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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 14. July 2 1979
Data Ignored
[unclear: Data] Ignored
Ignoring such data seems to be the most [unclear: disturbing] aspect of a dangerous government industry mind-fix on the hazards of [unclear: 45-T] - as exemplified in the Big Pacifier [unclear: or] the Big Baby Public, the health departments 1977 report, "2,4,5-T and Human [unclear: irth] Defects."
After investigating some 20 cases of [unclear: se-ous] birth defects which had occured in [unclear: sp-ived] neighbourhoods in the Northland, [unclear: Ta-maki] and Waikato areas, the department [unclear: ar-ved] at the conclusion that "there is no [unclear: evi-ence] to implicate 2,4,5-T."
At the time the report's many [unclear: inadequa-ies] quickly established it in the eyes of the [unclear: ublic] as a whitewash-attempt.
- [unclear: the] exclusive and rather superficial [unclear: investi-ation] of a small set of data - the mothers [unclear: oncerned].
- [unclear: wo] Whangarei mothers who had given birth [unclear: o] deformed babies were omitted altogether. [unclear: j] least one mother was questioned only over [unclear: ie] telephone. Local hospital data was not [unclear: sed], files not searched for further case [unclear: ma-rial].
- [unclear: the] extreme speed with which the report [unclear: as] produced - ostensibly to dispel public [unclear: ars] over 2,4,5-T, roused by a "Dateline londay" programme a few months earlier.
- [unclear: the] omission of a known 2,4,5-T critic, [unclear: rofessor] R. B. Elliot, an Auckland [unclear: Uni-risty] child health expert. Professor [unclear: El-ot] was invited to the committee, which [unclear: len] chose to proceed without him.
The health department's Dr Collins who [unclear: ow] has found "severe inadequacies" in the PA report, confided to the New Zealand [unclear: erild] in July 1977 that the department's [unclear: port] was the result of a "political [unclear: decion]".
It was felt, he said, that if a high-power [unclear: ommittee] had been especially created for [unclear: ne] job it would have been "tantamount to [unclear: agisting] 2,4,5-T was a major hazard and [unclear: e] had to put all our big guns in to get it [unclear: ff] the hook." One can only speculate why [unclear: e] department created to promote and pro-[unclear: ect] "health" should want to get a dange-[unclear: ous] chemical "off the hook."
More to the point, however, is the [unclear: ques-on] why the department found the EPA [unclear: port] - which has all the appearance of serious and self-critical scientific [unclear: investi-ation] - to be inconclusive on the [unclear: ques-on] of a link between 2,4,5-T and human [unclear: irth] problems, and yet found its own [unclear: fli-uy] investigation conclusive proof of no [unclear: ch] link. (As, indeed, it should be clear [unclear: hat] absence of evidence does not mean [unclear: vidence] of absence of such a link.)
Certainly the EPA study provides a moel of the investigation the health department should have carried out, complete with [unclear: lghly] detailed questionnaires. Had similar [unclear: ndings] been made in New Zealand - would [unclear: he] department have imposed at least a [unclear: tem-orary] ban?
- a statistical investigation into possible links [unclear: etween] herbicide spray application and birth [unclear: eformities] in Northland has been originated [unclear: y] an Auckland University inter-disciplinary [unclear: search] team and is due for publication soon However, as malformed foetuses would probably be aborted spontaneously (miscarriages) some time before completion of the full birth cycle, the link with actual birth deformities may be more tenuous than the miscarriage link found by the EPA.
- a number of studies during the past few years have confirmed that burning of shrub or brush sprayed with 2,4,5-T can produce additional TCDD-dioxin in the environment. (See "Science" (1977) pages 1008 to 1009).
- in a personal communication from Hamoi, Professor Ton That Tung, a world authority on the effects of 2,4,5-T, advised me that "primary liver cancer (hepatoma) had been seen in 25 per cent of all cirrhoses of the liver autopsied in Paris in 1974 - even though primary liver cancer used to be extroadinarily rare among members of the white race."
Professor Tung, who had been retained by the Italian government in an advisory capacity after the 1977 Seveso debacle, and had consultations with many European liver specialists, believes the increase in primary liver cancers might be linked to TCDD-dioxin.
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The herbicide 2,4,5-T is widely used in European agriculture.
- a recent and about-to-be-published study of "The Genotoxic Effects of 2,4,5-T" (as opposed to the contaminant, TCDD) by Wiliam F. Grant of the genetics laboratory at Montreal's McGill University states that "the safety of 2,4,5-T is still in question." Grant sees risks in the use of the herbicide, "even with restrictions on the quantity of TCDD present in commercial samples of 2,4,5-T.". Grant goes on to say that "individuals involved in manufacturing 2,4,5-T or in spray operations for weed control or in forestry operations where exposure is high, stand a much greater risk of mutagenicity (cell, including chromosome cell, changes) and cancer. Precautions should be exercised in such occupations to the greatest extent."
