I could not believe Julian Amos’ comment in yesterday’s ‘Mercury’ article. Comments like this are bordering on criminal negligence. It really doesnt matter what he is inclined to, or prefers to believe, he has a responsibility, as does Gordon and Llewellyn, to make sure they are aware of the latest peer reviewed research so as to make sure the health of Tasmanians is not placed in jeopardy. Even if there is only a possible link drawn between triazines and endocrine problems or cancer they need to halt its usage. Ive seen more responsible usage of herbicides by the agriculture dept.of Hun Sen’s Cambodian government, who were fully aware the chemicals were eventually going to end up in their own water supplies.

Good one Dave :-))

Product uniquely packaged in Tasmania… fortunately the oysters die before ruining our clean green image ... or do they?
Thsluppp!!
NC

Maybe it would be a good idea if he had it on his cereal in the morning and did us all a favour!

Dave the government will be out looking for you soon to join the spin doctors department.
Keep up the great work.
It is ridiculous that the government have known since the early 1990;s that our rivers are contaminated with Triazines and Alphacypermethrin, scientific reports on chemical contamination from forestry recommended that a minimum 30 metre buffer be implemented for Triazines from any waterway and that a 50 metre buffer be implemented for Permethrin or alphacypermethrin.
Strangely enough they found that killing off all the aquatic insects and crustaceons caused algal bloome in the creeks and that some of the animals did not recover.
Great idea kill all the aquatic animals then we have to use algacides to keep the water looking clean.
Get it together government and protect the people not the chemical manufacturers

He’s in great company old Jules:

“I’ll drink a glass of atrazine laced water to prove it’s OK” - Steve Kons addressing people who had their roof sprayed with the chemical in the north east - look what happened to him - lost his memory and his job!!

“There are more dioxins in a glass of red wine than the pulp mill affluent (sic)” - John Gay - look what’s happening to him!!  Maybe it was the atrazine John.

“It is safer to drink a glass of roundup than a glass of milk” - a Monsanto Manager addressing birth defects in Argentina.  Maybe it would be if it was milk from one of their bovine growth hormone treated cows.

“Ours is good smoke, it goes 20,000 metres straight up into the air and then straight out over the ocean” - Hans Drielsma, Forestry Tasmania - when asked about regen burns. I take it from this that Gunns must produce “bad” smoke as they recently smoked out Burnie.

“The particles are really really small so they won’t do you any harm” - John Gay on the emissions from the proposed pulp mill stack. I will leave Clive to comment on that one!
 
Let’s keep this list going. I’m sure there will be many more ridiculous statements to come on the defence of aerial spraying.

Could someone please explain to me (in simple terms, because I’m not all that bright) just why people’s health is more important than profits? 

Let’s look at a couple of scenarios:  (1) A forestry operation makes a few hundred thousand and a few people get sick and (2) An identical operation makes only three quarters of that amount and nobody gets sick.

Isn’t the former scenario preferable for those conducting the operation?  Or am I missing something?

Surely a balanced account of the aerial spraying question would look at how much profits would fall if atrazine and similar substances were not used.

Dr Amos (FIAT) tells us Mercury 15 April, that atrazine is not harmful to
humans. Where does he do his research? The international Collaborative on
Health and the Environment tells us (2008 meta-analysis) that atrazine can
cause early puberty, impaired fertility, PCOS, miscarriages, fibroids,
endometriosis,hypospadias, undescended testicles, reduced sperm counts,
breast , testicular and prostate cancer, as well as immune system
dysfunction and related diseases, including other cancers.
I know who I turn to for the latest health information on pesticides and
endocrine disruptors, and it isn’t Dr Amos.
Dr Alison Bleaney

Not the old salt and sugar line!
As the 2 Ronnies used to say “Life can be fatal”!

Julian Amos, one time Minister for Agriculture in a previous Labour government and now spokesperson for the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania would have benefited from hearing the scientific findings recently presented by Professor Tyrone Hayes from the University of California, Berkeley (Letters, 15 April 2009). Professor Hayes recently returned to Tasmania to again highlight and warn the state authorities about the very serious public health and ecological risks caused by the continued use of the Triazine herbicides in this state. In late March over one hundred health professionals attended a talk given by Professor Hayes at which he systematically explained the strong body of scientific literature and experimental research now linking significant hormone disruption effects of these synthetic pesticides to several classes of vertebrates (fish, amphibians & mammals) these chemicals have been tested against. As one UTAS medical professional remarked these are very chilling revelations for the clean-green State.

