Testing suggested for blood toxins

May 03, 2007, Dennis Bueckert, CANADIAN PRESS for the Toronto Star
MPs unanimously back monitoring contaminants

OTTAWA–The Commons environment committee is calling for major changes to the environmental protection act, and biomonitoring programs to measure toxic chemicals in the bodies of Canadians.

In a rare unanimous report yesterday, the all-party committee slammed the lack of information about the toxicity of chemicals used in Canada and Canadians' exposure to them.

"Nowhere is the information gap more evident than with respect to the quantities and trends in body-burden of synthetic chemicals," says the report.

The committee also recommends a return to regular state-of-the-environment reports, introduced by former prime minister Brian Mulroney but subsequently abandoned.

Witnesses told the committee Canada is unusual among developed countries in lacking systematic biomonitoring programs to track contaminant trends through the study of blood and urine samples.

Environmental Defence and Pollution Watch, two non-government groups, recently conducted small biomonitoring studies, one of which found that a number of prominent politicians were carrying chemical cocktails in their veins.

Health Canada recently announced a one-time biomonitoring study of 5,000 people but the committee says that is not good enough.

"Studies such as this must be ongoing to establish trends in the body-burden of Canadians."

The committee report, based on months of hearings involving 70 witnesses, makes 31 recommendations to strengthen the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, intended to regulate toxic chemicals.

Critics say the act has been hobbled by the scientific difficulty of screening tens of thousands of chemicals and proving toxicity beyond doubt. The committee proposes the onus be shifted to manufacturers to prove the products are safe.