You have received the “chemical” half of the story. (Pesticides: Biggest battle in Canada is in Saskatoon – 36% of industry sales, etc.)
This is the disease side, circulated prior, repeated for newcomers.
====================
– Furdale is a very small hamlet south of Saskatoon. 3 teenage friends from Furdale have died from cancer and a fourth is now diagnosed.
– my hometown of Luseland: small population, high incidence of cancer, MS and Parkinsons (details below)
– most rural people go to City hospitals for treatment. Their deaths are recorded by StatsCan as having occurred in the City (where the expense was incurred). The system masks what is happening.
– Dr. Stuart Houston, retired radiologist arranged for me to meet a radiologist who worked one year in Regina and the next in Saskatoon. In her opinion there is an epidemic of cancer coming, among farm men in particular.
– A Health Canada scientist in Regina has finished the first phase of a study of drinking water in the Province. It is not published. 13% of the drinking water samples contain chemical pesticides. The work is meeting resistance. The guy is just a scientist doing his work.
I have communicated this information, except for the last item, to the City of Saskatoon and to the Province. In July.
================================
July, 2004 EXCERPTS FROM COMMUNICATIONS TO MUNICIPAL AND PROVINCIAL GOVTS
What is happening in Saskatchewan
(1) Recently a memoriam for a teen-age daughter appeared in the Star Phoenix. The parents explained:
“It is very sad that as of last week another one of my daughter’s friends has been diagnosed with cancer. This makes 4 childhood friends who grew up together at our home south of Saskatoon.”
This is not a comprehensive list of the disease in this small community, just the cases of 4 friends. I am told of a young woman from the community who drowned herself after being diagnosed with cancer, rather than go through the ordeal of treatment, only to die anyway.
The area draws its water from the South Saskatchewan River after it has flowed through miles of agricultural land. Some residents don’t have sophisticated water treatment, nor an appreciation of what is in the water.
Chemical pesticides are used on the 4 golf courses in the area, and on the farm fields that run to the edge of the town. There are also high voltage transmission lines from the QE Power Station across the River. It is likely that the cause of the cancers (“bizarre forms”) is a combination of inputs.
(Note: The Town of Hudson, Quebec banned the cosmetic use of pesticides after a young boy appealed to the citizens: he lived adjacent to the Golf Course. There is enough evidence linking golf course pesticide use to cancers that the Town banned cosmetic use. Riding Mountain National Park Golf Course has not used pesticides for years now, out of concern for employees and golfers. There are obviously alternative horticultural practices that work.)
So common sense dictates that we should not be dumping more poisons, like vaporooter (chemical mixture used to dissolve tree roots in sewer lines) into our water supplies until we at least know what is happening.
This community of Furdale is not alone.
(2) My home town’s population is 650 residents plus farms. At Christmas over kitchen-table talk I was horrified by the recent cancer fatalities.
1. Farmer (XXJoe – surnames are deleted XX), died Dec. 17, age 63, cancerous brain tumor,cancer widespread, diagnosed in late summer.
2. Farmer (XXDon XX), prostate cancer metastasized to the bones, age about 68, diagnosed in December, dead in September.
3. Farmer XXLeland XX), funeral Oct/Nov, age 63, prostate cancer metastasized.
4. Farmer (XXHans XX), died Dec.27, age 86, lung to brain cancer, diagnosed in Sept.
5. Resident (XXFrank XX), bowel cancer, funeral in Sept.
6. Resident (XXDavid XX), age 38, treated for extensive bowel cancer.
7. Resident (XXRoxanne XX), malignant brain cancer, late 30’s or early 40’s, undergoing treatment, fighting for her life.
8. Resident (XXBetty XX), age 65 to 70, sinus cancer, on-going treatment, fighting for her life.
We listed these 8 people, all recent – it does not account for people who have moved away from the community, nor would we have known all the incidents.
As well, too many people in the community have died or suffer from MS and Parkinsons disease.
These facts support what I heard from a medical doctor.
(3) Dr. Stuart Houston arranged for me to meet a radiologist. Radiologists see diagnostic x-rays, ultra-sounds, scans, etc. from all departments of the hospital. The radiologist described how they inadvertently discover slow-acting, lethal cancer when they are examining, e.g. an x-ray for a broken leg. The cancers take 10 to 15 years to kill the host organism. In her opinion, there is an epidemic of cancer coming. (The epidemic may already have arrived (my home-town experience?).
