More than 40 years ago, in the early 1980s, I co-led a major report on Our Chemical Society for the City of Toronto’s Department of Public Health. In it, we sought to step back from what we called the “chemical of the day” problem – so many chemicals of concern, so many requests to look at them, one by one – to take a broader and more in-depth look at the systemic challenges of living in a society literally perfused with human-made chemicals.
We also raised concerns about the relationship between government regulators and the chemical industry. I vividly recall, on more than one occasion, commenting that Health Canada’s Health Protection Branch should be re-named the Industry Protection Branch because it seemed more focused on protecting the chemical industry than protecting public health.
What brought this decades-old report back to my mind was the recent exposé by Marc Fawcett-Atkinson in Canada’s National Observer of the unethical shenanigans at Health Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA). In a series of articles over the past year, he has documented the agency’s failings, noting that, “Since 2020 alone, that agency has been called out for colluding with pesticide companies, attempting to increase pesticide residue limits on food and failing to release data needed to assess pesticide risk.”
Specifically, on Oct. 17, he reported that the PMRA “collaborated with an agrochemical giant to undermine research by a prominent Canadian scientist to stave off an impending ban of a class of pesticides harmful to human brains and sperm and deadly to bees, insects and birds.”
That agrochemical giant was Bayer, which in 2021 had proposed a doubling of the allowable limit of glyphosate, a widely used pesticide, in some food products; a request that the PMRA accepted. But as professors Marc-André Gagnon and Marie-Hélène Bacon noted in a November 2023 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the basis for that decision was shrouded in secrecy, under the guise of confidential business information; clearly it is still the case that Health Canada and its PMRA see industry and its trade secrets as more worthy of protection than the health of Canadians and their environment.
That was very clear to Parliament’s Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development in its comprehensive report on pesticides in 2000. The committee stated it was “seriously concerned about the divergent goals of the PMRA” to both promote the agricultural industry and to safeguard health and the environment, noting that, “To a certain extent, the PMRA is already a captive of the pesticide industry.”
You would think that might have led to some significant changes – and you would be wrong. Almost a quarter of a century later, in June 2023, Bruce Lanphear, a distinguished environmental health scientist at Simon Fraser University and a member of the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, resigned as co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the PMRA. In his resignation letter, he wrote:
“Should industry representatives – who have a clear and undeniable financial conflict of interest – be allowed to serve on the Pest Management Advisory Council? Absolutely not . . . I worry that the Scientific Advisory Committee – and my role as a co-chair – provides a false sense of security that the PMRA is protecting Canadians from toxic pesticides. Based on my experience over the past year, I cannot provide that assurance.”
It seems to me there is something rotten in the state of PMRA. Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg, symptomatic of a far wider problem – the close and unhealthy ties between industries that harm health and the environment and the federal and provincial governments. Whether it be the chemical, plastics, fossil fuel, agriculture or extractive industries, they exert an undue influence over public policy, extracting counter-productive subsidies, tax breaks and other benefits, while hiding behind confidential business information, and in the process undermining democracy.
It is high time to look at and work to change the way those ties operate. Perhaps it is time for a Senate or Parliamentary inquiry, or at the very least, a complaint to the Integrity Commissioner.
Although we hear mostly about mosquito-borne diseases in Canada, ticks are actually responsible for 90%-95% of vector-borne diseases. No repellent works well against ticks. If an infected tick is already on you it will just keep crawling until it finds a suitable location you missed. Spraying one’s footwear and socks with 0.5% permethrin spray has been shown to reduce tick bites by 73% but Dr. Richard Aucoin and PMRA won’t allow the sale and use of over the counter sprays in Canada. This is part and parcel of PHAC’s continued downplaying and denial of the ignored epidemic of Lyme disease (LD) in Canada. The risks and benefits depend on where one finds oneself on the continent.
Lyme is a multi-staged, multi-system, life-altering life-threatening disease, the infectious disease equivalent of cancer. Under-diagnosis and under-treatment are a big and growing problem in Canada.
Dr. Nick Ogden, senior PHAC research scientist has given us a multiplier of 13.7 to use on the LD cases reported in Canada since 2009. (Ogden/ Dumas 2024) Using the multiplier we calculate that Canada had an estimated 271,795 cases of LD since 2009 when reporting became mandatory. There is consensus that between 10% – 20% (21,180 -81,539) or more patients remain ill and suffer a declining quality of life and are forced to drop out of the workface or school and are in danger of losing their homes and lives. These patients are medically abandoned in Canada after the insurance industry red-flagged LD as being too expensive to treat. Cases of complex disseminated (chronic) LD are treatable using combinations of antibiotics, but not in Canada where guidelines that were meant to help patients and assist physicians are used as mandates by the Royal Colleges and AMMI Canada to punish those that don’t follow the ridged IDSA LD guidelines.
Prevention is always better than treatment. Permethrin isn’t perfect but Canadians should be allowed to assess the risk and act accordingly. It’s best to avoid ticks but if one can’t, science has shown that the best protection comes from the use permethrin treated footwear and clothing along with repellents with 20% icaridin or picaridin for footwear and clothing. When used as directed and allowed to dry the treatment will cling to footwear and clothing for up to 42 days. The clothing can be gently hand washed a few times. It won’t work on our skin as skin oils will neutralize it in 20 minutes. Wear gloves when handling the wet spray. Dry it’s okay and less than 1% is absorbed by our skin. Frequent tick checks are always in order and if you find a tick on you get it off. There are no good ticks and the minimum time for transmission has never been established in humans.
Permethrin is a synthetic form of insecticide made from chrysanthemum flowers. It is non-persistent and breaks down quickly in the environment. Permethrin treated clothing really does work but Health Canada and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) have limited its use and availability in Canada for ticks even though it has worldwide acceptance as being safe and efficacious. They have encouraged other manufacturers of sprays of factory treated clothing to submit products for safety testing for Canadians but refuse to set time or financial limits. The goal posts continue to be moved as Dr. Aucoin continues to try to shake the company down for more money for safety evaluation for Canadians even though it has world-wide acceptance.
Marks No-Fly-Zone clothing don’t carry treated socks nor is it is available in children’s sizes. PMRA have forced them to add a liner making it hot and ticks can crawl up inside clothing making it ineffective.
In the meantime, as long as the permethrin containing products labeled for similar uses such as wasp sprays, head lice, bed bugs, ant sprays, barn flies, bugs and for agricultural uses are permitted we should make use of them for the prevention of Lyme and TBDs in high risk areas. Its use is banned in Canada in misters in greenhouses because permethrin is most dangerous if inhaled.
Officials are relying on better education of the public and the new Pfizer/ Valneva vaccine. The vaccine may not be the magic bullet that most are hoping for. We have many questions and are waiting for answers. Will the vaccine work against the co-infections such as Anaplasma, Babesia and West Nile virus? The U.S. is years ahead of us in public education but this hasn’t stemmed the rising tide of infections. So far the ticks are winning but this is a war we can’t afford to lose.
An ounce of permethrin equals a pound of antibiotics.
Rob Murray (DDS – retired)
Board member Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (www.CanLyme.org)