Simazine is still freely available off the shelf across Tasmania for use by ordinary citizens for weed control. It is also a herbicide used in aerial spraying of monoculture tree plantations; its recommended usage even covers algal control in domestic swimming pools! The regulatory authority, APVMA that Dr Amos quotes in the defence of his industry’s continued usage of these potent and long-lasting chemicals needs to take yet another hard look at the scientific evidence, before they commit yet another generation of Tasmanians as well as the ongoing contamination of our soil and water systems.

Keep sprinkling the trIazines on your food Julian Amos. You sure wont be reproducing. Your taking your DNA right-out of the gene-pool and guess what? It will raise the average IQ of the island.

Ah, Dr Amos phD. Right of the ALP. Personally admitted lying to an ALP Conference.

The Greens should ask for the detail of the analysis of the mud in the bottom of the Duck River from the sampling held by DPIW.

Great idea Cathran (#6) to keep the list of wacko statements expanding but please everyone give the source so it can be traced. Credibility is essential for influence. Without the full reference for the statement, it is just more propaganda and we have lost an opportunity.

What sort of doctor is Julian Amos?

‘Shuddering’- aren’t we all shuddering at the Chair of FIATs comments?

CropLife ‘shudders’ at White House organic garden
Mid America CropLife Association (MACA—a regional chapter of the national and international pesticide trade association), angry that the new White House garden will be organic, has sent an e-mail to their members attacking the decision to go chemical-free. “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder.” One member leaked the email to food democracy blogger Jill Richardson. The CropLife group, which represents the interests of Dow, Monsanto, DuPont and the rest of the agrichemical industry, and promotes agrofuels and “the safety and value of American food production” to elementary school children, sent Michelle Obama a letter asking her to consider using “crop protection products” (i.e. pesticides) in the garden. Quickly responding to MACA’s below-the-beltway tactics, Credo, the socially responsible activist mobile phone company, has launched a campaign asking concerned citizens to let the MACA chemical executives know what they think about being told to use pesticides.
shareMORE - Join Credo’s talk back to CropLife

Do us all a favour and skull a yard glass of atrazine amos….ya goose!!

# 15
Quote from
PANNA Pan updates 16 April 2009

Sanguine 17.

Thats very, very sick! What a perfect example of what happens when people’s incomes and expectations are tied to an industry and products that ideally should not exist. It appears using pesticides has gone from being an arguably necessary evil to being an end in itself. Apply this same concept to the mega-powerful weapons, munition and chemical manufacturers of the US and there was no longer any decision to be made about invading Iraq.

And just think of the money already being stashed away for the 2012 campaign if Michelle holds out.  A White House whose incumbents don’t support Monsanto, Dow etc will be changing occupants at the first opportunity. 

Imagine the stink here if Rudd installed solar panels at Kirribilli or the Lodge.

Politicians must obey their masters or retire gracefully.

I think I would rather believe Tyrone Hayes and all the other credible researchers when it comes to pesticides and the harm they cause.
Tyrone says they are sex altering…would the real JILLIAN Amos please stand up.

Re #14:  He has a doctorate in Life Sciences.  But remember that doctors of medicine were used by the tobacco industry to testify that there was no link between tobacco and lung cancer.

Many of these comments are worthy of earning awards for investigative journalism.  However much of the work has already been done by the Award winning Fox News, owned by News Ltd the owners of the Mercury and employer of many of TT scribes.

Fox News, June 12, 2003 ( that’s right almost 6 years ago), hard hitting investigation exposed the so called world authority of atrazine and frogs, Tyronne Power as a “Junk scientist” and exposed and debunked his “research” claiming to link the widely used herbicide atrazine to sexually deformed frogs.

Fox News reported that the US EPA had also reached the same conclusion after thoroughly reviewing his “evidence”. See Freaky Frogs Not Linked With Herbicide, Says EPA (Fox News 12 June 2003)

Yet Dr Bleaney’s National Toxic Network is still presenting this research as undisputed science. Just ask Dr Marian Lloyd-Smith [Another Dr for our trainee award winning investigative journalists to determine if the Dr Title means expert in human health or chemicals, or is totally unrelated]

Perhaps your investigation could also check the International Agency for Research on Cancer that issue Evaluations on the Carcinogenic Risks to Humans of chemical agents.  Since 1971 this expert group has evaluated over 900 chemicals and classed them as:

Group 1: The agent is carcinogenic to humans.
Group 2A: The agent is probably carcinogenic to humans.
Group 2B: The agent is possibly carcinogenic to humans.
Group 3: The agent is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans.
Group 4: The agent is probably not carcinogenic to humans.

