Veterinarians asked to report pesticide poisoning incidents

A new website is launched for veterinarians to help track pesticide poisoning incidents.

The data is supposed to be evaluated by the EPA. What they will do with it is yet to be seen since, as evidenced in yesterday’s post, they don’t seem to be doing much to protect people let alone pets. But I suppose it will start a database that may some day be useful if anyone wishes to change pesticide policy for the health of pets.

(”Beyond Pesticides” January 2, 2009)– Household pets and other animals are commonly exposed to toxic pesticides in lawns and parks, from homeowner use of bug sprays, in contaminated air or water, or from flea and tick control products, potentially poisoning the animal and causing acute and chronic health effects. A new website has been designed for veterinarians to help track these pesticide poisoning incidents.

The incident reporting website is part of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) webpages. It was developed by the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) with input from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Pesticide Program, AVMA’s Clinical Practitioners Advisory Committee and Council on Biologic and Therapeutic Agents “to capture the optimal amount of relevant information using a form that is quick for busy practitioners to fill out.” The data is to be evaluated by EPA.

According to EPA, “Most of the reports of more severe pesticide-related incidents EPA receives are neurological or dermatologic in nature. The reports from veterinarians will help improve the quality of all animal incident data.”

Numerous studies have documented the risk of pesticides to pets over the years. A 1991 National Cancer Institute study, finds that dogs whose owners’ lawns were treated with 2,4-D, four or more times per year, are twice as likely to contract canine malignant lymphoma than dogs whose owners do not use the herbicide. Exposure to herbicide-treated lawns and gardens increases the risk of bladder cancer by four to seven times in Scottish Terriers, according to a study by Purdue University veterinary researchers published in the April 15, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Research published in the December 1988 issue of Preventive Veterinary Medicine links hyperthyroidism in cats to flea powders and sprays, lawn pesticides and canned cat food. Allethrin, a common ingredient in home mosquito products (coils, mats, oils and sprays) and other bug sprays, has been linked to liver problems in dogs, according to a 1989 study by the World Health Organization. The 1989 edition W.C. Campbell Toxicology textbook reports that chronic exposure to abamectin, an insecticide often used by homeowners on fire ants can affect the nervous system of dogs and cause symptoms such as pupil dilation, lethargy, and tremors.

According to 2004 statistics compiled by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Animal Poison Control Center, 22% of approximately 880 cases of pet birds being exposed to common household items involved pesticides (including rat bait and insecticides).

“I can think of numerous cases over the years of abnormal neurologic signs in dogs after exposure to ‘benign’ herbicides and a pretty severe contact dermatitis in a cat after exposure to a pesticide,” states an ER vet in California. “I will try to encourage my colleagues to report any questionable adverse event in the future.”

If you suspect your pet has been poisoned, contact the Animal Poison Control Center at 888-426-4435. Encourage your veterinarian to document the pesticide poisoning through the new AVMA website. To be sure the incident does not go undocumented, complete Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide Incident Report.

For more information on how your pet may be poisoned, what pesticides do to pets, and alterative pest management strategies for your home and pet pest problems, see Beyond Pesticides factsheet Pesticides and Pets: What you should know to keep your pets safe.

Gee, I can think of numerous times over the years of abnormal neurologic signs in me after exposure to “benign” herbicides. Anyone care to send a report in on that?

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Photo of dog on safe lawn by Anita Thomhave

Thanks, Linda!

Ugly Betty: Odor in the Court

An episode of the popular TV series Ugly Betty in which Betty sprays herself with perfume and then starts acting all drugged out and crazy. Seem familiar?

Here’s another clip of the episode that rings entirely too true for anyone with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

The episode ended with full disclosure of the contents of the perfume and it’s ill effects.

Ugly Betty rocks!

Thanks, Mokihana!

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Firefighters exposed to hazardous food additives

New Zealand– Christchurch firefighters were put to the test on Thursday night dealing with a dangerous cocktail of flames and chemicals.

The first on the scene at the Hornby hazardous goods warehouse turned back after chemicals burned through the gloves of two firefighters.

Decontamination units were brought in and the toxic fire was fought from a safe distance.

Chemicals stored at the warehouse included food processing additives.

Link to TVNZ

Susie’s secret garden: Building the entrance pond

The last post was so depressing that I wanted give you some Canary Candy. Here’s a timelapse series of photos on building our front entrance pond. We did this in December of 2007.

You can visit my YouTube channel to see my other vids, and also all the myriad favorites I’ve collected on YouTube on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, organic gardening, pesticides, meditation, silly humor, etc, etc, etc. I found one last night with two cats talking to each other that is one big huge LOL.

Love you guys. Stay safe out there! xoxo

Pesticide exposure kills elderly woman

EPA files complaint three years later; federal pesticide law limits the penalty EPA can seek to a maximum of $4,550.

