The COT report(1) is a ‘miracle of irrelevance for OP sufferers’, according to Brian Anderson, coordinator of the OP Information Network (OPIN) in Scotland. Speaking at a conference on 29 January at the University of Sunderland, jointly organised by PAN
UK’s PEX project (Action on Pesticide Exposure) and OPIN, Mr Anderson expressed his disappointment that this supposedly definitive report on the health effects of exposure to OPs is so incomplete. By asserting that ‘the balance of evidence does not indicate that low-level exposure to OPs causes peripheral neuropathy’, the COT report contradicts the conclusions of the Institute of Occupational Medicine report last year, and undermines the campaign for a national treatment strategy. A medical practice in Herefordshire has already adopted the policy that none of its GPs will diagnose ill-health as being OP-related.
The Sunderland conference, OP Pesticides – the health
hazard, which was open to all interested members of the public, researchers and journalists, addressed the issues which the COT report itself acknowledged needed further research – particularly the impacts of long term low doses of
OPs.
Paper exercise
Professor Malcolm Hooper, Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Sunderland, pointed to the most obvious omission in the COT report: any clinical examination of sick people, which was not included in its remit. Describing it as a ‘paper exercise’ he claims that it is disingenuous to exclude from surveys those whose disabilities have forced them to retire from the workforce. Discussing the role of OPs in Gulf War syndrome, Professor Hooper claimed that often the common diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been spurious, and that the mortality statistics from the Gulf War are much higher than recorded.
Since 1986 Dr Paul Shattock, Director of the Autism Research Unit at the University of Sunderland, has been searching for physiological causes – and a genetic predisposition – which may underlie both autism and other disorders, including OP-related ill-health. By analysing the biochemical profiles of thousands of urine samples, Dr Shattock and his team have amassed data in support of their hypothesis that OPs can affect the membranes of the digestive tract so that peptides (parts of proteins) of exogenous origin, derived from an incomplete breakdown of certain foods, may be crossing from the intestines into the bloodstream. This has severe effects on the central nervous system when it occurs, and hence could be the cause of the perceptual and behavioural disorders of the autistic person. Dr Shattock and his team are currently developing a diet based on his wok and the book will be available in May.
Dr Howard Mason, of the Health and Safety Laboratory in Sheffield, held out the hope that a blood test for OP exposure would very soon be available – one that gave an immediate confirmation without the need to wait 60 days for a baseline comparison. Dr Mason told the conference that more work should be done towards the identification of likely causative mechanisms in OP exposure. However, it may be in clinical diagnosis that progress will be made.
Solicitor Elisabeth Charles, of Gabb & Co, Hay-on-Wye, described the progress being made in the class action of OP sufferers claiming damages from chemical companies. A battery of medico-legal assessments of OP litigants – the Nottingham pilot – may start to drive through a medical consensus on the diagnosis of chronic OP exposure.
Sufferers in limbo
The COT report and the government’s response (see box) leave in limbo those who are ill. There is no recognition of the need for a national strategy for expert treatment centres (a recommendation of the Royal College of Physicians and Psychiatrists’ report last year). So, in the absence of a consistent, informed medical response, or any official encouragement towards it, sufferers must find alternative forms of assistance.
Nigel Wynn, of the National Institute of Medicinal Herbalists, and
David Mellin, a nutritionist who had assisted sufferers, also addressed the conference, giving the complementary therapists’ approach to practical detoxification and supportive dietary treatment.
The COT report uncovers an alarming failure in the institutional response to OP health issues. The schemes run for years by the statutory bodies – the Veterinary Medicines Directorate’s Suspected Adverse Reaction Surveillance Scheme, for example – contributed almost no useful data, and the lack of a clinical database is criticised.
A proposal to establish this is currently being considered for funding. It is led by Dr Tony Fletcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in conjunction with the Institute of Occupational Medicine, and hopes to analyse details of the victims on databases held by PEX and OPIN – subject of course to their consent and the preservation of confidentiality.
Fears were voiced at the conference that some victims of OP sheep-dip exposure will be dead before the precise scientific causality of OP-related ill-health has been proven. PEX and OPIN will continue to offer advice and support, to provide information about medical and legal options, and, most importantly, to press for medical recognition, resources and treatment.
| Government response on COT
On 20 December Baroness Hayman, Minister of State at MAFF, announced a four-point action plan on OPs:
A broadly based seminar is planned for later in the spring, so as to involve expertise from the wider scientific community and those affected. Comment |
References
1. Organophosphates, Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, Department of Health, London. November 1999
Proceedings of the conference are included in PEX Newsletter 6 from PAN UK.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 47, March 2000, page 9]