Environment Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Jon Cammack]

Yes. Just about any chemical in high enough doses can cause cancer.

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

This is an important premise for us to establish. It's just in case we have any sort of concept that environmental toxins don't cause cancer in humans.

I'll stay with you, Mr. Cammack. Is DEHP a reproductive toxin?

[Jon Cammack]

DEHP, no question, causes reproductive effects in sensitive rodents, in rats and mice. There are other species that DEHP does not cause reproductive effects in, and other rodent species.

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

Right. So when the national toxicology program in 2000 said that “...DEHP poses a risk to human development and fertility”, and “Based on the science, there is a consensus that DEHP is a reproductive toxin”....

I guess the question is that we keep talking about rodents so much. If a young mother were going into a hospital to deliver a baby and found out that there's a product in there that causes cancer in rodents and there was a substitute that didn't cause cancer in rodents, I'm imagining she'd choose the latter, just in the precautious sort of way that we are with our children. Why would you choose one that's causing cancer in one animal?

[Jon Cammack]

It's a great point, and I think the key thing that you said is alternative materials. Any reasonable person obviously would choose the non-cancer-causing—

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

To follow up on Mr. McGuinty's point, I have a list of 14 pages that we submitted for evidence, Mr. Chair, but the translators couldn't handle the scientific terminology. It has been one of our struggles with this particular bill, the poor folks around the Hill who have to work with these words. But there are 14 pages of substitutes available.

I have, at the end of this, another page filled with hospitals all across the United States, and now hospitals in Canada, that are going DEHP-free. Why would a hospital do that if there's no risk?

[Jon Cammack]

Again, I would say this is something that the medical products industry has been doing for many, many years. Baxter, ourselves, we have many—

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

You do make products that are DEHP-free, correct?

[Jon Cammack]

And have for the last 25-plus years.

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

Let me nail that down just for a second then. The argument was made that this was damaging to the economy, and there was some testimony that people would be unable to get surgeries if this bill were to pass. Do you find that verifiable?

[Jon Cammack]

That's absolutely verifiable, because currently there aren't alternatives for all medical products that are made with PVC DEHP.

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

Let me ask you this. If there were a phase-in period that allowed for companies to react, considering the 14 pages of alternatives and Baxter being one of the leading companies in making DEHP-free medical devices to allow industry to adapt, and if, on top of that, there were an exemption, where if there were no reasonable alternative found, government would have another three years to allow industry to find another reasonable exemption—

[Jon Cammack]

That doesn't make sense to me. Again, the reason to evolve materials is based on the functionality of the material--patient-focused, how it's going to work with the patient--and it should be science-based. Right now, there's absolutely no data that say there should be a full-scale conversion.

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

I have some words from Dr. Robin Walker, who chaired Canada's own expert advisory panel on DEHP in medical devices. He quotes from the 2002 report, and this is from Health Canada:

Alternate measures are immediately justifiable and should be introduced as quickly as possible to protect those sub-populations at greatest risk....

That's 2002. And let me just repeat that “immediately justifiable and should be introduced as quickly as possible”.

Now, I know government moves slowly and we have many consultation panels with industry, but I have a question for Ms. Axmith. Hearing “immediately justifiable” and “introduced as quickly as possible” in 2002, do you think Canadians will be satisfied with the rate of progress in removing DEHP from medical devices?

No, I directed it towards you, Ms. Axmith.

[Marion Axmith]

I think on that particular report, where Health Canada was coming from, they did express concern about sensitive sub-populations. And to be precautionary about it, they were recommending that if alternatives exist to treat those sensitive sub-populations, if they're available, they should be used.

Health Canada also stated that under no circumstances should medical treatment be withheld from anyone.

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

Certainly. Let's put this spectre to rest immediately with respect to this bill. There is no suggestion that someone's going to end up on an operating table and the surgery won't be performed because there simply isn't a medical device available. That's clearly not the intention of the bill. I think we can establish that and admit to it immediately.

[Marion Axmith]

Of course.

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

So when I hear that Health Canada asks for.... And the chair of that committee has since been phasing this out in his hospital in the Atlantic provinces, in Nova Scotia, which is one of the have-not provinces faced with certain fiscal restraints. It has been able to do this phase-out. It's an outstanding hospital, as many of my eastern colleagues will contribute to, and becoming better, I would suggest, because they are moving to phase out DEHP from all their products, and they are doing so without any great fiscal penalty to a hospital that is only allowed a 7% overall increase per year. It is doing quite well in managing to do that.

There's great faith expressed in Health Canada and Environment Canada. It's wonderful, because when we asked Health Canada and Environment Canada officials if they had sufficient resources to go about the assessments you have so much faith in, they said no. They simply don't have the human power to go through and do proper assessments of these substances at all possible times.

So my question is this. When Health Canada restricts and limits the focus of its study so that there's no accumulation allowed, the cumulative effect.... How many times in a given day does a human bump into these phthalates? Do we know? We've taken this as a very narrow scope where we say, well, four bottles of nail polish is needed to be consumed and that would be approaching it.

Phthalates don't come just through nail polish. They don't just come through any one substance; they come through many. Has anyone ever done a cumulative assessment of your average human, or particularly of a young child in their daily goings-on, to understand the cumulative effect, the total taken in of phthalates? Has anyone done this?

[Jon Cammack]

The CDC has done studies like that and has looked at levels in urine.

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

Was it on children? I just want to be clear. Can you submit that study for this committee?

[Jon Cammack]

We can send that study to this committee.

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

I think it's very important.

I have a question about this, though. There was a claim made that there are no phthalates in children's products in Canada; that chewables and these products simply don't contain them in Canada. I just want to make sure I got the testimony.

[Marion Axmith]

Yes, specifically I made that comment. It was specifically on teethers and soft rattles.

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

Teethers and...sorry...?

[Marion Axmith]

Soft rattles.