1. Natural toxicants: Should we care if we are eating, breathing or drinking them? What is our Government’s role to protect? © Stephanie L. Douma, P.Geo., MSc., PHRAM (Cert.)

4. What are some natural toxins that may be a risk to population health in Canada? There are many natural toxins that may pose as a risk to Population health. To simplify and to follow the lead of Environment Canada - Priority 1 Substance list (PSL1) http://www.ec.gc.ca/ceparegistry/subs_list/PSL1.cfm . Hexavalent chromium compounds . Inorganic arsenic compounds . Inorganic cadmium compounds . Inorganic fluorides . Oxidic, sulphidic and soluble, inorganic nickel compounds . Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Hazard I.D.

9. Why not use… Geological earth materials can play a significant role in quality issues: exposure pathways, absorption, biodistributions , chemical conditions of the human body from a geochemical perspective, earth materials in a biosolubility and bioreactivity context, particle shape and size, particle solubility and dissolution rates, …..

10. Human body response (bioaccessibility) to earth materials… (Plumlee et al. 2006)

13. Why not use… Earth science data, knowledge …

14. Rocks that contain arsenic and cadmium (shale) Shale in Western Canada (after Chorlton and Pai, 1999) Natural Toxins As Cd

15. Health affects of Earth Materials (Plumlee et al. 2006)

16. Soil Some of the regulations… Guided by recommendations of the CCME 1999 Canadian Soil Quality Guidelines for the Protection of Environment and Human Health, 1999 Canadian Council Ministry of the Environment National Classification System for Contaminated Sites Guidance Document PN1403, 2008

18. Why not use… Risk of exposure Nickel and Chromium natural toxicants in soil, water, food from rocks Coding based on Wheeler’s (1997) Geology of Canada map. Scale: 1:7,600,000 with census areas (2006 from Statistics Canada) overlain. Geographic units by province and territory, 2006 Census Source: Mafic(ultramafic) rocks (purple colour) in Eastern Canada

19. A few of the many Medical Geology publications….

20. The Radiation Protection Bureau part of Health Canada Protect “the effects of nuclear accidents, radioactivity in water and food, radon in indoor air, and naturally occurring radioactive materials from non-nuclear industries monitoring system involves a single-stationary monitoring station (receptors) for each of the provinces Soil and Radiation monitoring

22. Radioactivity map of Canada Geological Survey of Canada > 40 years airborne and ground radioactivity techniques

23. Risk Assessments of natural toxins We should care what we are eating breathing and drinking if they contain natural toxicants. Evidence supports that earth materials can produce PSL 1 substances at toxicant levels to humans from natural sources. This knowledge is available from earth science studies.

24. What’s Missing? The current Canadian policies/regulations are inadequate. Only sparse information on earth science knowledge and association of naturally occurring toxicants and their abundance Often inaccurate Lacking in the current Health and Environment Canada’s laws/policies is a systematic consultation at all levels and stages in the development of policies/laws regarding human health and geological material (including the natural toxicants listed on the PSL1).

25. Framework for Risk Management and Population Health Krewski et al. 2007

26. An Earth Science- Biology Integration… Modified Krewski et al. 2007 model