Lindane campaign calls for a ban on the household use of lindane 

The UK based Ban Lindane Campaign(1) is calling for all lindane products to be taken off the shelves immediately, and for existing stocks to be handed in for safe disposal, after the tragic death of an eight-year-old Sussex girl. Alison Craig attended her inquest and reports on the findings.

The Inquest for Sharna Richardson, who died on 8 August 2000, was held on 30 January 2002, in Hastings. The Coroner concluded the most likely cause of the child’s death was lindane, even though she only consumed a tiny amount of the powder, kept in thousands of garden sheds and kitchen cupboards all over the country.
    ‘Sharna’s case reveals just how dangerous this chemical really is’, says David Buffin of the Ban Lindane Campaign. ‘We want the government to order these products off the shelves immediately. Everyone should get rid of them from their homes’.
    The eight-year-old girl, when playing in the garden with some older children, licked her hand on which Doff ant killer powder (formulation containing 0.65 per cent lindane) had become spread. She then developed a headache, and in the evening, began to vomit. The doctor was telephoned, who advised that she be taken to hospital (Conquest Hospital, Hastings). During the night she had fits. She was transferred to Guy’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, and was pronounced dead on 8 August.
    The case is significant because the Coroner concluded, on the basis of two expert medical reports(2), that the child died from acute lindane poisoning, even though she had ingested a dose much lower than any previous attributed lethal dose in the scientific literature. 
    No lindane was found in blood samples taken on 7 August. A possible explanation, put forward by Dr Fishwick, Chief Medical Officer of the Health and Safety Laboratory, in his report, is that, as the primary deposition site for lindane is the white matter of the cerebral cortex, the chemical may have been absorbed through the tongue, and gone straight to her brain: ‘Therefore, it is at least possible that the course of medical events was initiated by a very low dose of lindane absorbed through the tongue, not mediated by the standard pathways known to be affected by lindane, although to my knowledge this has not previously been recorded.’(3)
    The late Dr Iain West, a Consultant Forensic Pathologist at Guy’s Hospital, who carried out the post mortem, concluded that: ‘The absence of any injury or pre-existing disease which would account for her death and the strong temporal relationship between her exposure to the compound and the subsequent onset of symptoms is, in my opinion, an indication of the strong probability that consumption of lindane has been the factor which has led to her death.’(4)
    After an EU decision on 13 July 2000, there will be statutory withdrawal from sale of lindane products, by 20 June 2002. However, without an awareness-raising campaign, it is likely that these products will remain in people’s homes and sheds for months or years, prompting a renewed campaign by the Ban Lindane Campaign.

Information not forthcoming
A particular concern in this case was the inaccessibility of information about pesticide poisonings held by the UK National Poisons Information Service (NPIS), who provide toxicological information to doctors and hospitals in emergencies. It is unusual for an Inquest to be held more than a year after someone’s death: Sharna’s was held seventeen months later, reflecting the extreme difficulty the Coroner had in accessing the relevant toxicological information about lindane, as he commented at the start of proceedings.
    The Coroner’s investigation did not include crucial data on lindane poisonings held by the NPIS. The expert report he commissioned from Dr Fishwick was based on a Medline search of the scientific literature only, and therefore included only lindane poisonings published in peer review literature. Because the NPIS do not publish annual data on pesticide poisonings, confirmed and suspected, by active ingredient, the information is not available to physicians and coroners in these circumstances. PAN UK has for several years been calling on the NPIS to make this data available(5).

Changes must be made
The Ban Lindane Campaign has alerted UK government ministers that the risk assessment for lindane did not protect Sharna, and could be putting other children at risk. In the evidence at the Inquest of Mr Murray Smedley, technical manager at Doff Portland, Nottingham, he stated that, on the basis of toxicological data from the WHO and the US EPA, a lethal dose for a child of Sharna’s weight would be (at 20 mg/kg/bw) 640 milligrams of lindane, ie a third of the bottle of this product. Sharna is estimated to have ingested less than a teaspoon.
    The Campaign has urged the UK government to take the following action:

• ban the retail sale of all lindane household products (including Doff ant powder) with immediate effect;
• Alert the public to the need to dispose of existing stocks in their homes;
• Establish arrangements for the safe collection and disposal of existing stocks of lindane household products;
• Improve the degree of protection for individuals who are highly sensitive to a particular chemical.

If the government bans lindane outright arrangements will have to be made for existing stocks of lindane ant powder to be collected and disposed of in a safe manner otherwise the lindane is likely to be disposed of inappropriately. 
    ‘Lindane is a dangerous chemical which should never have been allowed on the shelves of DIY stores’, says Sandra Bell of Friends of the Earth ‘This tragic death shows that the existing regulations for pesticides do not offer enough protection. The government must now look again at the way it approves pesticides and build in a much more cautious approach including higher safety factors to account for children or adults who may be very sensitive to particular chemicals. Where reliable data is not available, as was the case with lindane, the government should be prepared to ban pesticides.’
    Mark Davis, PAN UK’s pesticide disposal expert comments: ‘Local authorities do not have appropriate systems for dealing with hazardous waste and therefore specialist disposal companies will need to be called in. The cost for this operation should be borne by pesticide manufacturers who profit from the sale of these products.’

References
1. The Ban Lindane Group is an alliance of groups including Pesticide Action Network UK, Women’s Environmental Network, Unison, Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, and others, www.banlindane.org
2. Dr Iain West (deceased): Post Mortem of Sharna Lea Richardson, 17 August 2000, Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine; Dr David Fishwick, Senior Lecturer in Respiratory and General Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician, Royal Hallamshire Hospital Sheffield, and Chief Medical Officer, Health and Safety Laboratory, UK: Report to HM coroner concerning Sharna Lea Richardson, 12 August 2001
3. Ibid. (Dr Fishwick’s report).
4. Op. cit. 2 (Dr West’s report).
5. ‘Pesticide poisoning: we still do not know’, Pesticides News 50, page 3, December 2000.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 55, March 2002, page 7]