PRESS RELEASE
FEBRUARY 6TH 2006
Key Government Advisors (the ACP) Criticised Over
Pesticides
Rural Residents’ anger over Advisory
Committee on Pesticides (ACP) response to the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution report on pesticides, as it emerges that the ACP’s current approach
could be unlawful
The Government’s main advisors on pesticides, the
Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) have today come under renewed fire from
rural residents and communities following the publication of the ACP’s response
to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) report on the risks to
people from crop-spraying.
The Royal Commission’s report published in September last
year had concluded that crop-spraying is a potential health risk and that
chronic illnesses and diseases reported by people in rural areas, including
cancer, Parkinson’s and ME, could be associated with pesticide
exposure.
The RCEP report was highly critical of the
ACP and concluded that the level of confidence and assurance that had been given
by the ACP to Ministers, as well as the public, regarding the safety of
residents and bystanders exposed to agricultural pesticides, “represented
too sanguine a view of the robustness of the scientific
evidence.”
The RCEP report found significant unresolved issues in
relation to the health and exposure elements of the current risk assessment. The
RCEP concluded that they did not agree that the evidence could lead to
unequivocal conclusions, previously given by the ACP, that the system provides
adequate protection and that there are no scientific concerns or that it
provides full reassurance to the Minister.
However, in the ACP’s
response to the RCEP report, published today, the majority of ACP members have
stood by the ACP’s previous advice to Ministers that the risk assessment for
bystanders used at present provides adequate protection. The
ACP’s report, commissioned by Defra, argues that current regulatory controls
already ensure a wide margin of safety.
The ACP press release states, “The ACP
agree with many of the recommendations in the RCEP report, but differ in their
evaluation of the potential for toxic risks to people living next to sprayed
land.” “We agree with the Royal Commission that there are scientific
uncertainties, but we differ in our assessment of their importance.” The ACP
press release states that the ACP think it unlikely that pesticide toxicity
contributes importantly to disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome and
multiple chemical sensitivity as suggested by the RCEP. The ACP commentary
states that, “…many people do not like pesticides being sprayed right up to
the boundary of their property, and that the resultant anxiety may in itself
impact on their health and well-being.”
The RCEP had been asked to examine the scientific
evidence on which DEFRA had based its decision on the risks to people from
crop-spraying, following a determined and relentless five year campaign by
Georgina Downs of UK Pesticides Campaign, (www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk), the leading campaign
highlighting the effects of pesticides on people in rural areas (referred to in
the RCEP report as “residents” and “bystanders”).
Ms. Downs was the first to identify serious fundamental
flaws in the Government’s “bystander risk assessment,” in early 2001 and
started presenting a case to the Government for an overhaul of the regulations
and legislation governing agricultural spraying.
This included the presentation of a video featuring
people from all over the country reporting cases of cancers, leukaemia,
non-Hodgkins lymphoma, neurological problems, including Parkinson’s disease and
ME, amongst many other illnesses, in rural communities surrounded by sprayed
fields. Despite that fact that
Professor Coggon had repeatedly told Ms. Downs that the ACP needed to see the
evidence of what was happening in reality to check if the current system was
working, the video was only seen in full by a small handful of members and the
ACP subsequently dismissed its content. In stark contrast, RCEP members all saw Ms.
Downs’ video in full. The RCEP recommended in their report that the ill-health
effects reported by residents and bystanders need to be taken more seriously by
Government advisors and regulators.
Ms. Downs
states,
“The ACP continues to maintain that a robust system is in place to protect
public health. This is misleading, is not factually correct and demonstrates the
ACP’s continued complacency in relation to the impact of pesticides on human
health. To continue to maintain that this is merely a social issue and that many
residents are just “believing” or “perceiving” that their health has been
affected following exposure to pesticides is grossly insulting and disrespectful
to all those suffering ill-health whether it be acute or chronic. Many of the
conditions that are reported in rural areas including cancer and leukaemia are
devastating diseases that are on the increase, especially in children and even
though there could be a number of different causes for any chronic illness or
disease, all the causes must be identified in an attempt to try and prevent them
from occurring.”
Many pesticides have
neurotoxic, carcinogenic and hormone-disrupting capabilities and substantive
evidence already exists linking pesticides to various forms of cancer,
neurological diseases and birth defects, among other chronic conditions.
