Environment Committee on March 20th, 2007

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll get right to the point, since our time is limited. I'd like to draw your attention to lines 8 and 10 on page 2 of the bill which refer to medical devices, excluding blood bags. I'm rather concerned about these two items covered in the bill, so much so that I'm thinking about moving an amendment to delete these two lines.

Regarding DEHP in medical devices, excluding blood bags, the plan is to ban phthalates. After doing a bit of research, I came to the realization that DEHP is found not only in blood bags but in other medical devices as well, such as catheters, IV tubing and gloves. If we adopt this bill, 12 months after it comes into force, a ban will be imposed on medical devices that are required to treat patients and sick people.

In 2004, Quebec's Institut national de santé publique released a report which contained the following finding:

Until such time as phthalate-free products come on the market, it is not recommended, and there is no reason for depriving the public of certain types of treatments or procedures at this time since the health benefits far outweigh the risks associated with exposure to DEHP.

Can you tell me if phthalate-free medical devices have come onto the market? If these two components are not removed from the bill, are we not running the risk of depriving certain patients of life-saving treatment options?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Dr. Khatter.

[Dr. Kapil Khatter]

Thanks for the question.

I think we'd agree with the member that in the way the bill is phrased at the moment, it's a bit of a blunt tool. We need to take some serious action. We need to take serious action now—we've been waiting years—on DEHP-containing medical devices. We need to have a process to make sure that in places where we need to exempt it, we can exempt it.

To answer the question about whether there are non-DEHP alternatives, I have a document that we unfortunately couldn't pass out because it's too dense to translate and it's 14 pages long. There are 14 pages of alternatives in all the different product classes that are non-DEHP-containing alternatives, silicon, polypropylene, and nylon, to the DEHP products that are on the market. They're all marketed in the U.S. and Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Lucas.

[Stephen Lucas, Director General, Policy, Planning and International Affairs Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We concur with the honourable member's concern, and it's one of the concerns that Mr. Glover raised in his opening statement. Without adequate long-term testing of the safety and effectiveness of the substitutes for use in the same environment in which DEHP-containing devices are currently used, we are not certain of the potential risks that the substitution could incur.

That being said, we are committed to moving to phasing out their use through substitution, but we are concerned about the approach taken in the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Bigras, are you finished?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I'm fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have some questions here. I thought your testimony was quite compelling in terms of the effects of some of these chemicals on human health, and I think the last comment was rather instructive. I'm confused by the lack of urgency when governments around the world are dealing with what we have established are very harmful chemicals to human growth, particularly human male reproductive growth.

Without a deadline and in the jurisdiction you deal with, what hopes do you have? Without a deadline of eliminating, of banning, removing these substances from the human health environment, are manufacturers going to spontaneously come to this conclusion? DEHP and DBP seem like wonderful products. They soften plastics. They're very cheap. Mr. Khatter just held up.... I have another one from the sustainable hospitals project that goes through all the different uses of these chemicals in the hospital environment and then comments on all of the substitution options that industry can use. So I think the substitution question.... It seems strange.

The argument being presented to us today is that we know these things are dangerous, but we're not sure of the alternatives, so we should leave the dangerous ones in. I'm confused by that type of notion, particularly from a group like Health Canada.

[Charlotte Brody]

I'm confused by it as well. It makes it seem like an intractable problem, and our experience is that it's not intractable.

There may be some particular uses, and I think that's why blood bags are exempted in the bill, but I have held in my hands the Baxter PVC-free bags, the Baxter PVC-free tubing, the Hospira, formerly Abbott, the two biggest IV manufacturers in the world. Both have now developed PVC-DEHP-free products, and they did it not because we could convince the U.S. government to adopt any stronger language than Health Canada is now suggesting, but rather because we got hospital groups and group purchasing organizations and their shareholders to insist that they develop alternatives.

So we both drove market change by demand from their consumers and by shareholder demands--

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let me just--

[Charlotte Brody]

--and found that they they can make almost everything they make out of DEHP with PVC, with alternative plastics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen, I think Mr. Glover--

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I need to follow up before Mr. Glover.

So the comment that Canadians would be deprived of certain medical devices, such as the catheters and the tubes, if such a bill were to come into law.... Having held these products and knowing these products exist, how reliable is that threat?

[Charlotte Brody]

If tomorrow you told every health care provider in Canada that they had to take the DEHP-containing products off their shelves, you would have that kind of a problem. But if you give health care providers enough time to stock the alternatives, if you do a reasonable phase-in, given the tremendous number of alternatives that are on the market, there are going to be perhaps a few exceptions, but if Baxter and Abbott found a way to do it, not by using an alternative plasticizer that we haven't tested, but by using plastics that don't need chemicals in them to be soft, you really do.... We can do this. It's just a question of signalling the market that it's time to make this change.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Glover.

[Paul Glover]

Two points. My apologies to the committee if my remarks created any confusion, so let me attempt to reiterate.

Health Canada is risk-based, so we do not respond solely to the hazards. We are not questioning the hazardous properties of these substances. The question, and what drives our regulatory actions and approval of substances, is the extent to which there is exposure that creates real risk for Canadians. When we have found the exposure is there, we have acted.

So in the instance of products designed for children to be mouthed, where we know there is a direct risk, we have taken action. We have worked with industry. They have voluntarily withdrawn. We have not needed to regulate--

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

But let's be clear here.

[Paul Glover]

Furthermore, with respect to the substitution issue, what we are suggesting and what this committee has talked about during CEPA review is the notion of not replacing one substance with another without fully understanding the risks that substitution can create.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

And that question was just addressed. So the question I have for you is can plastic toy manufacturers import substances that have phthalates into Canada right now? Is that possible? Can I go to a store and find these things imported into Canada?

[Paul Glover]

With respect, I believe I've answered that. We are finding those, and we intend to take action to prevent that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Your time is up. Sorry, Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank Mr. Cullen for his private member's bill. I appreciate his passion for this and to see phthalates removed. It's an admirable goal. We need to strike a balance of what is realistic, but I think heading in this direction is worthy.

The question I have is similar to Mr. Bigras'. In reading through Bill C-307, the exception is that medical devices would be included, other than blood bags. We've heard from the Canadian Blood Services that storage is cut almost in half if we don't have DEHP in the blood bags. Is that correct?

[Dr. Mindy Goldman]

Yes.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

How long did the research take to find that out?