Health Canada pest control adviser steps down, says regulation ‘obsolete

The committee gives Health Canada independent scientific advice on the health and environmental risks of pesticides, and does evaluations for new products and reviews.

The co-chair of Canada’s scientific advisory committee has resigned his post over concerns about a lack of transparency and scientific oversight in pesticide management.

Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University, stepped down as the co-chair of the Health Canada scientific advisory committee on pest control products on June 27.

In his three-page resignation letter, Lanphear said he worries the committee, and his role as co-chair, “provides a false sense of security” that Health Canada is protecting Canadians from toxic pesticides.

“Based on my experience over the past year, I cannot provide that assurance,” he wrote in the letter to the director general of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, an arm of Health Canada.

The committee gives Health Canada independent scientific advice on the health and environmental risks of pesticides, and does evaluations for new products and reviews.

It launched in July 2022 as part of a reform effort to improve transparency at the regulatory agency and has so far met five times.

Lanphear said the table of scientists had a more limited role and scope of work than the agency’s other advisory board, the pest management advisory council, which includes members of the pesticide industry.

Given the wider role of industry advisers, he wrote he had “little or no confidence” the science committee could help the agency “become more transparent or assure that Canadians are protected from toxic pesticides.”