The Guardian Unlimited
Observer Comment Extra

Can we have a breath of fresh air?

The Observer today reports Georgina Downs' campaign to get the
government to tighten up the regulation of pesticides. Here she
explains how ill health and her family's experiences forced her to
take up the issue.

Sunday April 13, 2003

In the early 1980s, my parents purchased a piece of land in the
countryside on which they designed and built their 'dream home'. They
believed this would be a healthy environment to bring up their family
and certainly could never have predicted the nightmare it would
become.

In 1984, about a year after we moved into the house, a local farmer
bought up the surrounding fields to be used for intensive
agriculture. We were never warned about the dangers of the chemicals
being used and in fact from the age of 11, I would regularly be in
the garden when crop-spraying was taking place, with the tractor
passing only a few feet away from me.

Throughout the years, I suffered from ill-health, notably flu-type
illnesses, sore throats covered in blisters and headaches amongst
other things. Not once were we ever told about the pesticides by
anyone, so for 9 years we continued to have all windows/doors open in
the summer during the spraying season and would regularly be in the
garden during spraying.

In 1991 my health had deteriorated to such a degree that I ended up
in hospital with severe muscle wastage, muscle weakness and other
chronic symptoms. It was then that I started to look at what was in
our surrounding environment. I was astonished to discover that the
tractor was actually spraying "cocktails" of poisonous chemicals into
the air where we live and breathe and even more astonished to find
out that a farmer is legally permitted to do so under existing
government policy.

Two years ago I started my investigations into the history of crop
spraying as I realised that the only way to prevent my family from
being poisoned further was to effect change at policy level. I very
quickly discovered serious fundamental flaws in the regulations
governing the approval and use of pesticides.

The official method of assessing the dangers and risks to public
health from agricultural spraying and under which chemical usage is
approved, is based on the model of a 'bystander' with the assumption
being that there will only be the occasional short-term exposure, of
no more than 5 minutes. This model is dangerously simplistic and
bears no resemblance whatsoever to the sort of exposure scenario
experienced by people who are actually living in these sprayed areas,
24 hours a day, every day. This means that there is not and never has
been an appropriate or realistic assessment of the risks to public
health for people who actually live near heavily sprayed fields and
yet crop-spraying has been a predominant fixture within agriculture
for over 50 years.

Pesticides, by their very nature, are designed to kill living
organisms so it is not surprising that these chemicals are highly
poisonous substances. Many people have regularly suffered, and
reported, serious ill-health effects following exposures to these
chemicals. Pesticides have been strongly linked to many illnesses and
diseases, including various cancers, Parkinson's disease, MS, MND,
ME, asthma, allergies, MCS amongst others. Vulnerable groups include
babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with pre-
existing medical problems and chemical sensitivity.

Yet there is no legal obligation for farmers to notify anyone of any
intended spraying application or to supply information on the
chemicals being used, regardless of whether adverse health effects
have been suffered.

I was invited to make a presentation to the Government's Advisory
Committee on Pesticides last year. I produced a video utilising
dummies at the edge of our property to illustrate to the Committee
the reality of this situation and to provide evidence that crop-
spraying is posing unacceptable risks to public health. When I asked
the attendees to raise their hands if they thought that the video had
shown an acceptable system for protecting public health, not a single
hand went up.

I also met with ministers Lord Whitty (Minister for Food and Farming)
and Michael Meacher (Minister for Environment) in December to show
them the video and to present the case for a change in the
regulations and legislation governing agricultural spraying.
Immediate action is required from both the British government and in
European legislation as public health is not being protected from the
high level of risk inherent in the spraying of over 25,000 tonnes of
agricultural chemicals on British farmland every year.

There should be a ban on crop-spraying and the use of pesticides near
to people's homes, schools, workplaces and any other places of human
habitation. The land that is not sprayed could still be farmed using
non-chemical management practices. There needs to be a new legal
obligation to inform people that spraying is to take place and to
supply the information on the chemicals to be used.

The Government and their advisors need to recognise and admit the
effects pesticides have on human health. Preventing pesticide
poisoning is the only way to protect people from pesticide related
ill-health. The human rights aspect of this issue is extremely
important as everyone has a recongnised right to protect their health
and the health of their family from harm.

The other key issue is that of responsibility and liability. Whenever
I have asked who is liable for people being poisoned by chemicals,
everybody blames everybody else. The Health and Safety Executive
blames government policy, the government blames Europe or the farmers
and others blame the manufacturers. No one is accepting
responsibility and there is no legal redress for all the people who
have had their health and lives destroyed due to pesticide-related
disease. The government must accept that it has a financial
responsibility for the risks imposed and damage caused as a direct
result of Government policy.

So what of our 'dream home'? We now have to spend every summer shut
up in a boiling hothouse which is just unbearable and suffocating, to
try and reduce exposure as much as possible to these chemicals. If my
dad does go outside during spraying, he has to wear a respirator,
goggles and other protective clothing, when he is on his own property
and his own land.

It is time that ministers recognised that, to protect the public's
health, they must take decisive action on this issue. Is a breath of
fresh air too much to ask for?

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SOURCE: The Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,936032,00.html

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