Reports Sought On Weedkiller

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32296, 14 May 1970, Page 32

Reports Sought On Weedkiller

(New Zealand Press Association) PALMERSTON NORTH, May 14. Alarming overseas reports of lethal sideeffects from the use of 2,4,5-t weedkiller, which is used extensively throughout New Zealand, have prompted the Agricultural Chemicals Board to call for reports from American and British authorities.

Mr B. D. Watts, the deputy for the board’s registrar, said in Wellington yesterday that the effects of the chemical might be discussed at this month’s board meeting if the reports asked for were received.

The reports have been sought from the United States Department of Agriculture and the British Ministry of Agriculture. “There have been no re-1 ports of problems with this! weedkiller during the long number of years it has been! in use in New Zealand,” Mr{ Watts said. “All we are doing at this stage is asking for more facts.” I Mr Watts said he believed the effects of 2,4,5-t were different in New Zealand beI cause it was not used on foodstuffs or crops, as in America. According to a London ( “Sunday Times" story of .April 19, the weedkiller has ibeen restricted for domestic use in America since January 1. Mr Watts said the New {Zealand board was studying closely reports such as those in the “Sunday Times." He said, however, that such reports were alarmist in relation to this country.

The weedkiller was used throughout the country, mainly for bush and scrubweed control, he said. There were alternatives but they had such limitations as being more expensive, and being perhaps more harmful to pastures.

A spokesman for a New Zealand chemical company, commenting on the manufacture of 2,4,5-t in this country, confirmed there had been no reports of undesirable side-effects from the weedkiller during the 15 years of its use in New Zealand.

The “Sunday Times" report said the weedkiller was restricted for domestic use in America after the discovery that the impurity dioxin was widespread in the American product, and reports of foetal deformation caused by use of the weedkiller in Vietnam.

Domestic animals and wildlife had been either made ill or killed after being sprayed

' by the weedkiller, the newsI paper said. British forestry t workers had complained of I sickness after exposure to it. > Scientists at the American ! National Institute of Environ- - mental Health Sciences had concluded that in its pure

state the weedkiller produced birth abnormalities in experiments on mice.