Current Events Blog: Pesticides and Pest Control

Article Link: https://ohsonline.com/Articles/2016/07/25/Canada-Cancels-Some-Uses-of-Boric-Acid-Pesticides.aspx?Page=1

Topic: Pesticides and Pest Control

This article is about how Canada made a pesticide re-evaluation and has banned some products containing boric acid. Also, Canada will have the remaining be relabeled to meet new requirements and regulations. Most products that contain boric acid are pesticides and preserving materials. Despite the fact that it is a natural occurring ingredient, Health Canada says that based on scientific studies, they believe that it poses a risk to the health of Canadians. The article continues to discuss how there are alternatives to the products that have been banned and that Canadians should adopt those and avoid using boric acid for their health. While some might say that Canada’s actions as too extreme, I have to disagree. Based on the information given in the article, I think that Canada was right to take products off the market that contain boric acid since it was found to be harmful to the health of humans. It could be a matter of life or death. This discovery that boric acid can be harmful to human health highlights the importance of constantly evaluating and re-evaluating products and the substances used in them. It is important because new discoveries and learnings about how products affect human health and the environment can help us decide if a product or ingredient is safe to use or not or whether it is safe to put on the market. I couldn’t help but wonder why products with boric acid were allowed to be sold in the first place and why all of them weren’t banned and some only had to be re-labeled. I realized that when they were initially allowed to be sold, no one realized that boric acid could be harmful to humans. When I continued reading, I also learned that the risk that boric acid poses was not enough to take some products off shelves, but that re-labeling them to warn consumers about the possible negative side effects of using products with boric acid is necessary. It is vital to pay attention to what people are consuming and how it affects them and the environment in order to prevent disaster. Canada’s actions are not too extreme because the banning and re-labeling of products that contain boric acid in them could help the health of many Canadians.