Feds don't budge after complaints about pesticides threatening human health

Canada's pesticide regulator has dismissed one of two formal complaints arguing the government agency wrongly approved a neonicotinoid pesticide. Neonicotinoids (neonics) are Canada's most common type of insecticides; they're infamous for killing bees and pollinators, but researchers are increasingly convinced they're harming people, too. 

Canada proposed to ban imidacloprid in 2016 and two other neonics soon thereafter, but backed down in 2021. An October investigation by Canada's National Observer found the reversal came after federal officials worked with the pesticide manufacturer Bayer Crop Science to undermine key research by University of Saskatchewan professor Christy Morrissey that supported the proposed ban. 

Friends of the Earth Canada and Morrissey separately submitted formal complaints within two months of the decision, as required by law. 

Friends of the Earth's complaint focused on the health risks posed by neonics to humans. Morrissey's complaint centred on Bayer's inappropriate influence over the Pest Management Regulatory Agency's (PMRA) data selection and the regulators' use of what Morrissey considered inadequate studies to evaluate the environmental threats of neonics. 

Despite the PMRA's legal obligation to respond to complaints without delay, Friends of the Earth and Morrissey only received a response after CNO's October reporting. 

"It's hard to believe it took three and a half years [for the PMRA] to address the questions that we raised," said Beatrice Olivastri, CEO of the Friends of the Earth Canada.

In a document published Friday, the regulator dismissed a list of scientific concerns about the health impacts of imidacloprid submitted by Friends of the Earth in 2021, soon after the agency re-approved the pesticide's use. The studies the group cited weren't strong enough to justify changing the rules, or the agency had considered them in approving the pesticide's use, the document states.

However, Friends of the Earth only cited studies that had already been published at the time of the complaint in 2021. Key research that raises the alarm about the health impacts of neonics has emerged since, and wasn't evaluated by the PMRA in its response. 

"Health Canada treats objections as if they're frozen in time, so they don't look at anything new that has been released since the objection," said Laura Bowman, a lawyer with Ecojustice who specializes in pesticides. "That is really frustrating, because as lines of evidence accumulate, they become stronger." 

While Olivastri acknowledged the agency put effort into compiling its 47-page response, she would have preferred it refer the evaluation to an independent panel, an option under Canada's pesticide laws. 

An independent review panel would prevent the current "fox in the chicken coop" situation, and relieve pressure on the already under-staffed agency, she said. "It's clear with what we're seeing now that they don't have the capacity to do this work." 

She also criticized the agency's decision to throw out the groups' concerns about the widespread presence of neonics in humans, which cited biomonitoring studies from several other countries. Canada hasn't completed any national biomonitoring for neonics since 1995, even as use of the pesticides has soared.

"They're missing in action," she said. "On the human health effects of a pesticide that has neurotoxin attributes, why wouldn't you know something about the health effects?"

The agency also blew through its own informal deadline, established in late October after CNO's reporting, to respond to Morrissey's complaint. She intends to pursue legal action against the agency for the delay, she told Canada's National Observer in an email. 

In a statement, a PMRA spokesperson said that a review of Morrissey's complaint is "ongoing" and the timeline for reviews "depend on a variety of factors, including the number and complexity of objections received, additional clarification needed from objectors, and the volume of supporting evidence received." 

The agency's long-delayed response to Morrissey's formal complaint is the latest in a suite of problems around transparency at the PMRA. In September, Canada's Information Commissioner slammed the agency for delaying the release of health and safety data through access to information requests. The delays were not "justified" and a "clear contravention of Health Canada's obligations," she noted. 

Last year, prominent health researcher Bruce Lanphear resigned from a scientific advisory position with the PMRA due to transparency issues. In his letter of resignation, he lambasted the organization's "obsolete" approach to pesticide regulation.

In 2021, public outrage over a proposal to increase how much residue of the herbicide glyphosate could be on food crops forced the government to give the agency $42 million for a so-called transformation agenda meant "to further strengthen its human and environmental health and safety oversight and protection." That process ended last August, but critics say little has changed. 

Still, Bowman, the lawyer, acknowledged that the PMRA's staff are under significant pressure, with multiple competing deadlines and a funding mechanism tied to approving pesticides: as much as three-quarters of the agency's funding comes from registration fees for pesticides, creating an incentive for the regulator to bump reviews of the products to the top of the priority list and approve the products, she said.

"All the resources have to be put into registering new pesticides to placate the interests that want that done quickly, and all of these other things get shuffled off to the side," she said.