(Beyond Pesticides) The U.S. EPA has filed an administrative complaint, seeking a maximum penalty of only $4,550, against a pest control company that sprayed pesticides in a couple’s home, causing the wife to die shortly thereafter. It has been more than three years since the incident took place in Florence, Oregon.

Swanson’s Pest Management of Eugene, Oregon sent an employee to a home on June 29, 2005 to apply Conquer Residential Insecticide Concentrate, active ingredient esfenvalerate, and ULD BP-100 Contact Insecticide, active ingredient pyrethrin. The couple returned to their home two and a half hours later and immediately fell to the ground due to the fumes. Paramedics were called in and they too experienced respiratory distress or became ill when they entered the treated home. According to The Oregonian, Florence Kolbeck was 76 years old and died of cardiac arrest as a result of the exposure. Her husband, Fred, was hospitalized for respiratory distress.

The complaint was filed following a review of Swanson’s use of the two pesticides, finding that the company failed to properly ventilate the home prior to the occupants re-entering, and improperly applied Conquer as a “space spray” at nearly three times the allowable rate. All of which are violations of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The U.S. EPA complaint also contains alleged violations pertaining to an application at another residence that took place prior to the application that led to the women’s death. In this case, the applicator allegedly used the same tank mix of pesticides, though no adverse health affects were reported.

A 2006 article in the Seattle Times reported that Swanson’s general manager, Steve Fisher, “said his review of the case showed that the technician sprayed the home as he normally would… ‘Unfortunate things happen in just about every walk of life.’”

This past March, Fred Kolbeck settled a $2.5 million lawsuit against Swanson’s for an undisclosed amount, according to The Oregonian.

Swanson’s has 30 days from the day they received the U.S. EPA complaint to either arrange a settlement conference, file an answer to the Complaint, or pay the proposed penalty. Swanson’s operation manager, Joan Jensen told The Oregonian, “that the EPA’s allegations are not accurate” and that the “negotiations with the agency are ongoing.”

According to EPA, “The consequences of Swanson’s alleged violations were extremely serious,” yet the federal pesticide law limits the penalty EPA can seek to a maximum of $4,550.

With the phase-out of most residential uses of the common organophosphate insecticides, chlorpyrifos and diazinon, home use of pyrethrins and pyrethroids, such as the ones applied at the Kolbeck home, has increased. According to a 2008 report, pyrethrins and pyrethroids were responsible for more than 26 percent of all major and moderate human incidents involving pesticides in the United States in 2007, up from just 15 percent in 1998 - a 67 percent increase. This is based on an analysis of adverse reaction reports filed with the Environmental Protection Agency by pesticide manufacturers.

While pyrethroids have been characterized as less toxic than organophosphates, the number of reported human health problems, including severe reactions and even deaths attributed to pesticides containing pyrethrins and pyrethroids, increased from 261 in 1998 to 1,030 in 2007, nearly a 300 percent increase. Pyrethrins and pyrethroids account for more incidents than any other class of pesticide over the last five years. EPA data shows at least 50 deaths attributed to this supposedly safer class of pesticides since 1992.

Pesticide products containing synthetic pyrethroids are often described by pest control operators as “safe as chrysanthemum flowers.” While pyrethroids are a synthetic version of an extract from the chyrsanthemum plant, they are chemically engineered to be more toxic, take longer to breakdown, and are often formulated with synergists, increasing potency and compromising the human body’s ability to detoxify the pesticide. Pyrethroids may affect neurological development, disrupt hormones, induce cancer, and suppress the immune system. Researchers at Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) find that residential pesticide use represents the most important risk factor for children’s exposure to pyrethroid insecticides.

There are clear established methods for managing homes that prevent infestation of unwanted insects without the use of synthetic chemicals, including exclusion techniques, sanitation and maintenance practices, as well as mechanical and least toxic controls (which include boric acid and diatomaceous earth). Based on the host of health effects linked to pesticides, their use in the home is hazardous and unnecessary. Most pest problems can be solved without toxic pesticides, through sanitation, proper storage of food and trash, exclusion (sealing entryways), traps and non-volatile baits. For detailed information on preventing specific pests, see Beyond Pesticides’ Alternatives Factsheets.

For more information on the details of the Kolbeck/Swanson incident and the issues surrounding ventilation after a pesticide application, click here.

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Growing trends in healthy house construction

Paula Baker-LaPorte at Healthy House Institute writes about Building Biology and the Healthy House.

“Building related illness, 20th (21st) century disease, multiple chemical sensitivities, sick building syndrome, environmental illness: these terms are recent additions to our vocabulary,” she writes. “Until about 25 years ago, indoor air pollution was a very limited phenomenon.”

But, she says, three basic things have changed in the evolution of building technology resulting in the current widespread concern about the environmental quality inside our homes: the very fabric of our homes, products that have a negative and costly impact on our health, and performance demands on our buildings such as dealing with trapped moisture from sealed bathrooms.

