Letter: Poison reports
I write in response to the feature ‘Quiet sufferers of the silent spring’,
by Hazel Bartle (on pesticide poisoning, 18 May).
First, one crucial point. The crop protection industry has always stressed
that anyone who feels they might have been affected by pesticide contamination
should immediately seek medical advice. We make this point very clearly
on product labels and farmers should keep records of all their operations
to give to anyone who needs it and to meet the Food and Environment Protection
Act 1985.
We feel that the sufferer’s own doctor is the only one who can probe
and analyse the many possible causes of the symptoms described in the article;
he or she has the persons case histories to hand. Then, if the diagnosis
is pesticide contamination as the most likely cause, the doctor can make
rapid contact for further information and treatment with the national system
of Poisons Units or the National Chemicals Emergency Centre at Harwell.
The other key point of contact is the Health and Safety Executive, which
also investigates in great depth every incident reported to its inspectors,
whether it happens to the user or the bystander.
Our member companies are geared up for immediate responses to requests
for information, both from general practitioners and from the information
and investigation agencies above, and they have 24-hour emergency numbers
to deal with such enquiries.
We agree that many GPs are still not as well trained as they should
be to recognise poisoning of any type. We are putting a training programme
into operation, aimed at the teaching hospitals and the regular Seminars
for GPs that they host. We are also co-operating fully with the Department
of Health in its update of the manual Pesticide Poisonings; Notes for the
Guidance of Medical Practitioners, first available in 1983.
To streamline the reporting of events, the British Agrochemicals Association
joined Friends of the Earth, the Green Alliance, the Transport and General
Workers Union and the Women’s Institute in a unique group which called on
the Government two years ago to replace the various disparate channels with
a single one. This has now been put in motion, a move which we welcome.
The Association has also been behind the introduction of a pilot scheme
for a Green Card system since its inception. This simple card is filled
in by GPs whenever they diagnose a suspected poisoning and sent off to the
Health and Safety Executive via the West Midlands Poisons Unit. This will
help get a much clearer picture of pesticide poisonings in the UK and indicate
under-reporting, if any.
Richard Trow-Sinith British Agrochemicals Association Peterborough.
Letter: Bhang bungle
One hopes you printed Bonnie Como’s letter (11 May) about Bangladesh
as a joke, though it can be nothing but a joke in bad taste in view of the
tragic event which is its backdrop.
The compound word Bangladesh means ‘the Bengali land/country’ and has
no etymological connection whatsoever with bhang, which has a separate derivation.
Sanskrit vanga. the root name of the region, and Sanskrit bhanga, Indian
hemp, are totally different words. Bangla/bangala is an adjective; when
used as a noun it refers to the language. The English word bungalow is derived
from the adjectival use, its original meaning being ‘a cottage in the Bengali
style’.
Bangladesh could not have signed any ‘anti-drug’ arrangement with the
USA in 1964 as Bangladesh did not exist as a sovereign state at that date,
being then a part of Pakistan. The cultivation of Indian hemp has never
been the crux of the delta’s economy. The rich alluvial delta has been a
rice-bowl for centuries. What is now Bangladesh was the centre of the world-famous
muslin manufacture until the British destroyed it. Under the British, the
region became a major grower of jute. Another plant cultivated for its valuable
fibre is the san-hemp, Crotalaria juncea, quite different from the drug-yielding
Cannabis indica.
Ketaki Kushari Dyson Kidlington, Oxon
Letter: Superior posterior
Neanderthals are alleged to have posteriorly placed, and therefore,
inferior hip joints (Science, New 杏吧原创, 27 April). As an orthopaedist,
I deal with hip and low back alignment on a daily basis. I have always bemoaned
the fact that most humans require an extreme hyperextension at the lower
lumbar joints so as to stand fully erect by increasing the lumbar curvature.
This has the effect of closing the neural foramina posteriorly and placing
the disc spaces on an oblique angle. In no other way can we get our hip
joints under the line of our body weight. We are, in fact incompletely adapted
to the upright stance and, for this, Homo sapiens must suffer forever with
a high degree of low back pain, leg cramps and premature disability.
To me it stands to reason that a joint should face its working surface.
For a vertical stance the joint should be more posterior and face inferiorly
and not 30 degrees anteriorly as in Homo sapiens. It would seem by this
reasoning that the Neanderthal’s hip joints were better evolved than Homo
sapiens, and he should have a better hip and back alignment, suffer less
back pain and suffer less hip disease. From other sources I am told that
Neanderthals had a larger brain and the females larger pelves. The creatures
were extremely heavily muscled.
The important question is, how did an obviously inferior creature, such
as Homo sapiens, root out these creatures? Would that we could resurrect
and incorporate some of these obviously superior genes into the human genome.
Maybe the reason they are gone is that they were just ugly and nobody liked
them.
William A. Kale Pomona, California, USA
Letter: Dog bites dog
Feedback (18 May) asserts that the only reviews in newspapers of the
books entered for the science book prize appeared on the science pages.
When Stephen Jay Gould’s book Wonderful Life was published in this country
last year, The Independent devoted its prime comment and analysis spot –
the lead item in the centre features pages – to an extensive discussion
of the main themes of the book and an interview with professor Gould himself.
My impression is that other newspapers too reported the event elsewhere
than in their science pages.
Your leader on ‘Mice, genes and men’, in the same issue, is frankly
pathetic. Is science so delicate a flower that it will be bruised by vulgar
exposure on the front pages of our newspapers? Is it so recondite a business
that only the fastidious writers of minority publications such as New 杏吧原创
have the expertise to report its subtleties properly? I firmly believe that
science is an essential part of the culture of our society and, as such,
fit material for front-page treatment. For the record: virtually every word
of the story that appeared on the front page of The Independent was read
by and approved by one of the researchers involyed in the work.
