AGENT ORANGE USE IN ONTARIO PROBED - SORT OF

Following are three on-line news reports concerning the Fact-Finding Panel commissioned by the Ontario Government in 2011 to look at the useage of Agent Orange/2,4,5-T by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), Ministry of Transport and Ontario Hydro from 1950 until 1979. Coincidentally or not 1950 is the startup date for manufacture of 2,4,5-T at Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira, Ontario. I am not aware of other manufacturers of that product in Ontario at that time.

The March 26, 2011 Niagara Falls Review has an article titled "Toxicologist fires back at critics, says Agent Orange isn't focus of probe". The toxicologist was the recently named Chair of the Panel, Dr. Leonard Ritter. The NDP suggested that he was in a conflict of interest position as he had worked for Health Canada as a toxicologist from 1979 until 1993. What I find more worrisome are Dr. Ritter's disingenuous quotes attempting to separate 2,4,5-T from the Dioxin impurity 2,3,7,8 TCDD which was part of it. "It's not like Agent Orange", "You can't compare it to Agent Orange. How is 2,4,5-T different from Agent Orange? Well it's like the difference between day and night. 2,4,5-T is half of Agent Orange. It's not similar at all.". Wow if there aren't some outright lies in all of that there certainly is some heavy duty stickhandling involved. Those weird, peculiar and inaccurate quotes by Dr. Ritter before the probe even got started should have ended his Chairmanship right then and there.

Sunday, June 23, 2010 the on-line story refers to the Timmins Press and M.P.P. Gilles Bisson. This was after the Report from the fact-Finding Panel was presented at Queen's Park by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Mr. Bisson represents Timmons-James Bay in the Ontario legislature. He takes the government, the MNR and the Panel to task for what they did not do. They did not look at the individuals sufferring from cancers and more who were directly exposed to 2,4,5-T in the 50's, 60's and 70's. They did not indicate the cause and effect nature of Dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) and cancer. They did not make it easier for the exposed and sick workers involved in the spraying to be able to access Workers Compensation. Mr. Bisson also suggested that by naming municipalities in the Report as using more 2,4,5-T than the province, the Province and panel are simply trying to deflect blame from the province onto cities who used the herbicide.

The third on-line news report was from Global News also after the report was released. It states that the MNR Minister David Orazetti has stated that workers who think that the herbicide made them sick should file WSIB (compensation) claims. He also however states that "...they will need medical evidence to prove their illness came from exposure to 2,4,5-T.". Basically this Report did not make a direct link between elevated exposures, much less any exposures, and getting sick. What the province have done is made it necessary to reinvent the wheel here in Ontario. These claims have been substantiated by returning U.S. servicemen who handled the very same product in Vietnam. Dioxins cause cancer and so much more. Except not so much in Ontario unless you can prove it all over again.

What I find surprising is how little media attention this issue received. Here in Waterloo Region I heard absolutely nothing when this report was released in Toronto. Did our local Kitchener paper not carry this story? Also part of the extremely limited media coverage might have been the sucessful deflection from extensive Agent Orange use in southern Ontario to the impression it was a northern Ontario employee/employer issue only. Once again our professional politicians have shown where their skill sets lie.