Thank you.
To keep the dialogue open and balanced, I want to draw attention to statements such as that there's no evidence that PBDEs at current levels are a risk. That's a true statement, but we also know that PBDEs are increasing in the environment and in animal tissues on a logarithmic scale.
The question we might want to ask is what the projected future is, and maybe we ought to take action before we're at a point where we're approaching concentrations that cause risk, because we know certain of these substances are toxic to invertebrates. Why are we waiting?
That's one point. Another point is that very often the effects we see with certain substances and that Toxic Nation was describing are subclinical. We're talking about loss of several IQ points in children who are exposed to mercury in utero. We know about this, and we think, “What's a few IQ points?” But in fact if you talk to people in the field, what you end up doing is moving the population's bell curve sufficiently that you have a fairly substantial increase in the number of people who are handicapped and a substantial reduction in people who are gifted. So there's a societal cost for some effects that are still subclinical.
I think the most important point of Toxic Nation is not to claim that the concentrations they're observing in the blood of these people across Canada are causing damage now. I think it's a call for biomonitoring, for the evaluation of the potential effects of these substances on humans and on other members of the ecosystem. It's not just humans: we are responsible for protecting—we're stewards for—everything else without voices.
It's a call for action. We're finding it in our systems. As Mr. Weinberg was saying, we didn't evolve with those in our environment. We're not accustomed to many of those chemicals being in our system. So what effect might they be having in our systems? It's a call for caution, and it's a call for research; it's a call for biomonitoring. And it's not a call for Toxic Nation to do the biomonitoring; it's a call on governments to understand what the possible outcomes or consequences of these substances being present in people across nations are. What's the consequence?