Pesticides: publicising exposure, tormer pilot Len Lawrence; assisting the exposed, farmer Tom Rigby

The first case in the U.S. to establish that the fumes that injured Myers are dangerous

Len Lawrence, a former BAE pilot whose health was seriously damaged by toxic fumes on board the aircraft he worked on, has drawn attention to the compensation claim made by Andrew Myers (below), subjected to toxic fumes in the cockpit. The claim prevailed in a hearing before law judge Darren Otto in the Oregon Workers Compensation Board Administrative court.

“Aerotoxic syndrome” occurs when seals inside the engine leak and heated oil fumes can enter the cabin’s air supply, contaminating it with chemicals that experts believe cause serious health problems.

Campaigners claim these events can cause illness, now linked with the deaths of at least two pilots, including British Airways’ Richard Westgate. The coroner investigating his death in February 2014 that fumes circulating in planes posed “consequential damage” to the health of frequent fliers.

The Unite union, which represents airline staff, said legal notice has been served in 51 cases, most of which are against British Airways. EasyJet, Thomas Cook, Jet2 and Virgin Atlantic. It claims pilots and crew are exposed to fumes, which originate from the oil used to lubricate the jet engines, contain organophosphates and TCP, and that long-term exposure can lead to chronic ill-health and life-threatening conditions.

Sheep dip poisoning

Many farmers have been poisoned by organophosphate (OP) sheep dip, and Farmers Weekly reported that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)admits that a report in its care, detailing these cases, has now been destroyed. Campaigners believe the document – dating from 1990 – would reveal how much the government knew about the likely effects of the toxic chemicals on human health.

Farmers were required by law to use OPs to dip sheep until the 1990s – and some of the protective clothing used was faulty. Hazards, an independent, major international award-winning magazine reported that in an HSE internal report dated May 1991 and marked “not to be circulated outside the HSE” without approval detailed the findings of the regulator’s 1990 survey of farmers. “Repeated absorption of small doses have a cumulative effect and can result in progressive inhibition of nervous system cholinesterase” – nerve system poisoning “. Released in 2015 after a freedom of information request, it was also critical of manufacturers for providing inadequate protective clothing: “If with all the resources available to them, a major chemical company proves unable to select appropriate protective equipment, what hope is there for an end-user?”, it noted.

Tom Rigby (left), who chairs the Soil Association Farmer & Grower Board. is a coordinator for the Sheep Dip Sufferers Support Group helping those whose health has been affected by organophosphates used in agriculture.

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Radio 4 smoothing the way for GM crops? Skewed interviewing by Charlotte Smith

A sad awakening to hear on Farming Today, by chance, the poorest exchange on GM technology it is possible to imagine – inaccurately billed as an ‘exploration’: 

Fifteen years ago in the late ‘90s, Radio 4’s Farming Today ‘faced the chop’ because of its courageous, truthful coverage of BSE and FMD issues and is now bland and establishment-friendly, proud that its ‘the rural agenda’ – and that of Countryfile – has made countryside “relevant to people’s lives as both a playground and a source of affordable and safe food.”

Note the playground is given first priority, when food – the staff of life – is placed second – a long way behind tourism and the import-export merry-go-round promoted by government and probably all ‘mainstream’ political parties.

Charlotte’s leading questions and comments, emotional not rational, included:

• Are we holding back progress?
• Is regulatory process hampering the development of GM crops?
• We need GM crops to feed the world (quoting Mark Walport) – a theory discredited by facts presented by many, including geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou.

This notion of progress was used  in the 60s to build defective concrete tower blocks and justify other dubious projects – and now the taxpayer levied HS2.

Charlotte asserted that the rest of the world is using the technology (mainly for animal feed) but look at the pro-biotech ISAAA’s table:

The Rothamsted advocate could not have been given an easier ride

One of Charlotte’s opening remarks was “We need progress”  –  but surely not progress towards resistant weeds, insect pests and damage to health. None of these problems were even mentioned by the opponent of GM crops from the Soil Association. Were guidelines been imposed beforehand as a condition of appearing?

Challenge

The BBC is challenged to invite farmer Michael Hart to speak in such a debate.

No laboratory scientist, in his short documentary he investigated the reality of farming genetically modified crops in the USA ten years after their introduction. He travelled across the US interviewing farmers and other specialists about their experiences of growing GM.

During the making of the film he heard problems of the ever-increasing costs of seeds and chemicals to weeds becoming resistant to herbicides.

The BBC is also challenged to present the facts about the high levels of ill health in a generation of Americans ‘nourished’ on meat from cattle fed GM maize and soy.

Or would this present too many obstacles to acceptance of GM technology, end the hospitality to media and close the biotech industry’s revolving door to the public relations sector, scientists and politicians?

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Paterson & Lynas are wrong: GM results to date have been poor: Tom Macmillan, Soil Association

Briefly and imperfectly reported by the ardently pro GM Farmers Guardian, at the Oxford Farming Conference, Tom Macmillan, innovation director at the Soil Association, responded to comments by the former environmentalist Mark Lynas and Defra Secretary of State Owen Paterson.