Warnings on safety data sheets for pesticides can include, “Very toxic by
inhalation,” “do not breathe spray,” “do not breathe fumes,” “do not breathe
vapour,” “harmful: possible risk of irreversible
effects through inhalation,” “ may cause cancer by inhalation,” etc.
Ms Downs points out that the total cost to the UK with
regard to cancer, ME and asthma alone, is in excess of Ł6 billion per year. It
is not known what proportion of the overall costs from damage to health and the
environment could be attributable to pesticides. However, Ms. Downs points out
that even if only partly, then the cost to the economy and society, as a whole,
is clearly substantial, although she stresses that the personal and human costs
to individuals suffering ill-health cannot be calculated in financial terms.
Therefore, Ms. Downs states, “The significance of
these consequences requires the adoption of a preventative approach, especially
in relation to the protection of children and other vulnerable
groups.”
In relation to the RCEP’s recommendation of 5 metre
buffer zones Ms. Downs states that, “Rural residents and communities will
definitely not be protected by 5 metre buffer zones. Therefore this distance is
wholly inadequate and has been widely criticised by experts all over the
world.”
A leading former UK researcher on vapour, Victor Breeze,
who carried out studies between 1983 and 1994, funded by MAFF and PSD states,
“5 metres doesn’t bear serious scientific consideration, it wouldn’t give
protection from droplet drift (spraydrift) and certainly not from vapour drift,
as movement of vapour is more or less
unrestricted.”
Therefore Ms. Downs states that much larger distances are
required and points out that a recent study from America that confirmed acute
illnesses in children and employees from pesticides sprayed on farmland near
schools highlighted that 7 US states require no-spray buffer zones of up to 2.5
miles around schools.
Ms.
Downs already has an application in the High Court to Judicially Review an
earlier Government decision not to act to protect rural residents from exposure
to pesticides. However, following investigations by Ms. Downs, it has now
emerged that the ACP’s
current approach, in itself, could be unlawful. Ms. Downs explains that the EU
Directive 91/414 EEC and the UK equivalent legislation (the Plant Protection
Products (PPP) Regulations 2005) state that a pesticide shall not be approved
unless it has been satisfied that “it has no
harmful effect directly or indirectly on human or animal
health….”
However, following Professor Coggon’s appointment as
Chairman of the ACP in 2000, he produced a document entitled “A Guide to
Pesticide Regulation and the Role of the ACP.” This document included an
explanation of the legislation both in the EU and the UK. Under the section
entitled “The Scientific Assessment of Pesticides,” it states “The
legislative framework….is designed with the aim that….(b) no one should develop
any serious illness through the use of
pesticides.”
Ms Downs states, “The introduction of the word
“serious” would appear to reconstruct and thus reinterpret the precise and
definite language used in the legislation in relation to the unconditional
degree of priority required to be given for the protection of human health. The
regulatory system is supposed to protect against any adverse
health effects occurring from exposure to pesticides, not simply those that the
regulators and scientific advisors deem to be serious adverse
effects.”
A letter has recently been sent from Norman Baker, the
Liberal Democrat’s front bench environment spokesman, to Margaret Beckett, the
Secretary of State for DEFRA, asking for clarification as to whether Professor
Coggon had the authorisation of any Minister before introducing the word
“serious,” which was subsequently adopted as the interpretation by both
the ACP and the Government regulators the Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD).
Indications are that Prof. Coggon did not have Ministers
authorisation.
Rural residents all over the UK have expressed anger at
the ACP’s dismissive attitude regarding the health effects of pesticides and the
arrogance of deciding what should be deemed a serious effect or
illness.
Marion Tait, from Cambridgeshire, states, “I have been
ill since 1995 after moving to a house beside fields that were intensively
farmed. I had all the usual acute symptoms when they sprayed, starting with sore
throats and burning eyes. It never occurred to me when I saw the sprayer run up
the side of the house that they might be spraying poison and so I stayed out
gardening. Eventually I collapsed with ME and have spent the last 10 years
mainly bed ridden and in terrible pain. The Government did nothing to protect me
and someone should be held responsible for taking my life away and leaving me in
this state.”
Her anger is echoed by rural resident, Jan Simpson, who
states, “Since moving to Lincolnshire I have never felt so persistently ill.