- Christchurch researchers looked into possible genetic damages in 57 local sprayers using a large variety of pesticides. While some chromosome changes were observed, the overall result remained somewhat inconclusive. However, the study team's fin-dings on handling and storage of pesticides gives some cause for alarm:
In some cases "the chemicals were easily accessible to children, and in one instance full canisters were stored under a hedge. Stocks of chemicals which showed obvious deterioration of the container, the contents, and an illegible label were frequently encountered. Some chemicals would be at least 10 years old. One orchadist required hospital attention for acute poisoning after sweeping his storeroom. Apparently he had inhaled dust containing organophosphates. Over half the sprayers studied used no protection when making up or mixing chemical sprays, and some even used their bare hands to measure the amount of spray concentrate required. Only 12 sprayers had adequate protection while both mixing and spraying. Washing of hands after spraying was limited, as was washing of protective clothing after use." (New Zealand Medical Journal, September 13, 1978)
In the final analysis scientific evidence, no matter how voluminous or convincing will count for little without the EPA's political muscle. The success or failure of the American ban - now being challenged in the courtroom by Dow Chemical, the principle American manufacturer of the herbicide - will provide the litmus test for New Zealand's legislators as well.
The Environmental Protection Agency [unclear: pa]) of the U.S. government banned most [unclear: es] of the herbicide 2,4,5-T. This [unclear: deci-n] is not final and is, at the time of [unclear: wri-ig], being contested in court by the [unclear: manu-turers], led by the Dow Chemical Co. of [unclear: dland], Michigan.
[unclear: hy] the EPA did it
In a thorough statistical analysis of [unclear: spon-icous] abortions (miscarriages) occuring in [unclear: e] Alsea basin area in the state of Oregon, A researchers found a consistent and dra[unclear: tic] peak of miscarriages in the month of [unclear: ne] The peaks occured in each the past si c years (the time-frame of the [unclear: dy)] and markedly so in the past three [unclear: ars] when 2,4,5-T spraying was also hea[unclear: st]. In addition, the EPA found a "statically significant" (that is, not accident correlation between the spraying season [unclear: aring] March' and April) and the subsequent [unclear: h] miscarriage peak!
In the "control" area, of similar rural type and also in Oregon where, however, no 2,4,5-T was sprayed, no mid-year peak was observed. Instead the researchers found a curious and unexplained M-shaped pattern of regular ups and downs in the miscarriage frequency within any given year. This pattern was also found to exist in urban areas in Oregon and Florida But, significantly, in the study area a sort of W-pattern existed with a marked mid-year peak - an exact reversal of the pattern observed in the control areas
The possibility of a phase-shift in time was investigated and discounted - the June peak was found to be unique to the study area. EPA deputy administrator Barbara Blum called the correlation between the regular June miscarriage peak and the preceding spray period "remarkable" and added: "While it is not proof of a cause and effect relationahip, it is highly suggestive, particularly in light of animal test-data and gives great cause for concern."
Already the Dow Chemical Company of Midland, Michigan - the principle manufacturer of 2,4,5-T has filed a lawsuit to over-turn the EPA's decision. Dow's president, David Rooke, reiterated the long-standing Dow-claim that the herbicide is a "safe product". "It's time to take a stand," said Rooke, "I'm sick and tired of the chemical indistry being picked out as the evil of mankind."
Dow has gained a reputation as the most militant of chemical companies. It virulently defended its manufacture during the Vietnam War of Napalm-B for liquid incendiary bombs, and the defoliant "Agent Orange" - a highly poisonous herbicide-cocktail consisting of a 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and the chemically closely related herbicide 2,4-D.
The company, said Rooke, "believes in fighting. We hung in on napalm when it didn't mean anything to us business-wise. The government asked us to make it and we did. We believed in the principle."
Principles before profits, is Dow's motto. Already the company has spent more defending 2,4,5-T than it has recieved in profits from it, according to Rooke. And indeed, the "profit motive" alone cannot be held responsible for Dow's defence of either napalm or 2,4,5-T. At the time of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government (air force) contracts for the manufacture of Napalm-B amounted to US$6 million of the company's then US$1 billion annual turnover. Today, according to Rooke, manufacture of 2,4,5-T accounts for US$12 million of the company's annual US$6 billion worth of sales.