There is an old adage on Fleet Street that ‘Dog should not eat Dog’,
and New 杏吧原创 should abide by it. Your leader-writer appears to believe
that New 杏吧原创 occupies some Empyrean, but you would be more honest
to admit that, in truth, we are all in Grub Street together. I prefer it
that way, there is less reek of hypocrisy.
Tom Wilkie Science Editor The Independent, London
Letter: Plutonium trade
Roger Milne, to his credit, is one of a tiny number of journalists who
have kept their eye on the politics and problems of plutonium. He has been
especially vigilant on the prospects of international trade in this dangerous
nuclear material.
He gives the impression in his article that the use of British plutonium
in Belgium is new (This Week, 11 May). Not so. On 3 May 1968 – 23 years
ago – the UK Atomic Energy Authority announced a deal to provide Belgonucleaire
with 180 kilograms of plutonium, with delivery to start in 1972.
According to a parliamentary reply on 5 July 1985 by the Department
of Energy to Dr DE Thomas, Belgium is one of seven countries to have received
civil plutonium from the UK in ‘consignments greater than gramme quantities’.
It should not be overlooked that the Belgian nuclear research centre
at Mol, where this plutonium was used, was the centre of the serious nuclear
scandal in 1988-89, where corruption and poor management were exposed.
David Lowry European Proliferation Information Centre London
Letter: Averageism
Malcolm Holmes has believed the ads (Forum, 18 May). They are common
enough in claiming ‘ergonomic’ features for equipment. One cannot blame
him for thinking that ergonomics is concerned about the average person.
This view however is a parody.
Ergonomics is concerned about designing the equipment to a person for
a task which is being done within the environment experienced. Thus you
cannot have an ergonomic tool or seat without specification of the three
other factors.
In actuality, ergonomists have been responsible for encouraging the
design and development of much left-handed equipment as well as dealing
with other leftedness in the human body, such as left-eyedness. They have
argued for flexible kitchen surface heights rather than preset, noting in
general the need for doors of greater than average height!
No, ergonomists do not design for an average person. By the time they
have included physical, physiological and psychological aspects and then
preferences, there are few average people. If you then include the task
and the environment there are few average situations.
David J. Pullinger Sociery Religion and Technology Project Edinburgh
Letter: Proud record
What Glyn Jones appears to have omitted in his survey of the aerospace
industry’s tremendous record (‘Jubilee for the jet engine’, 11 May), is
the fact that all the early experimental developmental work and manufacture
leading to the successful first flight by the Gloster aircraft in May 1941
was in fact performed by !he British Thomson & Houston, at their main
works in Rugby, now part of the GEC combine.
According to the BTH records: ‘In January, 1936, the Company was approached
by Flight Lieutenant Frank Whittle . . . with regard to the development
of his jet propulsion engine for aircraft.’ The Company decided to cooperate
with Whittle in the design and manufacture of a jet propulsion gas turbine
and provided the inventor with an office in their main Rugby works. A new
company, Power Jets, was set up to exploit his invention.
The vital role performed during the five years leading to the first
jet flight by the BTH men who comprised the team which designed and manufactured
for Power Jets deserves to be remembered with pride.
C. H. W Lilley Coventry.
Letter: States of matter
It seems strange to consider liquid crystals the ‘Fourth state of matter’
(4 May). There is no reason why crystals and liquids must be mutually exclusive;
if amorphous solids are not thought of as a separate state of matter, then
crystalline liquids should not be either. Surely the most obvious and widely
accepted candidates are plasmas, as these have very different properties
to gases, do not obey the gas laws and are not merely an ‘in-between’ phase.
Miriam Burgess Farnham, Surrey
Letter: Some like it hot
Thermochromic clothes (Technology, 11 May) would undoubtedly have helped
Mae West find an answer to her immortal question: ‘is that a gun in your
pocket or are you just pleased to see me?’
P. F. Rylands Petersham, NSW Australia
Letter: Disloyal to science
You report Brian Caddy of Strathclyde University being ‘very sad and
upset’ that forensic science has been brought into disrepute by the revelation
that the convictions of the Maguire Seven were influenced by sloppy laboratory
practice (This Week, 18 May).
Dr Caddy’s role in helping bring the affair into the open has been wholly
honourable. It is not forensic science in general, but elements of the British
Government’s forensic science service that have been brought into disrepute
in the Maguire saga; and the root of the problem was not so much sloppy
laboratory practice (though there was plenty of this) but the psychology
of scientists who placed deference to prosecution lawyers before fair representation
of the facts. Their conceptions of ‘loyalty’ were muddled. Mr Higgs, the
former head of the forensic division of the Royal Armament Research and
Development Establishment, told the appeal court that his colleagues felt
their former head, Mr Yallop, had been ‘disloyal’ even to give evidence
for the defence in the Maguire case.
More should be done to impress on forensic scientists of the need for
absolute impartiality between prosecution and defence. A situation where
most of them share the same employer with the police and the armed services
is not healthy.
I believe that justice for defendants in our courts will be well served
by the current shift of Home Office forensic science services to an agency
basis. I hope MoD services follow in due course. If, simultaneously, these
agencies were organically linked to universities or polytechnics, it would
be possible to provide them with legal and ethical training courses which
might curb the undue influence of prosecution lawyers over scientists in
terrorist and other trials which has led to many recent miscarriages of
justice.
Christopher Price Leeds Polytechnic.