Organophosphates - farming's hidden tragedy of blighted lives

North Cornwall MP Paul Tyler has campaigned vigorously on the issue of OPs for over a decade. The Liberal Democrat MP, a former rural affairs spokesman, is now chairman of the All-Party Organophosphate Group. Here he explains why he believes successive Governments have failed in their duty to protect farmers and the remaining OPs should be banned.

Secrecy, Complacency and Official Neglect

SHEEP farmers have faced a hideous dilemma for several decades. Instinct told them - long before it was officially confirmed - that Organophosphate (OP) dips were extremely dangerous to human health, and yet they were also told that they were essential to control the scourge of sheep scab.

When I re-entered Parliament in 1992 I was determined to persuade Ministers to recognise their responsibility, to recognise the suffering of increasing numbers of OP poisoning victims, and to recognise the need to authorise the use of safer and more effective treatments.

At the time, I thought it would only take about six months to achieve these modest aims: over a decade later, the All Party OP Group I set up has still to convince Ministers of the need for these hazardous chemicals to be replaced.

When we warned the then Minister, John Gummer, that the lack of adequate warnings, protective clothing and advice to GPs was putting farmers and farmworkers in a dangerous position he admitted that he would like to ban all OPs. But his officials clearly felt that any concessions would be unwise. The fact that the products had been effectively compulsory, as a result of the MAFF twice yearly dipping requirement, meant that admitting that these dips were dangerous would be tantamount to admitting responsibility. The legacy of this is that we have been faced with a string of Agricultural Ministers, all under the same compunction that they should never admit any link between OPs and such widespread public health problems. Mr Gummer stopped compulsory dipping - on the grounds that it had proved ineffective - rather than that it was too risky.

Naturally, the subsequent escalation of warnings and precautionary measures only served to underline the total inadequacy of the previous regime. It increased the perception that Whitehall had failed in its duty of care.

This was further confirmed when we forced the Ministry of Defence to admit that British service personnel were doused with OPs during the first Gulf War, with total lack of precaution, because everyone there was unaware of the dangers spelt out in the Health & Safety notice MS17, issued to a very limited audience years before.

Similarly, the disclosure by the Phillips Inquiry into BSE that it could not dispel the possibility that the disease had spread by uniquely epidemic proportions because of the UK use of warble fly dressings on cattle, which had a comparable effect on the central nervous system, raised new questions which were never satisfactorily answered.

Another of our problems has been the emphasis of official research that has been carried out. In general, this has tended to focus on the hazards related to the manufacture of and acute exposure to OPs, not the long-term chronic effects which so many farmers and growers are suffering from. In addition, much research data comes from the agrochemical manufacturers themselves, and seems only to be subject to their own expert screening. The neutrality of such data can therefore be called into question, and forms a shaky basis on which Government advisory committees make their decisions.

As a result, our experience as campaigners has involved a struggle against two problems. On one hand, successive Governments have been reluctant to admit the link between OPs and long-term illness for fear of liability, and the huge compensation claims that may result. On the other hand, manufacturers have something of a stranglehold over the research agenda, since the obvious consequences of applying the "Precautionary Principle" would be the withdrawal of their products.

In opposition, Labour promised positive moves towards the banning of OPs. As a result, it was hoped by many involved in the campaign that a change in Government might bring about a change in policy. Yet since 1997 (despite the very best efforts of Environment Minister Michael Meacher) very little progress has been made, and instead the shameful saga of secrecy and complacency appears to be continuing.

The Government response to the 1999 Committee on toxicity (COT) Report and the Institute of Occupational Medicine's (IOM) report, both considered by the Veterinary Products Committee (VPC), was seen as a huge disappointment. The response was merely to call for yet more research, and for a redesign of OP containers in order to minimise exposure to concentrates. Unfortunately, much time was wasted over this issue of containers when efforts should have instead been focussed on the more important issue of the replacement of the products themselves.

Finally, earlier this year, it seemed that one positive suggestion was emerging from the depths of DEFRA. Michael Meacher, with the support of other Ministers, had agreed that a seminar should be held this December in order to help farmers out of the central dilemma. By announcing a plan to phase out OPs, could other safer but equally effective treatments be brought forward and approved for use?

However, last month we were informed by the new responsible Minister, Ben Bradshaw, that "the expense to the taxpayer and officials' time involved in holding a seminar on OPs at this time could not be justified when there is little new to say."

It is therefore clear to us that Bradshaw has been taken hostage by his civil servants, in much the same way that previous Ministers have been. If the Department allowed the truth to emerge that OP sheep dips were inherently dangerous, whatever precautions were taken, the result could be huge compensation claims against both the big chemical manufacturers and previous Ministers. Unfortunately, this is the brick wall we are up against.

It is very unlikely that these official attitudes towards OPs will be able to continue for much longer. For a start, the continuing programme of research, much of it commissioned by DEFRA, at considerable public expense, itself gives the lie to the idea that "there is nothing new".

In addition, it seems inevitable that the use of OPs will have to be banned when the new Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) EU regulations take effect in 2005. Certainly OPs will qualify as "substances of very high concern" that the regulations refer to.

I and my colleagues in both Houses of Parliament - including several former Ministers as well as senior members of all Parties from all parts of the country - feel we have a moral responsibility to remove the dilemma to which farmers are subject. If DEFRA will not take any initiative to look ahead in this way, with the help of the FARMERS GUARDIAN and its readers, we will.