organophosphorous poisoning

donniedingle · organophosphorous poisoning

hi all, well i'm new here and already had the pleasure of getting to know one or 2 of ya. but i'm going to tell you something now that perhaps not many of you have heard about. OP poisoning (sheep dip) i am a sufferer of this complaint, and slowly but surely it attacks your central nervous system. well let me try to explain a bit about it, every crofter/farmer will tell ya, sheep are the most stupid things there are, they have a will to die ...and thats the farmers job to keep them living, every year we used to have to dip them in a lethal cocktail of chemicals, organophosphorous being one of them, this chemical was developed during the war as a nerve gas, but every year the government made it a legal requirment for us to dip our sheep, 4 crops of lambs later we sell these ewes on for slaughter, now years ago after the slaughtering alot of the offal and bones went on to be cooked and ground up for animal feed addittive (its very high in protein) this was when the price of soya meal was through the roof.
THEN......after feeding this mixture to our cattle for several years we get what was "mad cow disease" now how does a poor coo suddenly get its central nervous system attacked .? yepppp the ground up bits of cooked sheep, NOW.... it starts to get worse........wee johnny loves his beef burgers, and unknown to those who don't know any different, wee johnny is the next inline to catch this unfortunate diseaes......CJD.. they call it the human form of mad cow disease. frightening eh? i have lived with my condition for 8 yrs now, even after spending 2 months in Raigmore hospital while long term tests were done. to this day there is no cure for this condition.......... heard of the "gulf war veterans" well they had to live in tents sprayed to kill the flies and beasties of the desert........thousands of troops that the gov. tries to ignore. and all caused by organophosphorous poisoning, yep the same stuff we crofters had to dip our sheep in ..........
CAUTION.........your dog and cat flea collars all contain this deadly chemical, so does your fly spray, your nit shampoo, so for gods sake watch how you and children handle these things, a classic example of this is , the duchess of marr, she always held her wee in her arms and slipped her fingers under his collar to steady him.....guess what?? she got this dreaded disease too.
think about the next fly you spray with fly spray,the fly only buzzes and goes daft because you have just destroyed its central nervous system, and then writhes about in pain until it dies ......
So all fellow neepers watch out for those chemicals out there, because i for one know all about them the hard way.and all because the government of the day said you have to dip your sheep.

regards donnie.

wildgarlic

Thanks for that Donnie... I have to say that I don't use fly spray or nit stuff - the only one we do use is frontline on the cat and the dog as we've not (as yet) found an alternative that stops the wee beasties getting onto them.

uppercollholls

Frightening stuff Donnie. Thanks for sharing the warning.

PurpleDragon

Good grief. That is scary! My aunt died of vCJD and it ain't pretty.

dizzyblond

that's awful, thanks for sharing and you keep your chin up..........

Julie

Our previous vets surgery sold me some spray with organophosphates in once.
I said to him, 'I don't want it if it has them in as my husband will hit the roof'. The vet looked at the ingredients and said 'no, that's ok, they wouldn't sell it if it wasn't'.
I told him that not every country has banned it despite there being good reasons why it is banned in other, more enlightened places. He got a bit uppity and so I took his word for it. When I got home, sure enough, Gordon flipped and said 'Why have you bought that stuff, you're not using it on the dog'.
I had to go back and ask for my money back, but I made sure that I told him why.
Donniedingle, you have raised a very important issue here, I hope it generates some good discussion as it is a subject that needs airing. Our best protection from these things is enlightenment, I'm so sorry that you had to find out the hard way. Governments have had information about the effects of this stuff for a long time now but they keep conveniently quiet and fail to act on it for some reason.

wildgarlic

Julie - what was the spray for? Fleas and ticks? What do you use instead?

wildgarlic

Just looked at the info on Frontline

Julie

donniedingle

hi julie, and thanks for the comments, vets in my opinion are good at one job......charging plenty. it was while i was in raigmore and my consultant asked to see my spray and chemical records, when he got it he was horrified at what farmers where using in there day to day business, i can still remember his words, why do they(the ministry of agriculture) ask you to lock all chemicals in a special steel safe. not very reassuring for a start. i remember having to attend a special unit in glasgow, the mannie was a dr chan, a great and highly respected specialist on OP, his job was to run a special dept on the subject of OP for the then government. not long after my attendence he resigned his position, the government refused to believe his research...sad eh.
something else they never tell you, op chemicals get stronger and more deadly with age, and where did all the british chemical co's dispose of there stock when OP sheep dip was outlawed?.......it was sold cheap to developing countries, to control beasties in there crops. i have spent years trawling for info on the subject, and if you look hard enough its all there for all to see.

as for dog fleas..lol, my old sheep dog here i give her garlic capsules, and if i see her scratching i get wee drop of parrafin on a clootie, and just rub it under her neck and belly, then after a few days just wash it off. it works for my dog..lol, even if my neighbopur said she was a fire hazard ....lol.
donnie.

Julie

I hope she doesn't lie too near the fire or she'll go up in flames faster than Paddy Macginty's goat

Seriously though, the UK government have a duty of care to us all and should cause such things to be banned from general use as soon as a problem is even suspected. I think you have a fair case for compensation on those grounds alone. It would be easy enough to find documented evidence to prove how long the effects of OP poisoning have been known about and you can bet there are probably organisations uch as Greenpeace who have lobbied them in the past too.
I don't generally approve of the compensation culture when it comes down to trivia and ambulance chasing, it raises insurance costs for all of us. However, this needn't have happened to you and you have to live with the consequences for the rest of your life.
What also concerns me is that for so many years the sheep were being totally immersed in the stuff and the wool then going for clothing and carpet production. How many hidden sufferers are there out there who have had skin contact with impregnated wool and don't know it?

Maidenstone

If your kids have head lice, buy a huge cheap bottle of supermarket own-brand hair conditioner, sit child in bath, wet hair then pour on a good dollop of conditioner and comb hair through with a fine tooth comb. Comb it really well, then rinse and dry hair. The lice and eggs cannot hang on with this onslaught; but you might not get them all - do this for the next 2-3 nights, and a week later, to make sure you've got them all.

Why does my head always itch when I talk about these horrible things?!?!

Julie

I was reading your post and realised I was scratching too as I was reading the last line