(4) That there is definitely a problem is also substantiated by an article in The Montreal Gazette, one week ago:
“According to the Canadian Institute of Child Health statistics, cancer in Canadian children under age 15 increased by 25 per cent during the past 25 years.”
The report of this Institute also notes that Saskatchewan’s performance is among the worst of all Canada’s provinces.
Saskatchewan buys 36% of the pesticides sold in Canada.
It is not progressive to use vaporooter (chemical mixture used to dissolve tree roots in sewer lines). There is an alternative: augering.
Cost-benefit analysis do not address health effects. There is a relationship between cancers and accumulated pesticides. Cancer drugs and treatment are very expensive. The estimated average cost of treating a child with the type of cancer experienced by the daughter in the memoriam is $1 million dollars. Our medicare system is reliant on drug therapy, so a large portion of this million dollars for one child goes to the pharmaceutical companies, which own the chemical companies. The second highest cost in Medicare is for drugs. The child died in spite of the expenditure. In fact, these 3 children alone are dead in spite of the expenditures.
SO WHAT IS BEING DONE?
(1) Government of Quebec and Municipalities, 11 million people protected
The Governments stone wall when it comes to chemicals, with one exception.
The Government of Quebec has legislated a ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides. The ban is province-wide. Because the Federal and other Provincial Governments refuse to act, municipalities such as Toronto, Halifax, and Vancouver, have legislated their own by-laws to protect the health of citizens.
The number of municipal pesticide by-laws has increased to a total of 66 across Canada. When the current regulations and by-laws come into full effect the total number of Canadians protected from unwanted exposure to synthetic lawn and garden pesticides will be close to 11 million or approximately 35% of Canada’s population.
The bylaws will help to lessen the amount of chemicals that enter water supplies in Canada.
(2) Rural deaths are recorded as having occurred in urban centres
Getting back to the communities here in Saskatchewan: the disease rate in these communities is alarming. You are asking, “how can the evidence be ignored?”.
If a person from a rural community dies from cancer in Saskatoon or Regina, which is what happens (most patients come to the Cities for treatment) Statistics Canada records the death as having occurred in Saskatoon or Regina. That is an incredible distortion which masks what is happening.
(3) “Senior” Government won’t act. Empowerment of Municipalities.
The Government is not going to act. The chemical industry has a great deal of money and influence.
Communities are, of course, not without power, as evidenced by the number of bylaws that have been passed. The failure to assume responsibility when it is your own children, relatives and friends who will suffer from inaction, is a sign of great decay in the society.
(4) The inane idea that it is okay to “get” the diseases, we’ll find a cure for you.
Why should Saskatonians know about the situation in rural communities?
One reason is that we all pay for healthcare costs which continue to escalate faster than Government revenues. We MUST REMOVE the CAUSES of disease before we run out of money for education. THE INANE IDEA that it is okay to “get” the diseases because we will find a cure to fix you, is extremely inhumane, especially when it is children who are the most vulnerable.
Pesticides contribute to developmental disorders, problems with cognitive functioning, etc. It is all well documented. The costs are not only to the medicare system; the educational and justice systems are impacted. The cost to families is very high.
Some of you are men. The rest of you have fathers or husbands. Sperm counts in males in industrialized countries are down by 40% since the 1950’
s. This is well-known in Europe, not so well-publicized here. The Dept of Fisheries and Oceans finally conducted research in Canada which was released in January 2003. They concluded that fish downstream from sewage treatment plants are “feminized”. It’s from the drugs that enter the water through urine, birth control pills, insulin, anti-depressants, who knows what, PLUS chemicals. Hormone disruptors. Saskatoon City Staff said there was no detectable vapo-rooter in the water coming out of the sewage treatment plant. Feminized fish and sterile men tell you that there are many contaminants in the water that are not detected.
===========================
(SENT TO PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT)
Thank you for your response on behalf of the Government to my communication of July 18th (copy below).
