Health Canada investigations allege government officials helped a pesticide company overturn a ban

Health Canada is investigating Canadian National Observer revealed that government officials supported the pesticide industry’s efforts to discredit a researcher’s findings and overturn a proposed ban on a class of pesticides that harm bees, the environment and human health.

During Friday’s Question Time in Ottawa, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May urged the government to respond to the Observer’s story, which revealed that officials colluded with pesticide manufacturer Bayer Crop Science to steal water quality data collected by Christy Morrissey, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, to discredit. Her research formed part of the basis for a proposed ban on neonicotinoids (neonic) in 2016.

In response to May’s question, Yasir Naqvi, parliamentary secretary to the health minister, said the ministry is taking the allegations seriously and the pest control regulator will investigate the concerns raised. Morrissey confirmed she has been called to a meeting next week with the senior directors general of the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

“None of this is timely. It took three years and a media story to get them to do something about it,” she told CNO in an email on Friday. Morrissey filed a formal appeal when the proposed ban was overturned in 2021, noting that Canada’s pesticide legislation requires the regulator to address formal scientific objections to its decision within a reasonable timeframe.

“That’s not reasonable,” she said. In her objection, she outlined how Bayer obtained her unpublished water sampling data from the PMRA and then hired a team of researchers to write a report claiming that most of it was not relevant to the agency’s neonics assessment.

Although they ostensibly intended to replicate her data, they did not ask her for detailed GPS coordinates and relied primarily on Google Earth satellite imagery for their assessment. They visited “a few locations,” the report said — but at the end of the drought-stricken summer, when many of the wetlands Morrissey sampled were dry.

Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides harmful to human brain and sperm And deadly to bees, insects and birds. They are banned in Europe because of the ecological damage they cause. Canada initially planned to follow suit, but relented after years of industry pressure.

Critics were not convinced by Naqvi’s response.

“Over the past decade, Health Canada has reiterated its commitment to investigating evidence of neonate harm while continuing to allow its widespread use,” said Lisa Gue, national policy manager at the David Suzuki Foundation.

“If the government is finally ready to take these concerns seriously, the Health Secretary should immediately appoint an independent panel to review the flawed assessments of neonics, … ban neonics as the EU has done, and reform the PMRA to address this kind of undue influence from the industry. in future pesticide reviews,” Gue said.

“It appears that this minister does not know what is happening in his department,” said Laura Bowman, a lawyer at Ecojustice who specializes in pesticides. “Health Canada waits years before requesting important health and environmental information for fast-track pesticides like neonics,” and has a pattern of ignoring bans proposed by its own scientists.

“These reversals often rely on junk science from pesticide registrants to override published, peer-reviewed studies. I don’t think this is the kind of process that Canadians would call rigorous.”

Speak with Canadian National Observer On Thursday, NDP agriculture critic Richard Cannings said his party supports farmers and recognizes that part of their efforts to grow food may involve the use of pesticides.

“Canadians are okay with using pesticides as long as they are used responsibly and as long as they are properly regulated,” he said.

But the revelation that the regulator helped pesticide makers undermine independent researchers to keep their products on the market “is not the way we should do science — and certainly not the way we should do science designed to protect the health of Canadians and the public. health of our ecosystems.”