Household toxins revealed in guide

By Dan Hilborn
Published June 1, 2005



A Burnaby woman's work to make Canadian families healthier and safer has received the wholehearted endorsement of one of the most respected professional associations in the province.

The second edition of the CancerSmart Consumer Guide, published by the Labour Environmental Alliance Society, has received funding and promotional assistance from the B.C. Professional Firefighters' Association.

Tim Baillie, vice-president of the firefighters' association, said reducing the number of cancer-causing substances that his members have to deal with is the number 1 concern of B.C. firefighters, who have twice the risk of contracting cancer as the average Canadian.

"Firefighters are helping to sponsor the guide because every place in this province is our workplace," said Baillie. "When there are toxins inside a building, those toxins affect us."

The new CancerSmart guide is a 36-page brochure that lists many of the potentially harmful chemicals that are found in Canadian homes and offers concrete suggestions on how to minimize the risk, either by eliminating or replacing them with other, less harmful products.

The brochure is the brainchild of Burnaby resident Mae Burrows, the executive director of the Labour Environmental Alliance Society and winner of the 2002 Eugene Rogers Award from the Western Canada Wilderness Committee for her outstanding work to protect B.C.'s wilderness and fish habitat.

Baillie said firefighters agreed to promote the brochure in an effort to make their own work safer.

"We realize that our job has inherent dangers," said Baillie. "We work in hostile environments all the time, so the better we can make that everyday atmosphere, the safer it is for us."

The guide contains lists of various kinds of chemicals found in the average Canadian home - using brand names of pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, flea control products and other things - and details what harmful chemicals are found in the products and their potential environmental and human health risks.

The brochure begins with some sobering facts about cancer rates in Canada, which rose from about 10 per cent in the 1930s to 20 per cent in the '70s. Cancer now affects about 25 per cent of the entire Canadian population.

All the information in the brochure is taken from reliable scientific sources, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Union priority list and California's Proposition 65.

"We are meticulous in pointing out where the science comes from because there's been such a push recently to challenge that science," Burrows said, who notes that many people do not understand the warning labels on many household goods.

One of the more confusing warning labels that is explained in the CancerSmart Consumer Guide is the expiry date on bottled water in a plastic container, Burrows said.

"We've got a generation of kids who think that water has an expiry date," Burrows said. "But it's not the water they're warning you about - it's the plastic in these bottles that can break down."

Many plastic water bottles in North America contain a type of chemical known as phthalates, which are being banned in Europe for their known harmful effect on the reproductive system of developing male fetuses, and in girls going through the early stages of puberty.

Besides their use in plastic bottles, phthalates are also used in some personal care products such as hand lotions and perfumes, especially the inexpensive brands used most frequently by children, Burrows said.

Of special concern to firefighters is the section on fire retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which are believed to cause permanent memory and immune system impairment and interfere with thyroid functions.

The fire retardants are most commonly found in foam furniture and in the plastic used for computers, televisions and other electronic devices.

Burrows said one of her biggest concerns is the fact that there are very few long-term tests to determine the effects of new chemicals on human health.

"Basically, what we're seeing since the Second World War is a huge chemical experiment on our children and on us as adults," she said.

"I think there are something like 80,000 chemicals that have been tested for their long-term environmental and health effects and they are on the market.

"A chemical is innocent until proven guilty, and I think it's time to go, 'Whoops, OK. Some of these really should be taken out of the system,'" she said. "People should have the right to know what chemicals are in the products they buy so they can make healthier choices for themselves and their children."

The second edition of the brochure includes an expanded section on food, detailing the links between junk food, obesity rates and cancer rates, plus a list of which fruits and vegetables tend to have the highest levels of pesticide residue as described in a 2002 study that is posted on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website.

The book also notes that, at the time of its publication, there were 190 pesticides being used in Canada for which the national food inspection agency had no practical detection method.

But the brochure is not all doom and gloom, either.

The section on food also contains a list of the fruits and vegetables that have the lowest levels of pesticide residues and notes that Canadian-grown carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes tend to be safer than the imported variety.

There is also a chapter on eating for cancer prevention, which lists the types of fruits, vegetables and grains that work as antioxidants and help lower the risk of cell damage that may be caused by exposure to environmental carcinogens.

Burrows said the Labour Environmental Alliance Society sold 6,000 copies of the first edition of the brochure, and she has a 10-inch stack of letters from people across the country who have benefited from its information.

The new expanded CancerSmart Consumer Guide is available for $10 plus $2 postage, from the Labour Environmental Alliance Society, 1203-207 West Hastings St., Vancouver, B.C. V6B 1H7. Single copies can be ordered from the website, www.leas.ca.

Since the second edition of the book was released last month, the society's website has seen up to 4,000 hits per day.