|
|
| Home | About Us | Message | Health | The Ban | Solutions | The News | Mission | Email Us |
|
CAPS NOTE Recently, the City of Calgary opened a debate over the merits of a city-wide bylaw banning the use of pesticides on public and private lands. As the battle heats up, some believe that media coverage has been less than objective. Certain citizens believe that news organizations, like the Calgary Herald, haved tinged their reportage with an anti-bylaw position. They contest that news coverage neglects to appropriately refelect the serious health threat posed by pesticide exposure as noted in innumerable studies published in medical and scientific journals like "The Lancet", The American Journal of Cancer" and others. The following letter echoes these concerns. -Bernard Frazer Letter to the Editor Calgary Herald Tuesday 19 December 2000 Pested interests Re: "Pesticide foes, backers swap fearmongering charges," Dec. 1. Your coverage of the campaign for pesticide reduction in Calgary has just added more fearing instead of more hearing. There has been endless concern about health care lately. How about prevention as our best ally and money saver? The report on pesticides by the federal standing committee on environment and sustainable development, issued last May, is very clear. Children, women, the elderly, and people with asthma, allergies, chemical sensitivities and auto-immune deficiencies are definitely at risk with the use of our present chemicals. Not to mention pets, wildlife and the earth that sustains us. This talk about enormous expense to switch to organic and safer means of weed control is ridiculous. The people fighting to continue chemical pesticide use are the ones who make money off the stuff. Those fighting to reduce them are just citizens of Calgary who are concerned about people and health -- no monetary gain. Think about it. Carol Hechtenthal Calgary |