Organophosphates: A Timebomb Ticking - Are You Listening?
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Date:
Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:33:02 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman
whitman.christine@epa.gov
cc: "Brian J. Foster" <bfoster@swlaw.com>
Organophosphates: A Timebomb Ticking
Manfred Hörwick,
manfred.hoerwick@converium.com
phone: +41 1 639 9730
Michael Barry,
michael.barry@converium.com
phone: +41 1 639 9732
Revolution in Food Production
OPs, as they are known, were hailed as an enormous breakthrough in agricultural technology. Created in a laboratory rather than through generations of gradual agricultural development and testing, these new pesticides rid fields of the weevils and insects and bugs that would otherwise thrive on the food carefully planted and tended by the farmer. In a stroke they saved enormous amounts of both lost crops and valuable time and labour which would otherwise have been victim to the hordes of parasites that routinely plagued the farmer's livelihood. Food production was revolutionised.
This was not merely an updated version of what had happened before. A new type of farming system had been born, no longer based on an essentially biological process, but rather a factory process that merely happened to use land. Between the end of the second world war and the end of the twentieth century, pesticide farming blossomed to become the dominant form of food production across the globe, with the profits of the chemical industry companies which produced OPs booming in parallel. In the UK alone, by the end of the century, there were 300 different chemical compounds approved for use in food production.
It wasn't until the 1960s that any public concern about the impact of the use of chemicals in food production and on the management of the countryside surfaced at all. The American biologist Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring first alerted many people to the damage being caused by the unrestricted use of toxic chemicals: The main point of Carson's book was that everything in nature is related to everything else: if you produce vast quantities of synthetic toxins, spread them across millions of acres of farmland, use them in homes and in gardens, it is inevitable that many unforeseen consequences will arise.
Consequences Arising
According to the Guide to Pesticides, Chemicals and Health published by the British Medical Association: "It is almost impossible for any member of the population to avoid daily exposure to very low levels of several different pesticides in food and water. Consequently there is concern about possible adverse effects on human health arising from continual long term low-level exposure, that is the potential for long-term toxicity." Because they are one of the most widely used class of pesticide, OPs pose a significant liability risk to their manufacturers should they be linked with any form of toxicity in the population as a whole.
Developed by scientists during the war as a battlefield nerve gas, OPs do their deadly work by attacking the brain. They make it impossible for some synapses to pass signals from one nerve cell to another. The effect is that the billions of messages sent from the brain cannot jump across the junctions. If you are an insect - or if you are human and exposed to high enough levels of the stuff - you die. Smaller doses might mean, for instance, being unable to concentrate or suffering paralysis or diseases of the heart and respiratory system. The evidence that even low levels of exposure to OPs are harmful to humans has been building over the years.
According to BBC News, recent research carried out in The Netherlands suggests people exposed to pesticides, particularly farmers or gardeners, may suffer from long-term side effects. The Maastricht Ageing Study examined the health of 830 people of whom 629 had been exposed to pesticides in the course of their work. It found that many had mild cognitive disfunction (MCD) which means they had problems identifying words, colours or numbers and were unable to speak fluently. People exposed to pesticides were five times more likely to suffer compared with the general population. "Our findings suggest that people who are frequently exposed to pesticides, such as arable farmers and gardeners, may have a higher risk of developing MCD," said Hans Bosma, one of the authors of the study. "Our findings might reflect subtle changes in brain function among people exposed to pesticides."
Lawsuits are Mounting
Courts in the UK, Hong Kong and Australia have in turn passed judgements that confirm that OPs do cause long-term damage. Other litigation is mounting. In May this year a couple in New York State in the US filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all consumers affected by Dursban, a Dow Chemical OP pesticide. John and Tina Williams are charging that their children repeatedly suffered from painful mouth sores, chronic vomiting and high fevers after their house was treated with Dursban. Earlier this year, a spill of OPs into Manly lagoon in Sydney Australia caused the death of over 10,000 fish, exposing the company that spilled the chemical to a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
In the UK, farmers are up in arms about the affects of the liberal use of OPs in animal husbandry. Last year, a pending class action suit brought by sheep farmers who believed they had been poisoned by OPs in sheep dip was withdrawn because of the difficulty in proving the link between the chemical and the illnesses. Anecdotally, if not yet legally, the arguments are increasingly compelling. Out of 179 farmers, 130 were said to have been exposed to organophosphates, mostly through dipping sheep, and 21complained of the symptoms of organophosphate poisoning. Taking account of the bias inherent in the survey methodology, the report suggested 10% of farmers exposed to organophosphate pesticides suffer from poisoning. No doubt this can also translate to farm employees.
