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dam-l 'pesticide, coffee, and dams' [The Nation]



excerpt from

HERBICIDES AS SAFE AS COFFEE claims
Hydro-Quebec letter to the Cree Magazine, 
the Nation.

"Subject: reactions to the article by Alex Roslin publicshed in The Nation, 
Volume 5, No. 23, October 9, 1998. "Hydro-Quebec says controversial 
herbicide is safe."

The following is Hydro-Quebec's reaction to the above article:

GENERAL COMMENTS

-All herbicides used by Hydro-Quebec have toxicities that are similar to or 
less than those of such products as table salts, caffeine and asperin.  
Howvere, with every chemical product measures for using these products 
correctly, safely and wiaely are followed, and the laws regulations and 
standards in force are respected."

In the letter the pesticides used are identified as 2-4-D and Roundup.

The editor of The Nation appended this note to the rather lengthy 
letter, which I have abridged.

"Ed. Note: Hydro-Quebec claims
 its herbicides are no more toxic than salt caffeine or asperin.

"Has anyone ever tried to commit suicide by eating salt or drinking coffee?
In Japan, drinking the herbicide "Roundup", which is used by Hydro in James
Bay, is a common way of committing suicide.

"In a 1988 Lancet article published in Lancet, a prestigious British medical
journal, Japenese physicians studied 56 cases of Roundup poisoning. Most of 
these cases were suicides or attempted suicides.  The average amnount ingested
was about 3/4 of a cup.  It was, incidentally, that figure that was used to 
calculate how many people could be killed by the volume of Roundup sprayed 
by Hydro-Quebec in James Bay: 1,280 people.

One other question is whether or not these chemicals cause cancer and other 
illnesses to humans and animals.  There is an important difference between
knowing with certainty that a chemical doesn't cause cancer and saying, as 
Hydro-Quebec does, "it is unlikely that 2,4-D causes cancer."

Several studies in Sweeden abnd the US have shown a link between 2,4-D 
exposure and cancer, according to Extoxnet, a U.S. government funded 
research project.  Other studies have different results, but the findings
are mixed at best.  Another problem is that most studies are done by the 
companies that made the chemicals, not independant scientists."