mcinnes
Since: Apr 2008
Posts: 53
As one who has sat on ERMA"s NGO committee for over 10 years as the Toxins Awareness Group Inc (TAG) representative I have watched a massive amount of work achieved in the assessment of all the products that needed to be addressed & filed prior to any 're-assessments' being done. Presently there is a short list of about 10 to 20 that ERMA has deemed a priority most usually due to their research & the importance they put on people in the NGO to bring certain dangerous products to their attention. 1080 was at the top of the list!!
The basic problem in Nz is that whereas scientists et al may or do know the detrimental effects of many pesticides on target organisms they have nothing other than usually some adhoc evidence in regard to how such may detrimentally affect people. This is where TAG has come in to play since the ICI fire in Mt Wellington. Dr Meriel Watts book The Poisoning of NZ is a sound evidence based resource on what our situation in NZ is & has been.
I personally won the first Accident Compensation Appeal for a pesticide poisoning. That occurred in 1984 but it was 1987 before that Appeal was heard & upheld. Straight away ACC sent a bulletin to every doctor in NZ saying they would not accept factors involved in that successful appeal which went on to be upheld during 2 more Appeals before 1992. What should have taken 7 months took 7 years! The next person to win an appeal was a Mr. Burston. I helped him win that. The judges in both cases were some of ACC's most experienced personal & it is stated in the statement of summary by the Judge that "Mr Burston would have to be forgiven if he had felt that ACC had a blanket ban on such cases". It was 11 years after my case that Burston's finally succeeded.
You see the problem is we can't tell if people have generally been over exposed or poisoned by chemicals - we, not even the equivalent of the DSIR has the necessary test facilities. One lady a Francis Jackson won her case with ACC as her cat was full of dieldrin when fat tested by her vet. The cat was in the house when she was exposed but detoxification had removed the chemicals from her. The vet's evidence helped her win against the ACC! The test done on the cat wasn't really available to her as a person. So here's the problem. Scientists know many of the effects on the target organisms but not on we humans & I have a letter from Helen Clark from 1990 stating how derelict our testing modalities to ascertain if people are exposed is, with little having improved since then. The likes of TAG, in the precautionary approach to exposure, have lobbied councils & the like so schools are no longer street sprayed by contractors as kids leave, so that councils & the likes of the ARC in Operation Evergreen use the most innocuous products available because when people get involved as unwitting or deliberate target organisms there is hell to pay!
Hence ERMA are to be applauded for their attempts to reassess what they can but the NZ government must put in place a regime where unless a chemical can be tested for adversely affecting a human being, if the testing to ascertain that is not available then the use of said chemicals should be withdrawn until such testing can be offered. Is that not logical? To make the destruction of a pest more important than being able to know if our lives are at stake or detrimentally affected when over or accidentally exposed is criminal neglect. People have died from the likes of paraquat poisoning years ago with only adhoc proof that might have been the cause - except in suicides where it is abundantly clear what 5mls or less can achieve! But exposure via the water table, air borne drift etc is more like a thief in the night, one who actually unknowingly comes to kill, steal & destroy by stealth, because we can't test whether it happened or not in most cases & because we are so stupid as to apply thousands of chemicals that might help kill target pests but also adversely affect us in the same blow. I think Ms Kedgely would be I am sure intensely interested to see this information herein on this UnitedFuture website.
