Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 14. July 2 1979

o Proof"

[unclear: o] Proof"

To be sure, the EPA hasn't "proved" that 5-T induces miscarriages - the report me-speaks of a "statistically significant [unclear: coation]." And one might reproach the [unclear: agen-] or not spending a few hundred thousand dollars more and setting in train two study programmes. Perhaps two reports with very similar findings would have rendered something approaching proof. But, as EPA deputy administrator Barbara Blum said, the "emergency suspension" was warranted as seven million lion pounds of 2,4,5-T were about to be used during the spring spray season, potentially affecting several million people.

"There are considerable data on the health effects of 2,4,5,-T in animal tests which are predictive of the same human health effects we are seeing in Alsea," said Blum. (The herbicide is contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tet-rachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin, or TCDD-dioxin for short, which even at very low levels produces birth defects, miscarriages, and tumours in laboratory animals. See also box two on "The Chemistry of 2,4,5-T.)

THERE'S NO NEED FOR PANIC! I'VE EATEN BLACKBERRIES SPRAYED WITH PESTICIDES AND LOOK AT ME.... Rick Omor

"Taken together, all these facts sound an alarm. Prudence dictates EPA to stop use of the herbicide until we have a fuller understanding of this phenomenon and its implications for human health." Blum said.

"Prudence", mixed with a shot of public pressure, was also behind the Mount Herbert (near Christchurch) county council's decision to limit aerial spraying of TODD-contaminated herbicides to less populous areas.

"Prudence" also motivated the Sale city councillors in the Australian "garden state" of Victoria, who unanimously voted to ban 2,4,5,-T (and the chemically related herbicide 2,4,-D) when a cluster of baby deaths and birth deformities was attributed to the herbicide use in that city last October.

In fact, throughout 1978 a spate of birth deformity clusters all over Australia kept public attention focussed on the issue. But federal and state health authorities were quick to absolve the herbicides - without making their studies available to the public.

That's why the Sale city fathers' action was so unusual. "We are erring on the side of caution," one councillor was quoted as saying, "and that's the side we should be erring on."