To seek yet more information is a recipe for inaction at a time when action is dictated by circumstances. So thanks, but I decline the Government’s suggestion to contact the Cancer Agency (copy below).
Further to the dumping of more chemicals into the water supply, I submitted additional information to the City of Saskatoon. The related TABLE OF CONTENTS is appended.
Taken in its entirety, the information is a condemnation of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and those who collaborate with them. The issue is one of “in whose interests?”, whether we are talking about continued unnecessary use of chemicals or pharmacare.
CONFLICT OF INTERESTS: The material documents the unacceptable conflicts between the interests of the chemical industry (which is largely the same ownership as the pharmaceutical and transgenic industries), and the Governments (through such agencies as the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA)). The consequence of the conflicts-in-interest is that the common good upon which we are all dependent for health (air, water, soil), is not being served or protected.
The material also documents the corrupt behaviour of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
REQUEST: Because of the compelling information, I call on you to allocate the new money for Medicare to the prevention of disease. The inanity, inhumanity and self-serving nature of the existing attitude, “it’s okay to get the disease, we’ll cure you” ensures a large and growing clientele for the medicare system. Also for the pharmaceutical industry. At tax-payers’ expense (both financially and in health).
The objective of healthcare should be healthy people. The indicators should therefore measure HEALTH, not a waiting list, or people’s “satisfaction“, or the number and kind of facilities. Those reflect how much money you spend, and the effectiveness of your advertising campaign (the spin doctors). They do not tell you whether the expenditures are effective – – what is needed.
Trends like a declining number of people with asthma or diabetes or migraine headaches, or childhood cancer, etc. will tell you whether dollars have been effectively allocated. The goals are achieved in the long term. If the medical profession in concert with the Government is incapable of reducing the trend whereby every year there is a 1% increase in the number of children with asthma, or with cancer, then they should be relieved of their responsibilities and their pay. They are not getting the “health care” job done.
The TABLE OF CONTENTS appended provides the broad picture.
Thank-you for your time and consideration. I will appreciate a response to questions:
1) Will new monies for medicare be allocated to the prevention of disease?
(There is the issue of cosmetic use of pesticides and others. I note that the Minister of Education in Ontario is mandating the removal of junk foods from schools. The President of Uganda will not attend meetings or conferences where alcohol is served as a matter of setting a role model (Addiction is behind large amounts of medicare spending.). Etc.)
2) What are the specifics of your agenda in this regard?
3) Will the Government implement yardsticks by which we can measure the actual effectiveness of dollars spent on the care of health? (We have the yardsticks: the number of children with asthma and cancer has increased by 1% every year over the last 25 years, the number of people with diabetes, etc. – but you don’t use them to evaluate your effectiveness, which enables you to perpetuate a system in which the amount of sickness increases. Someone is benefitting and it is not citizens. I urge REMOVAL OF CAUSE, especially if I’m expected to pay for the system.)
Yours truly,
Sandra Finley
============================
NOTE: should you wish copies of the documentation related to the effectiveness of the regulatory system (PMRA), the corruptness of the chemical/pharmaceutical industry, etc. please contact me. I am happy to supply. The sources of information are public documents.
============================
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO MY LETTER OF JULY 19:
(Typed from hard copy)
September 1, 2004
File: 04-14725
cc: John Nilson, Minister Health, Pat Atkinson, MLA Saskatoon Nutana
Peter Prebble, Minister for SaskWater, David Forbes, Minister Environment
Lily Stonehouse, Deputy Sask Environment Jon Tonita, Sask Cancer Society
Dear Ms. Finley:
John Nilson, Minister of Health, has asked me to respond in follow-up to your correspondence with Ms. Lily Stonehouse, Deputy Minister of Sask Environment, regarding pesticides and their possible link to disease rates.
I am in receipt of your e-mail of July 18, 2004, to Ms. Stonehouse and her letter to you of August 4, 2004.
The Sask Cancer Agency has information on the incidence of various forms of cancer in the province. You can direct your inquiry to Mr. Jon Tonita, Director, Program Evaluation and Surveillance, Sask Cancer Agency (address) if you would like more information on the available data. Mr. Tonita would also be able to province you with information on the challenges of interpreting disease rates in small population groupings.
Sincerely,
John Wright
Deputy Minister of Health