Plagued by ill health after moving to a rural area, one woman has made it her mission to spread the word about the health risks associated with pesticide use near residential areas. Giovanna Dunmall meets her to find out why she's facing the UK government head on.
 Georgina Downs had been enduring flu-type symptoms, painful blisters in her throat and mouth, headaches, dizziness and tinnitus for years before she made the connection between the regular pesticide spraying occurring near her home and her constant ill health. By 1991 (she was about 17 at the time) Downs was so unwell (she had severe muscle wastage and was very weak) that she had to be hospitalised for a month. It was clear that something had gone seriously wrong neurologically she says, but tests ruled out the most important neurological diseases, such as MS, MND (Motor Neurone Disease) and Parkinson's disease. By the time she was allowed home she was none the wiser as to what was really wrong with her but absolutely determined to find out.
‘It wasn't until I was sitting at home one day looking out the window that the penny finally dropped,' she says. ‘I saw a tractor in the adjoining field spraying something and started to wonder what it was.' She made some inquiries and discovered that the tractor was spraying a cocktail of poisonous chemicals into the air. She suddenly realised that ever since the age of 11 (when her family bought a plot of land in a village outside Chichester in West Sussex and built a house on it), she had often been in the garden while crops were being sprayed by a tractor only a few feet away. Why hadn't she and her family ever been warned about the dangers of the chemicals being pumped into the air she wondered? And why was it legal for farmers to do this?
Extensive research into pesticides and the potential repercussions for human health taught Downs that chronic pesticide exposure can have long-term neurological effects (hence the tinnitus, headaches, giddiness, tingling sensations and burning pains in her limbs); cause bone problems and osteoporosis (scans showed she suffered from osteoporosis with a high risk of fracture); and gravely irritate the eyes, skin and respiratory system.
Diagnosis
In April 2004, blood and fat samples showed that Downs had an array of pesticides in her blood and body fat. The doctor looking into her case told her that she had never seen so many different pesticides in one patient. She went on to write in her report that ‘the combined effects of chemicals are far greater than their effects in isolation' and that their ‘accumulative toxicity' was therefore likely to be high. She also said that these pesticides were concentrated in the body's fat (hence also the fatty sheath that surrounds nerve cells) providing a reason for why Downs' problems were mainly neurological. As if this wasn't bad enough, she also confirmed that pesticides were ‘immunotoxic', which basically means that they make the sufferer more susceptible to cancer and infections.
Enough to make you rather gloomy you would have thought, if not downright depressed. Not so Downs. Despite her physical limitations she was, and is, a whirlwind of a young woman with a strong, confident voice and manner. She seems to have more energy and conviction than the best of us, often working until 1am in the morning on her research and campaigning. Seven years ago she set up the UK Pesticides Campaign, with the aim of informing those living in rural areas about pesticide exposure and campaigning to change UK regulations and legislation governing crop spraying. The campaign's most important objectives are an immediate ban on crop-spraying and the use of pesticides near homes, schools and workplaces; warning residents before any spraying takes place; and asking the UK government to admit the effects that pesticides have on human health and to adopt sustainable non-chemical and natural farming methods.
On the campaign trail
Over the years she has worked hard to make her point heard, appearing in the national and local press and on radio and TV shows, garnering recognition and awards along the way for her ever-increasing expertise. She has also become quite a nuisance for the agrochemicals industry in this country and I have heard her sparring aggressively with government members about the issue. The awards are just a small bonus in Downs' eyes however; her real achievement has been to earn the respect of people working in government and getting experts in the field to listen to her, a lay woman. She has given evidence to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and was asked to review some sections of their 2005 report entitled ‘Crop-spraying and the Health of Residents and Bystanders'; the first time, as far as she is aware, that ‘someone who is not a government official or a qualified scientist has been asked to do this' she says with evident pride.
In January 2007, she was granted permission to challenge the government in a High Court hearing over current UK crop-spraying policy. Her main charge is that the government has ‘failed to protect people, particularly rural residents, from exposure to pesticides'. The four-day hearing should take place before the summer. Otherwise she ‘spent a good part of last year in Brussels making representation on behalf of rural residents to MEPs from all political parties'. The new pesticide policy proposals put forward by the European Commission ‘will set pesticide policy throughout the EU for at least the next 10 years, and possibly even the next few decades. Therefore whatever goes in is absolutely of the most utmost importance.'
While talking, Downs hardly seems to pause for breath, so utterly is she committed to her cause. It is no surprise then, to discover that her environmental hero is the feisty US environmental campaigner Erin Brockovich, whose famous victory over a US power company was documented in a 2000 film by Steven Soderbergh. ‘Erin was a great example of absolute determination to expose the truth at whatever cost,' she says simply. ‘She did not give up until the job was done and that is also my motto!'
Facing the future
In the same way, Downs is a one-woman show (although her dad does postie runs and her mum does the photocopying), whose work has been largely self-financed. What has kept her going over the years, she says, is the knowledge that she's right. ‘I don't say that in an arrogant way,' she explains. ‘The evidence over the years speaks for itself.' The government has failed to protect people like her. This point is made even clearer when I discover that she and her family still struggle and go to great ends to reduce their regular exposure to pesticides. ‘In the summer we are shut up in a boiling hot house, which is unbearable and suffocating. When the farmers are out spraying my dad has to wear a respirator, goggles and other protective clothing in his own garden because he has been so badly poisoned in the past.' Downs sees a serious double standard in the ban on smoking in public places and the inaction regarding the passive exposure to pesticides.
So what can we do, I ask? ‘Support organic farming and food,' she says in a flash. ‘Avoid using chemical sprays and seek out natural alternatives.' And write to ministers, MPs, peers and MEP's pointing out that no-spray zones should be a given in residential and other sensitive areas. If all else fails, you could appeal to their cost-cutting sensibilities I suspect. As Downs points out, non-chemical farming methods would reduce or even eliminate the health and environmental costs associated with pesticide use.
Finally, Downs admits that she doesn't know what the future holds or what other chronic health problems she may yet have to contend with as a result of her early and ongoing exposure to pesticides. She has however learnt to adapt and put up with her situation and is intent on highlighting the need to protect the health of rural communities in any way she can. ‘I've come this far, I can't give up now,' she says.
Erin Brockovich eat your heart out!
For further information about Georgina's campaign, see the UK Pesticides Campaign website: www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk
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Appeared in Ethical Living in March 2008
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