Strange behaviour for a capitalist ogre? According to Rooke, there is another side to the question as well: "This is only one battle in a much larger war that can affect every product industry makes. If you can wipe a product with this much proven safety off the market, then what is safe?........... There is a moral question: government abuse."
It sounds like the Free Enterprise theme song. The old liberal notion of the freedom of the invidual corporation to set up any kind of business, anytime, anywhere, clashes uncomfortably with the EPA's job to protect the freedom of the individual American citizen to choose clean air and a cancer-free environment to live in.
The record of why 2,4,5-T - many tines as poisonour to humans as for example, DDT which was banned in the U.S. in 1972 - has taken so long to deal with throws a telling light on what is supposedly helpful U.S. legislation - the Pesticides Control Act (PESCA) of 1972, with substantial amendments in 1975 and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TOSCA) of 1976.
The main thrust of these acts, as intended, has been to put the burden of proof of safety of a chemical onto the producers. But the chemical and agricultural industries, commanding considerable political muscle in Washington, ("lobbyism"), managed to obtain legislation setting up a labyrinthine obstacle course before a substance can, in fact, be barred from the market place.
The strength of the industry muscle can also be seen in the fact that TOSCA took six years of filibustering to overcome before it could become law. So, while TOSCA, on paper, is an exemplary poisons act, in reality it gives the EPA only relatively limited powers. The "emergency" ban on 2,4,5-T was the most drastic measure the EPA could take under the law. "EPA can't take things off the market without good cause," said the agency's pesticides chief, Ed Johnson, "We're not acting like a bunch of lunatics. We are trying to be objective about risks and benefits."
That's what concerned environmentalists in the U.S. and elsewhere, including New Zealand, would call a classic case of understatement.
Strong indications of the harmful effects of 2,4,5-T had been building up throughout the 1960s, particularly in Vietnam. From 1962 to 1971 some 71.4 million litres of highly impure 2,4,5-T were sprayed over Vietnam, mostly in combination with other herbicides. As a result, stillbirths increased dramatically: from 0.14 per cent in 1962 to 1.34 per cent in 1965 to 5.1 per cent in 1966 to 7.5 per cent in 1969. Liver cancers, which had numbered 159 between 1955 and 1961, were recorded in 791 cases between 1962 and 1968.
Public concern in the United States led to domestic restrictions on 2,4,5-T in 1970 and, a year later, to a stop of its use in the Vietnam War.
In 1975 the EPA instituted a new administrative mechanism, the "Rebuttable Presumption Against Registration" (RPAR), an ultimative order to the manufacturer to [unclear: prov] the safety of a product within a given period, or have it deregistered. Naturally, the manufacuter can challenge an RPAR several times at ever-higher levels. The rebuttable presumption process against 2,4,5-T was started in April of last year. (The March 1 "emergency" ban interrupted that process.)
Coincidentally, at the same time last year, the chairman of the New Zealand Dow-subsidiary. Daniel Watkins of Ivon Watkins-Dow Limited at New Plymouth, told "his" company's annual meeting, allegations that 2,4, 5-T was detrimental to human health were unfounded. "It is important to note," said Watkins, "that the allegations were not raised in scientific papers, nor did they originate from scientists with training and experience in toxicolocy, physiology, environmental chemistry and pediatric medicine."
Watkins was echoing what the EPA's Ed Johnson has called Dow's "posturing". The facts certainly present a different picture. In 1973, for example, 30 West German university professors - most of them all kinds of forestry experts, but with a few zoologists, environmental toxicologists, a limnologist, two geneticists, two medical pathologists, a plant physiologist and a cell biologist thrown in for good measure - signed a joint declaration calling on the West German government to ban 2,4,5-T.
However, Dow has good reasons to claim the safety of its product and, in particular, the safety of very small doses of TCDD and other dioxins. The EPA has been howling for Dow's blood since the company environment has been found to be contaminated" with low-level dioxin "fallout", and the Midland birth defects rate is three times higher than that of the rest of Michigan. (Which is none too reassuring news for the people of New Plymough, home of a TCDD-emitting ting Dow subsidiary.)
In addition, large numbers of U.S. Vietnam veterans have begun urging the government's Veterans Administration to recognise late-blooming service-related injuries allegedly stemming from handling "Agent Orange" during the war. As the U.S. Air Force had experimented with highly dioxin- contaminated 2,4,5-T in 1962 on a test-site at Fort Eglin, Florida, prior to the Vietnam defoliation programme, the veterans claim that "Dow knew" of the herbicides potential to damage human cells.
Dow could well be faced with an avalanche of million-dollar damages claims during the next few years if the EPA could prove that all the nasty things being said about TCDD were true. That's why the company fights the EPA tooth and nail.