{"id":354,"date":"2011-06-01T08:46:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T11:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/?p=354"},"modified":"2011-06-01T08:46:58","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T11:46:58","slug":"quebec-backs-down-on-24-d-says-it-is-not-harmful-to-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/2011\/06\/01\/quebec-backs-down-on-24-d-says-it-is-not-harmful-to-humans\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec backs down on 2,4-D, says it is not harmful to humans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Quebec backs down on 2,4-D, says it is not harmful to humans<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/2011\/05\/26\/quebec-backs-down-on-24-d-says-it-is-not-harmful-to-humans\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?text=Quebec+backs+down+on+2%2C4-D%2C+says+it+is+not+harmful+to+humans&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fopinion.financialpost.com%2F2011%2F05%2F26%2Fquebec-backs-down-on-24-d-says-it-is-not-harmful-to-humans%2F&amp;related=financialpost,legalpost&amp;via=fpcomment\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fopinion.financialpost.com%2F2011%2F05%2F26%2Fquebec-backs-down-on-24-d-says-it-is-not-harmful-to-humans%2F&amp;title=Financial+Post%3A+FP+Comment%3A+Quebec+backs+down+on+2%2C4-D%2C+says+it+is+not+harmful+to+humans&amp;source=http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/email-form\/?email-post=14726\">Email<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/author\/terencecorcoran\/\">Terence Corcoran<\/a> May 26, 2011 \u2013 2:54 PM ET | <strong>Last Updated: May 26, 2011 3:10 PM ET<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dow scores NAFTA challenge victory over famous herbicide. What about BPA?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The details have yet to emerge, but Dow AgroSciences says it has <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/iRqPqg\" target=\"_blank\">settled<\/a> a NAFTA challenge case with Ottawa over the pesticide 2,4-D. As part of  agreement, a victory for the company, the government of Quebec has  agreed to a statement saying the pesticides used chemical does \u201cnot pose  an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Quebec  was the first province to declare weed-killers containing 2,4-D as  possibly carcinogenic. \u00a0On that basis, municipalities in Quebec  instituted bans of its use as a lawn weed killer. Other jurisdictions  also banned 2,4-D, but often stopped short of declaring the chemical a  carcinogen. Instead, they invented other reasons for eliminating the  chemical, but the junk science cancer scare always lurked in the  background as a motivation.<\/p>\n<p>Laws  against lawn herbicides \u00a0containing 2,4-D therefore remain in place,  but not because they pose any real health land environmental risk. Under  the NAFTA \u00a0agreement with Dow, \u201cthe government of Quebec agrees that  products containing 2,4-D do not pose an unacceptable risk to human  health or the environment, provided that the instructions on their label  are followed.\u201d This is consistent with Health Canada\u2019s Pest Management  Regulatory agency and regulators in the U.S. and Europe.<\/p>\n<p>What  this means in Canada is that we now have \u00a0chemical bans in existence in  all regions that are based on junk science scares perpetrated by  environmental activists. Quebec set a precedent on the basis of a cancer  scare, other regions followed.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile,  Canadian farmers\u2013where almost 99% of 2,4-D is used\u2013can \u00a0continue to  spray know that there is now little chance that any ban will ever be  extended to their industry. \u00a0Within Canadian cities, however, dandelions  and weeds cannot be removed using perfectly safe chemicals.<\/p>\n<p>Which  brings up Bisphenol-A (BPA), another chemical that\u2019s safe by any  measure and in most countries (Europe, US) but which is on Ottawa\u2019s junk  science list and helped turn Tory Cabinet Minister John Baird into  local hero for mounting a baby bottle BPA \u00a0ban. How many safe chemicals  can governments ban on the basis of junk science claims by activists  such as Rick Smith at Environmental Defense, aka \u00a0more recently as the  Lipstick Man.<\/p>\n<p><em>Coming June 14 to FP Comment: JUNK SCIENCE WEEK<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Posted in: <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/category\/fp-comment\/\">FP Comment<\/a> Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/2\/\">2<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/4-d\/\">4-D<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/carcinogen\/\">carcinogen<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/chemicals\/\">chemicals<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/dow-agrosciences\/\">Dow AgroSciences<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/herbicide\/\">herbicide<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/nafta\/\">NAFTA<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/tag\/pesticides\/\">pesticides<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>More from <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/opinion.financialpost.com\/author\/terencecorcoran\/\"><strong>Terence Corcoran<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The details have yet to emerge, but Dow AgroSciences says it has settled a NAFTA challenge case with Ottawa over the pesticide 2,4-D. As part of agreement, a victory for the company, the government of Quebec has agreed to a statement saying the pesticides used chemical does \u201cnot pose an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[89,90,87,68,88],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-membersubmissions","tag-89","tag-4-d","tag-dow","tag-pesticides","tag-quebec"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myavma.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}