How One Doctor Fought a Giant Pesticide Company And Won

By Paul Steinberg, Oxford University Press, August 6, 2015 The following is an excerpt from the new book Who Rules the Earth: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives, by Paul Steinberg (Oxford University Press, 2015): Faced with an endless stream of alarming news about the environment–rising temperatures and declining water supplies, population growth and species extinction, oil spills and cancer clusters–people increasingly want to know what can actually be done to address these problems. Concerned parents comb through websites late at night in search of safer products for their children. Students pack lecture halls in hundreds of environmental studies programs that have popped up on college campuses across the globe. Our grocery aisles and magazine stands are filled with advertisements promising that sustainability is just one more purchase around the corner. The major current of environmental thinking today emphasizes the small changes we can make as individuals, which (we are told) will add up to something big. Michael Maniates, a political scientist at Allegheny College, observes that the responsibility for confronting these issues too often “falls to individuals, acting alone, usually as consumers.” Yet solutions that promote green consumerism and changes in personal lifestyles strike many of us as strangely out of proportion with enormous problems like climate change, urban air pollution, and the disappearance of tropical forests. We learn that glaciers are melting and sea levels are expected to rise due to global warming–and in response we are advised to ride a bicycle to work. Scientists tell us that one out of every five mammal species in the world is threatened with extinction, and we react by switching coffee brands. Is it any wonder that people despair that real solutions are not within their grasp? So what more might we do to move the world onto a more sustainable path? The answer can be found in the story of a country doctor in the small Canadian town of Hudson, who decided it was time to do something extraordinary: She changed the rules. Dr. June Irwin tended to one of her patients while, a few miles away, the votes were counted. It was May 6, 1991, and the town council of Hudson, Quebec, was considering a proposal to ban all nonessential pesticide use from homes and public spaces throughout their municipality. The move was unprecedented, but local officials had been swayed by Dr. Irwin’s relentless research on the potential dangers to children. “If down the road, science shows that we are wrong,” declared a town councilor, “then all that’s happened because of our actions is a few more dandelions. But if in fact we’re right, how many people did we save?” Ultimately the council voted in favor of the ban–a decision that would have consequences far greater than local officials could possibly have imagined. Hudson is a picturesque community of some five thousand residents, nestled along a stretch of the Ottawa River thirty-five miles to the west of Montreal. In 1985, Dr. Irwin began showing up regularly at town council meetings, where she pleaded with her elected officials to put a stop to the practice of spraying pesticides on lawns and gardens. With a red-lipsticked smile that complements her 70-something years, June Irwin cuts quite a character. Most days she can be found tending a flock of sheep on her farm, wearing her signature sun hat and long skirt–conjuring an image of a biblical shepherd more than that of a dermatologist with a bustling private practice. Throughout the 1980s, Dr. Irwin grew increasingly concerned as her patients complained of ailments ranging from skin rashes to immune system disorders. She suspected that the culprit might be chemicals like 2,4-D that were routinely applied in home gardens and public parks to control weeds. She began her investigation by asking patients to provide tissue samples to test for pesticide residues. The results revealed that pesticides were present in the blood, hair, semen, and breast milk of the good citizens of Hudson. Dr. Irwin’s findings were consistent with data collected in large-scale “body burden” studies run by the US Centers for Disease Control, which show that our bodies contain a complex brew of pesticides and other industrial toxins. We are exposed to thousands of man-made chemicals on a daily basis, and few of these have undergone rigorous testing for health effects. Medical researchers do know, however, that many pesticides affect the brain, liver, and other organs. Children are most susceptible to these noxious effects because their growing bodies rely on internal chemical cues for the normal development of the nervous system and other vital functions. As she pored through the medical journals, June Irwin soon reached the conclusion that it is madness to routinely expose children to poisons just to maintain the cosmetic appearance of lawns. Town council members listened patiently as she offered lengthy discourses on pesticides and health, comparing her data on local body burdens with the latest findings from the medical journals. She wrote a steady stream of letters to the local Hudson Gazette in an effort to rally the community. But four years into her one-woman campaign, there was little to show for her efforts. This all changed in November 1989, when one of the town council members who had endured Dr. Irwin’s lectures, a local carpenter by the name of Michael Elliot, was elected mayor. Six months after his election, Mayor Elliott pushed for approval of By-law 270, banning all nonessential pesticides from homes and public spaces in the quiet little town of Hudson. What happened next would change the North American landscape, both physically and politically. It began with an aggressive response from the pesticide companies, who moved quickly to quell Hudson’s small act of defiance. In the fall of 1993, as the town’s maples and aspens glowed bright in their full autumn color, ChemLawn and SprayTech, representing Canada’s billion-dollar lawn care industry, sued Hudson in the Quebec Superior Court, arguing that the town had no legal right to regulate pesticides. They worried that if local communities could take it upon themselves to enact environmental rules stronger than those of the Canadian provinces, things could quickly spin out of control. At a deeper level, there were cultural norms at stake. The pesticide industry relied on the idea that a proper home lawn consists of a uniform stretch of green with no weeds whatsoever–a feat that requires applying poison to the grass. If picturesque Hudson could make do without pesticides, this would challenge the golf course aesthetic that has generated handsome profits for the industry since World War II. “Nobody thought that we could win this–never,” explained the town clerk to documentary filmmaker Paul Tukey, who followed the story in his film A Chemical Reaction. In the courtroom, a ChemLawn representative showed up with a bottle of pesticides that he intended to drink in front of the judge in a show of confidence. Before ChemLawn’s man had a chance to ingest the poison, the judge demanded that he remove it from the courtroom and then ruled that Hudson was well within its rights in regulating pesticide use. The publicity generated by the court case caught the attention of other communities. “If they can do it, why can’t we?” asked Merryl Hammond, founder of Citizens for Alternatives to Pesticides. The movement soon spread across Quebec, as one town after the next banned nonessential pesticides (often making exceptions, as did Hudson, for agriculture and golf courses). On the defensive now, the pesticide industry took the case to the Canadian Supreme Court. This time they didn’t attempt to drink pesticides in the courtroom, but repeated the argument that local governments have no right to decide whether chemicals are sprayed in their communities. On June 28, 2001, in an austere gray court building surrounded by an expansive green lawn, the Canadian Supreme Court justices convened in their traditional red and white gowns and ruled 9-0 in favor of the town of Hudson. The ruling electrified reformers throughout the country. In 2009, the province of Ontario passed even stricter rules than those adopted in Quebec. “When it comes to our homes, playgrounds, schoolyards, and the like,” explained Dalton McGinty, the premier of Ontario, “we think that we have a special shared responsibility owed to the youngest generation.” A year after the implementation of Ontario’s new rules, concentrations of common pesticides in the province’s waterways dropped by half. By 2010, three-fourths of all Canadian citizens were covered by some form of protective legislation based on the Hudson model.