P.E.I.: 'Pesticides are what is killing our kids'

Anyone who has known me long has heard me say: "I never met a potato I didn't like." I love potatoes - boiled, baked, fried, scalloped, stuffed ... But after reading this article, I might have second thoughts about eating potatoes.

Rural PEI is an unlikely hotbed of rare cancers, and one doctor has made it his mission to raise awareness about the potential health hazard posed by pesticides used on the region's potato farms ...

It is perhaps because of the province's appearance as a bucolic rural idyll that Ron Matsusaki had the biggest shock of his professional career when he moved to the island three years ago. The affable 57-year-old doctor was taken aback by all the rare cancers he began noticing. The illnesses seemed more like what might be expected near a hazardous waste site.

"Nowhere, nowhere did I see cancer that in any way resembles the cancers that I saw when I came to PEI," Dr. Matsusaki said. "I was totally dumbfounded."

... Perhaps because he arrived with the fresh eyes of a newcomer, Dr. Matsusaki was sufficiently alarmed that he started to speak out publicly about this rash of unusual cancers and his suspicion that the blame for them lies with one of the island's economic mainstays, potato farming, and its promiscuous use of pesticides.

... Some of those who are living in the area where Dr. Matsusaki practices and have experienced cancer in their families are convinced that pest sprays are the only plausible explanation because there is little in the way of industrial releases of cancer-causing chemicals ...

Here in Kensington, a PEI community surrounded by potato fields, one of the studies found the second-highest pesticide readings in the country. The area had extremely high levels of chlorothalonil, a fungicide widely used on the island, along with 16 other pesticides.

Potatoes are a heavy user of chemicals, needing up to 19 sprays in a single growing season. Farmers often spray potatoes on a weekly basis, or even more frequently to try to prevent blight, the crop-ruining fungus that caused the Irish potato famine, as well as herbicides to kill the tops of the plants at the end of the growing season to make the underground tubers easier to harvest.

There is likely to be more pesticide exposure on the Island in recent years than there once was because potato acreage has expanded dramatically -- doubling since 1980 and up about 40 per cent since 1990, to meet the booming demand from French-fry makers.