Comment:
NB Power "compensates" about 40 men for poisoning with Agent Orange while working for company
A friend e-mailed me your mail to Paul Helliker, Dir st of Ca Dept of Pest Reg and was totally surprised to find out abt the spraying of Agent Orange in America prior to the Vietnam War. I shouldn't have been. Many pesticides were diriveted from Agent Orange. I was sprayed by one of them, the organophosphate Diazinon, once a month in-doors for nearly 5 years. I worked in the warehouse of Warner Lambert in Avon, CT and was diagnosed w/Environmental Illness in 1983, later known at Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. No one could tell me why I was so totally sick, except the exterminator said he'd switch to a low-odor dose and I'd be ok. I wasn't. Got worse but managed to keep working till warehouse closed in 1986. If I left sooner I wouldn't get co compensation. OSHA would not investigate and a lawyer told me I had to prove a single chemical caused a single illness. What bullcrap! I once wrote to 20/20 to do an investigational article on overuse of pesticides on innocent people and never heard back from them. If we thought it would be hard to bring down big tobacco, it's certainly useless to try to get gov help for compensating all of us made sick by pesticides/herbicides, etc. Thank you for listening. Judith Puhalski
From: "Cliff Turner" <cliff@attcanada.net>
It is interesting to read some compensation is being paid to chemically exposed workers.
Mr Hellicker would be pleased with the way BC Hydro is treating their workers exposed to the same chemical. The last surviving member of crew that sprayed power line right of way near Campbell River on Vancouver Island, Joe Lawlor, complained to everyone that would listen that he was dying and his co-workers had all died from this exposure. BC Hydro and the WCB denied the problems. Joe died in hospital, he had lung cancer, but what was fatal was being cut off fluids, painkillers, a DNR that mysteriously appeared on his medical record; was a simple case of untreated pneumonia!
BC Hydro denied Joe's widow benefits by denying Joe had ever worked for BCHydro.
It is my understanding that BC Hydro then began using young workers for perilous chemical application because they were much less likely to succumb to side effects and they were only temporary staff.
Maybe the workers in NB have their 'toe in the door' now that some compensation has been paid. Cliff Turner, Injured Worker Advocate.
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