OP News : January 2007

Lis Charles

Very sad news for us all. Early in November we heard of the death of one of our most valuable colleagues, Ms Lis Charles, a solicitor from Gabb & Co, Hay-on-Wye. She suffered severe head injuries in a traffic accident and died after lying in a coma in a Glasgow hospital for some days. She was a caring and knowledgable solicitor who had worked very hard to get justice for a number of OP sufferers, not only farmers but also pilots. She was not just a colleague but she had also become a dear and valued friend and she will be greatly missed.

Study of neuropsychological and psychiatric functioning among OP exposed sheepdippers

DEFRA has announced that Sarah MacKenzie Ross will be given full funding for her study of sheep farmers exposed to OPs. The study will receive a higher level of funding than expected as there will be an epidemiologist and an occupational hygienist to help with exposure assessment. There will also be analysis of urine samples at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Buxton which will strengthen the result of this major study.

It is extremely important that sufferers take part in this study as we shall never get another chance like this to prove our case. Farmers in the north of England are not coming forward as readily as those in the west country and these are areas of intense sheep farming: please do what you can both for yourselves and others. This study is concerned with the difficulties which some may have with memory, speech, concentration and depression, among other problems. The contact details for the researchers are:

Julia Britton, School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Washington Singer Laboratories, Perry Road, Exeter EX4 4QG. Tel: 07909661609. Email: J.H.Britton at exeter dot ac dot uk.

Kelly Abraham, Tel: 01756 790 686. Email: kelly.abraham at ucl dot ac dot uk.

Pilots and OP exposure

Dr MacKenzie Ross was invited to present a report on pilots and OP exposure to the Committee on Toxicity last 5 December. This was an important meeting as a highly respected senior psychiatrist, Professor Robin Morris of the Institute of Psychiatry, had been invited to discuss Dr MacKenzie Ross' report on pilots and OPs. His report was extremely congratulatory, not just of her meticulous and thorough study but also of her scientific integrity. The minutes of this meeting should be available on the COT website. We gather that COT will recommend that more research should be carried out. OPIN wishes to thank Dr MacKenzie Ross for her incredibly hard work, as she is also a consultant clinical neuropsychologist and has a family. She is an example to all the scientists and doctors who have undertaken work for OP sufferers and to all those who have refused to take this issue seriously. This year is the most important of all the years we have endured.

Advisory committee

Richard Barr, a solicitor with Dawbarns Pearson, and Dr Tony Fletcher, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, have agreed to join the OPIN advisory committee. Both have detailed experience of working with OP sufferers and we are very pleased to welcome them. The other members of the committee are:

Lord Tyler of Linkinhorne; Professor Andrew Watterson, Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group, University of Stirling; Dr Sarah Mackenzie Ross, clinical neuropsychologist, University College, London; Dr Stephen Hodges, Department of Hepatology, University College, London; Dr John Cherrie, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh; Peter Bright, solicitor, Plymouth; Professor Clement Furlong, Research Professor of Genome Sciences and of Medicine, University of Washington.