In response to these problems, she sees two different models emerging for a healthy home. One– the most common– is to seal the home very tightly on the inside, so nothing toxic from the building materials can leak into the living space. (This is akin to what people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity try to achieve with foil barriers.) And the other, more in line with what chemically sensitive people would like to see, is to build with nontoxic materials in the first place.

But the natural building materials solution is difficult to implement, most notably because of current building codes backed by corporate interests. Still, Baker-LaPorte sees building trends moving in the right direction.

…building systems that use natural materials as their base, once the norm for us and still the norm for the majority of humankind, are viewed with great suspicion and skepticism in the current mainstream building culture. If one chooses to build with natural materials one quickly learns that natural building systems have become the orphans of the modern building industry. Whereas huge corporate resources back industrialized building products, funding for code required testing of natural non-proprietary materials has, to date, been a grass roots pass-the-hat affair. Even though people have surrounded themselves with natural permeable materials throughout human history, and even though enduring models of these buildings are found throughout the world, mainstream building practices and codes are dominated by manufactured building commodities that are laboratory tested, standardized, stamped, packaged and shipped. When one applies for a building permit for a home to be made with natural building materials, the applicant may be rejected, or if permitted, the building may bear a dubious “experimental” status.

The natural building movement championed by the theories of Building Biology and a small but growing sector of environmentally concerned builders, designers and homeowners is however gaining momentum. And I believe there is a synthesis at hand between the two seemingly opposite approaches to healthy building. A natural home equipped with all the amenities of modern life faces many of the same indoor environmental qualities as does a sealed construction, and ventilation systems are becoming more common in natural buildings. On the other hand manufactured, code pre-approved permeable wall systems such as aerated autoclaved concrete are being introduced in to the mainstream market place. Straw bale construction has now been tested and codified in many locations. More and more construction products now advertise being “environmentally friendly” and “non-toxic”. Green building rating systems that reward healthier building practices are springing up all over the country. Regardless of the starting point we are moving towards healthier homes that are freer of toxic chemicals, more energy efficient and kinder on the environment.

Link to full article

Photo of straw bale house in Taos by mari-posa. The straw bales are covered over by adobe, and it’s solar powered, with a cistern to recycle rainwater.

Paint the town green

The good folks at Common Ground give high marks to LoVo paint, a nontoxic, low-VOC alternative with a beautiful color selection. LoVo might not get a pass from every canary, but it’s always good to see people making smarter choices about office and household products.

When our building manager informed us it was time to freshen up the lobby of the Common Ground office, we lobbied him for the chance to put our principles into practice. We headed down to G&R Paint Company on Sutter Street in San Francisco, to talk to owner/colorist Philip Reno about eco-friendly paint options (philipsperfectcolors.com) and left with four gallons of C2 LoVo paint (c2color.com). Our building manager loved the nontoxic, low-VOC paint’s rich color and smooth and even finish, and we all loved that the paint was virtually odorless (sparing us all the cloud of stinky, toxic fumes, thank you very much). Now we’ve got a dazzlingly white lobby and a new favorite paint! Oh how we love happy endings.

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Link to LoVo Paints

Canary’s Cry for Saturday, January 3

A patron at Sheraton’s Four Point hotel in San Francisco discovers a disturbing environmental hazard inside the building.

The World According to Monsanto

Filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin on the troubling past of one of the world’s biggest agricultural companies.

Don’t miss the very last line by Poppy Bush.

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Who’s chirping about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?

Green Living has a article in the Winter 2008 issue called “Wake Up and Smell the Chemicals,” with a section on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. The link will take you to the online version of the issue, go to pages 46-47 for the story, it’s chock full of good information.

Articles like this validate claims made by those of us with MCS, who say chemicals found in many everyday personal care products are toxic not only to us but to everyone. Further, as the article explores, scientists are starting to understand the ways in which low levels of toxic chemicals, such as those found in perfumes and other fragrance, adversely affect the body. Take heart, Canaries, because eventually, science will catch up with us and our claims of exquisite sensitivity.

Glenda at Writing Life Stories tells a story about getting assaulted by fragrance from fellow patrons at a fast food restaurant. She writes:

As soon as I sat down, the smell hit me again. I looked up and saw the guy who had been standing in line near me. He had plopped down fifteen feet away from my table. The odor emanating from him smelled worse to me than a skunk’s spray, the chemicals in that fragrance he wore poisoned me. By the time I got out of there, hoarse and coughing, I gasped, sucked in the fresh outside air like it was my final breath.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. More and more of my friends are experiencing the same symptoms — spending tons of money on doctors who run tests and tell them they have asthma and to stay away from chemicals. Duh!! The asthma is caused by the chemicals we breathe every day, the chemicals all around us, the chemicals we can’t escape.

Thanks, Linda!