In the style of crusading consumer champion, an independent television programme has further highlighted the dangers and debilitating effects of organophosphates and the use of them in agriculture, with a particular emphasis on sheep dipping. Anecdotal evidence was provided by one man who was exposed to sheep dip containing OPs over a 16-year period. He was said to have been reasonably fit person until he started suffering from symptoms which included muscle spasms, twitches, backache, dragging his leg and exhaustion. On examination by a leading neurologist it was concluded that he was suffering from organophosphate poisoning. The physician suggested that organophosphate poisoning can occur from being exposed to a low-level dosage that accumulates in the body over a long period of time.
The list of problems being linked to OPs goes on. Recent media reports have suggested a link between children suffering from birth defects and their mothers' exposure to OPs during pregnancy. British military personnel suffering from Gulf War Syndrome are now linking it to insecticides containing OPs. The use of OPs as lubricants in some aircraft has been linked to worries about contamination of air conditioning systems, with lawsuits pending in both the US and Canada and a government inquiry in Australia. Furthermore, research conducted by a team of scientists at the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham suggests a link between organophosphate exposure and severe bone abnormalities such as osteoporosis and osteopenia.
One farmer and amateur scientist, 47 year-old Mark Purdey of Somerset, is busy trying to prove the link between OPs and BSE, the cattle disease that is said to have passed on the human disease vCJD, and vCJD itself. The standard theory is that BSE is spread by cattle eating feed made from scrapie infected sheep, and humans may contract vCJD from eating BSE infected beef. Mark Purdey argues that BSE is actually caused by a type of OP which cattle farmers used to pour along the spine of cattle to deal with the pest warble fly. What's more, vCJD is not caused by BSE but that it arises from the same environmental elements as the cattle version.
Up until now, litigation against OP manufacturers has variable success mostly because a direct link between OPs and various illnesses, both in humans and in animals, is difficult to make. The chemicals break down at various rates and change their character, so they may not be detectable some time after exposure. But it is not necessary for the chemical to remain in the body for the damage to continue. If the effects of it were left behind then that could have the same consequences, although clearly not detectable in the same way. In any case, some scientists and toxicologists believe it is impossible to be certain that OPs inevitably break down as reliably as we are assured and that they never accumulate in the body. OP manufacturers legal defense is similar to that of tobacco companies defending themselves against lung cancer suits. But recent successes in anti-tobacco legislation talk against the perennial success of these tactics.
Consequences for Insurers
Together with television documentaries, high-profile court cases and the publication of the results of medical research, the case against organophosphates, and the debilitating medical condition resulting from overexposure, is becoming well known. A little known condition several years ago now has the potential to wreak havoc on the already less than profitable liability accounts of a large number of insurers.
For the insurance industry, the threat comes in two forms, the underwriting of product liability, and of workers compensation or employers' liability covers. Insurers whose product liability accounts have exposure to companies, which have a large interests in agricultural chemicals, are exposed to significant risk from OP products, should the accusations against these products prove true. Moreover, companies which provide workers compensation or employer's liability covers to farmers are also at risk of a large volume of claims stemming from farm worker's long-term exposure to OPs.
The continuing consolidation of the insurance market globally means that there are simply fewer insurers. These are faced with the potential for major increasing losses arising from OP business underwritten in earlier years when risk information was less than adequate due to the long-term nature of organophosphate poisoning. It would not be the first time insurers have apparently been taken by surprise as a result of expensive claims made by sufferers of occupational diseases, the effects of which have taken years to manifest themselves.
Direct comparisons can be made between the way OP claims have bubbled up over the years, and those of other highly publicised multiple claims such as upper limb disorder, vibration white finger and asbestosis. There are similarities in the way in which these claims have all received high-level media coverage which has brought them to the attention of the general public. All claims involve gradually developing diseases with a long delay between causation and symptoms, very similar to organophosphate poisoning.
Although many insurers are not completely open about their policy towards underwriting OP risks, the market has not withdrawn from this exposure completely. The question is how long these risks will be insurable for. Issues certain to be raised in the near future will include the impact of a shrinking insurance marketplace on an industry already under siege from the public and regulators; the potential for significant long-tailed liability claims; and the security of insurance companies with a historical focus on the farming industry. Just as OPs are said to be a silent timebomb ticking inside us all, the risks they pose to their manufacturers and users are a timebomb ticking within the insurance industry.
September 24, 2001
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