Province urged to end City’s use of Malathion

Delegation warns of health threats

A small but determined group of local residents, community activists and political contenders met on the steps of the Legislature building last week to ask the province to ban malathion.

“They were very accepting of our letters,” said Glenda Whiteman, a local activist who has stated recently she’s moving out of the province to get away from malathion and pesticides.

However, there seemed to be more security guards than ministers at the leg last Thursday, as the delegation was only able to present the letters to the offices of Premier Gary Doer, Health Minister Theresa Oswald and Conservation Minister Stan Struthers, but not the ministers themselves.

“Stan was a student of mine. He took biology from me,” said Brandon University Prof. Bill Paton, who was among the delegates. “He’ll be receptive to what we have to say, I believe.”

Paton has been researching the link between pesticide and malathion use and the effects they have on human health for more than 25 years.

During that time, Paton said he’s done numerous studies that show the number of mosquitoes actually goes up after malathion use.

“A couple of times I’ve put out drop cloths (in my yard) to see what I would catch (after malathion spraying)...I caught a lot of ants, some spiders, a couple of moths, but no mosquitoes.”

Paton’s studies are backed by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, who found that during 11 years of spraying in New York state, mosquitoes increased 15-fold due to the “obliteration of predator species” such as dragonflies.

Numerous studies have suggested malathion use is harmful to pregnant women, babies, young children and people over 50 especially, Paton said.

Manitoba is the only Canadian province that still allows the use of malathion but the City of Brandon does not use it anymore.

The provincial government has the power to order Winnipeg to ignore exclusion zones and spray citywide when the mosquito count gets too high and the possibility of West Nile Virus exists.

Paton said in the ’80s, the disease causing concern was Western Equine Encephalitis.

“It’s time for a Clean Environmental Commission hearing to determine the true effectiveness of (spraying malathion for adult mosquitoes,)” said Paton.

Conservation Minister Stan Struthers was in Northern Manitoba overseeing forest firefighting efforts and was not available for comment.