Only groups 1, 2a and 2b pose a cancer risk, perhaps TT could look up the class for Atrazine. Hint it is the same class as polypropylene the material our “Green” shopping bags are made from and that we place our food in every day!

Or to save us all the trouble will TT reprint Dr Nicklason’s letter to the Mercury last April after the Cancer Council brought Professor Stewart to Tas (a real world authority) who stated Atrazine does not cause Cancer?

Love, Rita

My apologies for the typing the wrong Tyrone, although the Tyrone who played Zorro is much more memorable that the Tyrone that used to a member of the Syngenta atrazine panel that was funded by Syngenta the manufacturers of atrazine. Tyrone appears to have left the panel after he was asked to duplicate his experiments and verify his methodology.

The US EPA web site now has this to say about Tyrone B Hayes research on how atrazine affects the sex organs and endocrine disruption of frogs:

Amphibians -Status Update - December 2007
EPA has concluded that atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian gonadal development based on a thorough review of 19 laboratory and field studies, including studies submitted by the registrant and others in the public literature. At this time, EPA believes that no additional testing is warranted to address this issue.

Love Rita

Rita Skeeter has her contact listed as:

http://www.croplifeaustralia.org.au/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=1877

CropLife Australia is the voice and advocate of the plant science industry in Australia. As the industry’s peak body, we progress the interests of member companies by engaging with decision makers and other stakeholders and influencing the development and implementation of government policies.

Member companies listed are:

CropLife > Members
Crop Protection
Accensi Pty Ltd
BASF Australia Ltd
Bayer CropScience Pty Ltd
Becker Underwood Pty Ltd
Chemtura Australia Pty Ltd
Dow AgroSciences Australia Ltd
DuPont (Australia) Ltd
Farmoz Pty Ltd
FMC Australasia Pty Ltd
Monsanto Australia Limited
Nufarm Australia Limited
Sipcam Pacific Australia Pty Ltd
Sumitomo Chemical Australia Pty Ltd
Syngenta Crop Protection Pty Limited

Biotechnology*
Bayer CropScience Pty Ltd
Dow AgroSciences Australia Ltd
DuPont (Australia) Ltd and Pioneer Seeds (Joint membership)
Monsanto Australia Limited
Nufarm Australia Limited
Syngenta Crop Protection Pty Limited

* Hold dual membership

Corporate*
Agrisearch Services Pty Ltd
Peracto Pty Ltd

Individual*
Henderson, Rosemary
Kwint, Pieter
Subramanian, Krishnamoorthy
Tichon, Michael

*Some corporate or individual members may provide registration consultancy services. 

Life Members
Allison, Mark
Campbell-Smith, Lou
Carr, Clive
Forgie, Cam
Gauchat, Claude
Manni, Hermann
McGuffog, Douglas
Mueller, Rudi
Parker, Robert
Philipson, Ross
Reckefuss, Jûrgen
Shipley, David
Swain, Jim

Disclaimer:  CropLife Australia does not endorse or recommend any of our members products or services.

Rita Skeeter, your contribution to this blog has been very illuminating in that it exposed the action Croplife affliates will take to ‘shoot the messenger’ through the use of even totally erroneous misrespresentation of individuals.

Any careful reader would see that Tyronne Power is not the same name as Tyrone Hayes. I guess the impact you wished to convey was the throw away dismissal of Professor Hayes’ research under the phrase ‘junk scientist’.

Nonsense and full of deception.

If that’s the best character assassination you can do, Croplife should censor you, Rita Skeeter.

Dr Tryone Hayes’ science into the mechanisms of action of triazines in amphibians is published in peer-reviewed science and backed up by similar studies in other taxa. If you have a financial or ideological affliations with one or more Croplife organisations as posted by Cathran (Comment #24) including Syngenta, Monsanto, Nufarm, Dupont, Dow, etc, etc then perhaps the least you could do would be identify your associations &  interests and comply with the Croplife disclaimer.

Forestry apologist “Rita Skeeter” is also a fictional Harry Potter character who coincidentally (!?) is alluded to in Timber Communities Australia Pulp Mill Myth Busting website under the heading of Water:

http://www.tca.org.au/statenews/tas/mythbusting.shtml

No self vested interests there of course!