”Mark Lynas is right that improving productivity across agriculture, including in organic farming, has an important part to play in feeding the world sustainably. Through our Duchy Originals Future Farming programme, the Soil Association is investing in research and innovation to help farmers develop and share novel approaches to help improve productivity in environmentally responsible ways.

”Lynas acknowledged that meeting this challenge globally is in large part about ensuring existing techniques are available to the poorest farmers in the world, and much also depends on directly tackling poverty and on rich countries adopting more sustainable consumption habits”.

Mark Lynas is wrong, ‘seriously mistaken’: “Banging on about GM crops, as Lynas did today, is a red herring.”

This, Macmillan continued, because the results to date have been poor:

• The UK Government’s own farm scale experiment showed that overall the GM crops were worse for British wildlife.
• US Government figures show pesticide use has increased since GM crops have been grown there because superweeds and resistant insects have multiplied.

He warns that “Lynas, Paterson and other GM enthusiasts must beware of opening floodgates to real problems like this.”

After citing the Benbrook study, reported here some time ago, he referred to the situation in this country:

• Most of the British public do not want GM.
• The recent British Science Association survey cited by Owen Paterson shows that public concern over GM food has not lessened – it shows that attitudes have not changed significantly.
• The share saying they agree that GM food “should be encouraged” has actually dropped from 46% in 2002 to 27% in 2012.
• The Government has kept people in the dark by opposing labelling of meat and milk from animals fed on GM.

The Soil Association supports practical innovation that addresses real needs, is genuinely sustainable and puts farmers in control of their livelihoods. Where GM crops have been planted they are doing the opposite, locking farmers into buying herbicides and costly seed, while breeding resistant weeds and insects.

Tom Macmillan stresses that the drive to promote GM technology is not due to any desire to feed the world’s poor or improve the natural environment but by Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer’s desire for ever-increasing profit. He ends:

“Meeting the challenge of providing better nutrition for more people sustainably calls for joined-up research that takes an ecological approach, responds to people’s real needs and respects farmers’ know-how”.

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Soil Association article in full:

http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/4780/oxford-farming-conference-soil-association-response-to-owen-paterson-mark-lynas-talks

Hugh Ashton: “a big question mark hovers over the future of GMOs in Japan”

In September a sister site asked whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership would intensify the corporate-political nexus or be as described: ‘open, free, transparent and fair’?

Last year, the FT’s David Pilling wrote: “The controversy that the TPP has caused in Japan is also a harbinger of difficulties ahead. Opponents have threatened to leave the ruling Democratic Party of Japan over fears that signing up would threaten the country’s farming industry. Japan produces just 40 per cent of its calorific intake and many officials are opposed to becoming even more dependent on foreign food”.

President Obama formally launched the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2011

Hugh Ashton, who moved to Japan in 1988, has written an article in Japan’s Majirox news asking: “Will TPP open the door to Frankenstein food in Japan?

He said that a big question mark hovers over the future of genetically modified organisms in Japan.

Though the advantages, according to the promoters, were noted, he pointed out that the use of GMOs had – according to the Soil Association – cost the US $12 billion in lost exports 1999 – 2008.

There is significant opposition outside the US, especially in Japan, the EU, and Australasia. He remembers:

“One company, Monsanto, has a large stake in this aspect of agribusiness, but suffered a setback in 2003, when the British government released the results of three studies on the effects of GMOs, wherein lasting damage to the environment was predicted if GMOs were introduced.

“In addition, a British poll at that time showed that 93% felt that not enough was known about the long-term effects of the so-called GMO Frankenstein food products, and 86% said they would not eat it. This popular reaction and these findings forced an effective halt to Monsanto’s research operations in the UK (and in other European centers)”.

In Japan, food is labelled as containing GMO ingredients or as being GMO-free, but Ashton points out that this would change if a key clause in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement were to be implemented:

“According to the Sustainability Council of New Zealand, “the US has made clear that a priority for it in the proposed TPP is the abolition of laws requiring the labeling of GMO food” as well as the acceptance of the import of such products. This clause would apply to the Japanese market and Japanese consumers”.

Potential drawbacks mentioned:

• If this clause were to be agreed, Japanese consumers would be unwittingly exposed to any potential health hazards caused by ingestion of such food. Critics of the GMO business claim that many such health hazards exist, but that they have been swept under the rug by the companies involved.
• Acceptance of this part of the TPP could also force Japanese farmers to accept the use of GMO crops, which might provide short-term profits. Though even this future profitability is subject to debate (a 2003 study showed that a Monsanto GMO cotton grown in India produced between five and seven times less net income than the indigenous variety according to an official governmental report).
• Introduction of GMOs could bring about dramatic and drastic changes to Japan’s ecology – fragile at the best of times.

Ashton concludes that the Japanese TPP negotiation team should be made well aware of the ramifications associated with this aspect of the Partnership, and should think carefully before allowing Japanese consumers and the Japanese ecology to be unwittingly exposed to a technology imposed from outside, the effects of which have yet to be objectively and definitively assessed.