David Levy – Government Strategy – Apr 24

For many years a good friend, Dr Vyvyan Howard, who was at the University of Liverpool and now the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, raised awareness about the toxicology of burning wastes and the effect its emission of gases and particles had on people. He worked in conjunction with Professor Bob Maynard who chaired COMEAP, the Committee on the Medical Effects of Airborne Pollutants, a poorly funded Government Committee which reviewed the impact of poisons in the air.

A small group of us went to visit Prof. Maynard. His office was to be found on an old military camp and in an old Nissen hut where folders were stacked on top of cupboards which held more folders, and a sense of being overwhelmed pervaded. To then be told by Prof. Maynard that the Committee only met occasionally taught me that Government were only using this scientific body as a sop to our concerns. It was part of their strategy to cover-up and obfuscate accountability.

The quality of the research being reviewed by COMEAP held my attention, and today I am convinced the toxicological load in our blood stream is worse now than it was then. Just like the global climate today, our bodies are changing in ways we cannot understand. Dr Howard was, at the time, Chair of the Royal Microscopical Society and was writing about his research into the fact that lactating mothers were passing on to their child through breast milk their own body’s toxicological load. The issue was whether nurturing by breast feeding was more important than the harm the toxins could do to the child.

I am not able to comment on any of this, only to state that the time of life when toxins can impact the most on someone is when they are at their most vulnerable, i.e. early and late in life.

I can, from my own experience, draw your attention to the manner in which Dr Howard was undermined by lesser people who had but a fraction of his knowledge. This was allowed because what he was saying was grossly unpopular, and feared by those people who spoke against him. The opposition did, and still does, include the Government which tolerated the deterioration in air quality, for example by a planned introduction at the time of diesel vehicles which was done on financial grounds. For those of you who can, remember how the price of diesel was then 55p per litre whilst, today, it is about £2.

A pure example of greed, with money overriding both the health of the populace and the knowledge that diesel particulates harm health. Although the harm was well known when the decision was made, it happened in order to raise revenue for the Treasury.

Some decisions seem callous to me, and here I doff my hat to the integrity of Dr. Howard and Dr. Maynard, and to the tireless campaigning of the Zero Waste lobbying fraternity, who all understood the emissions issue along with the influence of the bureaucracy and industries aligned against them.

Who said ‘Government is for the People’?

It wasn’t me.

David Levy