I am responding to Serious inquiry needed, by Dr. Bob Krieger, published on April 20, 2006 in the Orangeville Citizen.

Why is Dr. Bob Krieger, a toxicologist from the University of California so sure that the role of pesticides is likely to be zero in the case of a cancer-stricken Orangeville teenager who is begging for a municipal pesticide ban?

This seems highly suspicious to this writer. First of all, there are university programs in the United States that are funded by the chemical industry and this determines their scholarship and outlook. How independent and credible is this science? It is possible to determine via the Internet whether a scientist is independent or not. Dr. Krieger knows nothing

about this teenager's likely exposure to many toxic chemicals, including their likely interaction in his body from the time of conception and up until the cancer became evident, and yet he has the audacity to tell us that the result of this exposure is likely to be zero.

Indeed, a serious inquiry into the "chemical soup" we are all exposed to is long overdue and becomes of especially critical importance in cases of children who, apart from cancer, may suffer from birth defects and an impaired development as a result of their early exposure to toxic chemicals. This situation surely calls for adopting the precautionary approach which translates into banning unnecessary use of pesticides.

K. Jean Cottam, PhD

Nepean