The price of pesticides in southwestern Manitoba

A study conducted by a University of Manitoba student for her Master's degree thesis suggests that the insecticides sprayed in rural southwestern Manitoba pose a small but statistically significant health hazard to people living in the area. Today on CBC Radio Noon, the author of the ambitious, data-crunching study, Jennifer Magoon, emphasized that the slightly increased rates of birth defects and other disorders she documented applied to the population in general. Her data didn't allow her to tease out the possibly much greater effect on people exposed to the chemicals up close and personal, whether occupationally or because they live in an insecticide hotspot. A southwestern Manitoba farm family's close encounter with a crop duster this fall suggests the acute consequences, at least, can be pretty frightening.