I used to be 100% fit and now I find it hard just to make it through the day. I
would like to know whether Professor Coggon would classify the devastating
long-term effects I have suffered as serious or not?”
John Elson, from Uckfield, who 17 years ago,
was caught in a cloud of pesticides being sprayed over 15 metres away on a
nearby field, suffered permanent damage to his vocal chords, which eventually
forced him to retire his position as the vicar of a rural Sussex village. Mr.
Elson states, “The Government have not taken action before probably
because it hasn’t happened to anyone’s knowledge in their backyard. I mean if
they had the spraying in the fields next to their house and one of their family
was affected, I would imagine something would be done pretty
quickly.”
Ms.
Downs states, “Rural
residents and communities deserve to be protected from avoidable and unnecessary
exposures and risks to their health. Substantive evidence already exists to
demonstrate a serious public health problem and therefore the Government must
take immediate action. The only way to protect public health and prevent future
suffering from any illnesses and diseases that may be associated with
pesticides, is to avoid exposure altogether through the widespread adoption of
sustainable non-chemical and natural methods as an alternative to chemical pest
control.”
Notes to
Editors:-
·
The ACP’s response to the RCEP report will be available
on the ACP website at:- http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/acp_home.asp (NB. This is ACP’s response to the RCEP report and not
the Government’s, which is due to be published in summer
2006)
·
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s report
entitled “Crop Spraying and the Health of Residents and Bystanders” is
available at:- www.rcep.org.uk
·
Ms. Downs submitted considerable written evidence to the
RCEP study. She was also an invited speaker at the RCEP public meeting held on
September 25th 2004 and gave oral evidence to the Commission members
a few months later. Ms. Downs also peer reviewed 4 chapters of the RCEP
report
·
Ms. Downs was recently
listed in the Farmers Weekly Top 20 Power Players in UK Farming, following the
impact of her campaign. Others included in the list were Gordon Brown, Margaret
Beckett, Peter Mandelson, Prince Charles, Jacques Chirac and Jamie Oliver. For
the full list see:- http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2006/01/19/92020/Power+Players.html
·
Georgina Downs campaigns to highlight the effects of
pesticide use in rural Britain and has lived next to regularly sprayed fields
for 22 years. She was the first to identify serious fundamental flaws regarding
the bystander risk assessment and for the last 5 years has presented a case to
the Government for a change in the regulations and legislation governing
agricultural spraying. She has also produced 2 videos "Pesticide Exposures
for People in Agricultural Areas – Part 1 Pesticides in the Air; Part 2 The
Hidden Costs" to illustrate chemical exposure and the effects on people in
rural areas
·
Ms. Downs has a
database
of approximately 750 people, compiled since early 2001. The acute ill-health
effects that are commonly reported to Ms. Downs by people in agricultural areas
include sore throats, burning eyes, nose, skin, blisters, headaches, dizziness,
nausea, flu-type illnesses, amongst other things. The most common chronic
long-term illnesses and diseases reported include clusters of various cancers,
leukaemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, neurological problems, including Parkinson’s
disease and ME, asthma, allergies, along with many other medical conditions. The
RCEP visited a number of people from Ms. Downs’ database during the study.
(NB. Under the existing regulatory system there is no monitoring or
collection of data on chronic effects, so the full extent of ill-health related
to pesticides is currently not known)
·
Contact details for Victor Breeze, Marion Tait, Jan
Simpson and John Elson are available via Georgina Downs. Other cases from Ms.
Downs’ database are also available upon
request
·
Ms. Downs has called for an immediate ban on
crop-spraying and the use of pesticides near to people's homes, schools,
workplaces and any other places of human habitation and for direct access for
the public to all the necessary chemical information. Ms. Downs has highlighted
that small buffer zones will be wholly inadequate as they are only in relation
to immediate spraydrift and will not be able to protect people from exposure to
pesticides in the air, chemical fumes after application, volatilisation, along
with all the other exposure factors relevant for people in rural areas.
Therefore a much larger distance is required. For further information on
Georgina Downs’ campaign see www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk
Contact: Georgina Downs
UK Pesticides
Campaign
Telephone: 01243 773846
Mobile: 07906 898 915
Website
– www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk