New OP leaflet - farmer's verdict

A new leaflet 'Organophosphate (OP) insecticides and their uses: guidance for professional users' will soon be published. Ernie Patterson reports on its likely impact.

A new leaflet on OPs is remarkable not for what it has to say but for what it omits. Produced by a group of trade and technical associations*, the leaflet is intended as guidance for professional users.
    Users must be fully informed about the nature of OP toxicity and aware that each exposure cannot be regarded as a one off experience but must be looked at in relation to previous exposure.
    The Health and Executive produced a Guidance Note MS17 Biological Monitoring of Workers Exposed to OPs as long ago as 1981 but this information was not fully circulated to farmers, doctors or vets. This document states that anyone in contact with OPs more regularly than occasional 'garden use', should have regular health monitoring. This would involve blood testing to check cholinesterase levels. MS17 states that it can take up to 60 days for enzyme levels in the body to recover following exposure. Users were not informed of this recommendation and no programme of health monitoring was introduced.
    By contrast in the US the Center for Michigan Agricultural Safety and Health encourages farmers to have a cholinesterase test carried out before the season of pesticide application. The Center points out that humans have the same enzyme as the insect pests which the OPs are intended to control. The recommendation is that: "Farmers and anyone working with the organophosphate and carbamate pesticides should get a baseline cholinesterase blood test now so their physician can determine if a summer time illness is the result of exposure to these pesticides." It goes on to say: "Pesticides in the OP and carbamate chemical class contain a cholinesterase inhibitor, which makes them effective in controlling pests and other vertebrate (pests). Unfortunately, when people breathe in these pesticides or it gets on their skin, they are subject to the same negative effect."
    The level of information being provided to UK users falls far short of that available to our American counterparts.
    Each time a new advisory leaflet is produced a little more information is revealed but this drip-feed approach to provision of OP information is totally unacceptable.
    The failure on the part of the Health and Safety Executive to make known the contents of MS17 to farmers and doctors has led to the horrendous situation today regarding the health of a section of our farming community.
    The content of this latest leaflet is too little and for many it is too late.

* British Agrochemical Association, the National Farmers Union, the National  Office of Animal Health, British Pest Control Association and the UK Agricultural Supply Trades Association.

Ernie Patterson is a farmer and a founder member of the Northern Ireland OP Sufferers Association.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No.45, September 1999, page 23]