the, these kind of bands and phase outs and, and chemicals that can be quite complex, how unique is our approach to. I’d say we’re much more similar to the U S C P A in our approach. The way I think about it actually is even broader than that, and this is, you know, as much for pesticides as for other chemicals that are, so pesticides are regulated under kind of pesticide specific laws and other chemicals under, its the Canadian Environmental Production Act, but Canada kind of takes the approach. Well, you know, we put pesticides out and then we determine if there is a risk and how can we manage that risk, and are we managing that risk in a way that’s appropriate. So it’s, it’s, it’s really kind of, they call it a risk management approach, right? The eu, in contrast, takes a much more precautionary approach and says if there is a potential that there could be a risk coming out of. Pesticide, this chemical, then we’re gonna ban it until proven otherwise. So I think that’s that. For me, that’s really where the issue lies, is our approach is we’re very permissive. We let stuff go on the market, we let stuff be used, and then if it’s proof to be an issue, we’ve put in risk mitigation measures or bans to reduce the harm as opposed to. Even before the product goes out, how could this impact people and should it even be out there right after all of this back and forth and finally announcing the phase out, which I believe you said goes until the end of this year.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Where are we at in terms of how much is still being used? And you know, right now, uh, when I go to the grocery store later this afternoon, should I be expecting trace amounts of this stuff in my food if it’s coming from Canada?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Not really. Okay. Yeah, potentially there, there could be a little bit, but honestly, personally, I, I’m not particularly worried in Canada cuz the, you know, right at this point farmers are just trying to use out the re remaining stock that they have. Right. It’s more for imported foods, which, you know, in. In Canada particularly produce, you’re importing 60, 70% of our produce, right?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Yep.

Mark Faucet Atkinson It’s banned in the US and the EU, but other countries still use it. We import food from all over the world, and currently we don’t really have any monitoring for that. You know, there’s kind of spot checks by the C F I A, but there’s no. Kind of comprehensive assessment of this. So yeah, essentially if you know, if you wanna be really, really safe, buy organic food from Canada and you should be good or the states or to eu.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Last question then. Presumably this is not the last pesticide or widely used chemical that we will discover bad things about going forward. When you speak to government regulators or try to speak to government regulators, is there kind of an acknowledgement of a lesson learned here? Are there things to take away?

Mark Faucet Atkinson Like what would you, what would you expect for the future? I, I think this goes back to the philosophy of, you know, how the government thinks about chemicals in terms of risk management and mitigation as opposed to a more preventative approach until that kind of underlying philosophy of how we think about pesticides and chemical regulation changes. The government’s gonna say, you know, well, we are, you know, we’re, we’re doing our tests, we’re doing our assessments, and you know, we think that our measures are, are strong enough essentially to prevent dangerous risk. For me, it comes down primarily to, we need a shift in how we think about. What we allow or not from the get go before it’s on the market at all. In terms of pesticides, we’re currently undergoing, uh, a, a process to shift, um, or update rather is what, you know, the government’s calling it, how we regulate them from what I’ve. Seen and heard that might end up giving more, you know, being better for pesticide companies and have, you know, kind of loosening regulation.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Oh, good.

Mark Faucet Atkinson Yeah, it’s still, the verdict’s still out. And then on the chemical side, you know, we’re, we’re currently in the midst of updating cpa. Um, we’re near the end of it and. Again, the verdict’s still a bit out, but neither of those processes change the underlying philosophy of how, you know, how the government’s thinking about risk and thinking about preventing danger both to people in the environment.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right. Well, it’s good they’re so transparent about it then.

Mark Faucet Atkinson Oh yeah, it’s, it’s this kind of depth. And decades long record is, is quite rare to obtain. So it’s, it’s interesting to kind of see the inner hurricanes.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings It is fascinating and thank you so much for, uh, giving us a glimpse in walking us through it.

Mark Faucet Atkinson Cool. Well, thank you.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Mark Faucet, Atkinson writing in Canada’s national observer. That was the big story. Another special Saturday episode for you. When we have ’em, we bring them to you. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don. We don’t wanna let a good conversation go to waste. You can find more at the big story podcast.ca. As always, you can find us on Twitter at the big story fp n and call us and leave a voicemail, 4 1 6 9 3 5 5 9 3 5. This podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Usually five days a week, sometimes six. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Th Rawlings. We’ll talk on Monday.