The Pesticide PM, and his toxic policies.

In response to the EU pesticide proposals which aim to ban some of the most toxic agricultural chemicals, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated that impending changes to EU pesticide rules “will damage food production without benefiting human health or the environment”.

The above statement is an outrageous insult to everyone who lives in proximity to pesticide spraying.Rural residents experience first hand the impacts of crop spraying and know that the new EU rules would substantially improve their quality of life by removing the risk of inhaling toxic fumes, or of pesticide poisoning through skin contact.

Gordon Brown’s statements about crop yields are also inaccurate and highlight his economically bullish motivation, and support of the chemical industry, rather than the health of the general public.

Farmers Weekly magazine features a “Save Our Sprays” campaign. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has chosen to support this campaign rather than the campaign which seeks to save
peoples lives and protect our health.

Pesticide poisoning, Gordon Brown couldn't care less.

When Georgina Downs won the High Court case against the government recently, the judge concluded that the government had fundamentally failed to protect people in the countryside from pesticides and has also knowingly allowed residents to continue to suffer from adverse health effects without taking any action to prevent the exposure, risks and adverse inpacts occurring.

The Judgment had concluded that Ms. Downs had produced “solid evidence that
residents have suffered harm to their health”, particularly in relation to acute effects, and
that “a different approach” should have been adopted and accordingly there has “been
both a failure to have regard to material considerations and a failure to apply the
[European] Directive properly.”

In response to this ruling the government has paid lip service only, saying...."The
protection of human health is paramount” and “we will look at this judgment in
detail to see whether there are ways in which we can strengthen our system…”

Later they declared that they will be appealing the High Court decision, and soon after Gordon Brown communicated to the EU that he was not in favour of the EU proposals to ban some of the most toxic pesticides.

Despite all reliable independent evidence relating to the risks of agricultural pesticides, Gordon Brown has explicitly conveyed his support for the interests of big business over the health of ordinary people, not only in his own country, but throughout the world.

New EU Pesticide Proposals.

"These Pesticide Proposals(the Proposal for a Framework Directive on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides and the Proposal for a Regulation Concerning the Placing of Pesticides on the Market) will set pesticide policy throughout the whole of the EU for at least the next ten years and possibly even the next few decades." Georgina Downs warns that serious lobbying by the chemical and farming industry and the UK government itself has meant that the proposals are not as strong as they were.

The agricultural industries and NFU have used the press to push their scaremongering about supposed 'negative impacts on farming and food prices'. The CPA (crop protection association) which represents the agrochemical industry has a vested interest in trying to ensure that all pesticides remain on the market-and they are putting these interests before the health of the people of the EU.

Extremely toxic pesticides include carcinogens, repro-toxins, mutagens and endocrine disruptors. In order for the original pesticide proposals to succeed it is essential for MEP's to vote in favour of the proposals. Please write and ask your local MEP's to support the proposals to ban the pesticides. This is urgent as they vote soon.

Pesticides cocktails.

Since Georgina Downs won her high court battle against the government, she has written a comment on the 'Farming Today' blog to correct any misinterpretations around her message regarding agricultural pesticides. I have recorded below paragraphs from her comments which enumerate the important points:-

……"agricultural pesticides are commonly used in mixtures, often 4 or 5 different products in any one application. Each product formulation in itself can contain a number of different active ingredients, as well as other chemicals such as solvents, surfactants and co-formulants (some of which can have adverse effects in their own right, even before considering any potential synergistic effects in a mixture(s)). Therefore when people are exposed over the long-term to ongoing mixtures and then go on to suffer a chronic illness or disease it will be almost impossible to know which pesticide led to the illness or whether it is as a result of synergistic effects of mixtures of pesticides and the long term cumulative build up in the individuals. The Judge in my case recognised both the point of mixtures and of cumulative effects and therefore it is simply not the case as Elliott incorrectly put it of just getting rid of what he classes as the most "toxic" (which he stated is about 20 pesticides (5% of those currently on themarket)) as a) all chemical pesticides are designed to be toxic, that is their purpose; b) they are used in cocktails anyway and not individually and c) the Ontario College of Family Physicians in its thorough and detailed 2004 pesticides literature review quite rightly concluded that "Our review does not support the idea that some pesticides are safer than others; it simply points to different health effects for different classes of pesticides."The review?s overall message to people was to avoid exposure to all pesticides whenever and wherever possible.

…… It should be noted that the Judge in my case did not say that the UK system could be made lawful by just getting rid of a handful ofpesticides…..

The Judge agreed with my long-standing charge that the Government has fundamentally failed to protect people in the countryside from pesticides and has also knowingly allowed residents to continue to suffer from adverse health effects without taking any action to prevent the exposure, risks and adverse impacts occurring"