Government early intervention program not early enough

Millvale –  The provincial government’s newly-announced early intervention program to help Island students reach higher academic standards is not early enough to save children from preventable causes of  learning disabilities and lowered IQ said the Green Party of PEI.

“A study of children living within one and a half kilometres of sprayed agricultural fields in North Dakota shows those children performed significantly lower than their peers in IQ tests,” says Green Party leader Sharon Labchuk.  “Children living near sprayed fields also had lower scores in verbal comprehension, visual perceptual reasoning, memory and mental processing speed.”

Labchuk said many scientists and doctors have long linked pesticide exposure to brain damage in children and many pesticides commonly used on PEI farm fields are identified as toxic to children’s brains. Environment Canada air monitoring studies show PEI air is laced with a cocktail of potato pesticides, even in areas distant from sprayed fields.

“The frightening reality for PEI children, is that very few live more than a kilometer and a half away from sprayed fields.,” said Labchuk.  “My research shows most Island children go to schools located within one kilometer of a sprayed field and most rural schools are located within a half kilometre of sprayed fields.  The children don’t stand a chance.”

The Green Party would immediately shift all agriculture to organic practices and in the short term implement  a two kilometre no spray zone around every school.

“Escalating health care costs continue to gobble up the provincial budget while the root causes of ill health and low academic scores are ignored. It’s typical of the old line political parties to subsidize things that harm people and the environment, industrial agriculture is a good example, and then throw even more money at the problems created by bad economic decisions,” said Labchuk.

“Education Minister Gerard Greenan wants to spend more tax dollars to help children struggling with school and while this may be necessary because Island children today have been exposed to brain damaging pesticides since conception, it certainly isn’t a long term solution.  Early intervention means protecting children from toxic chemical exposure in the first place, not throwing money at them after they’ve been damaged.”

Contact:
Sharon Labchuk    902-621-0719   or  902-940-1262