Mass collapse causes doubts

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 9

Mass collapse causes doubts

NZPA London ' A nerve-gas pesticide may have caused the collapse of more than 300 people at a jazz-band carnival in Nottinghamshire last 'month, the “New States;man” has said.

An article in the “New Statesman” said that officially the case was closed and that the authorities were happy to blame mass hysteria for what happened. But hospital . papers, steamed open by a patient annoyed at being called hysterical, showed a diagnosis of “inhalation of organic poison.”

The article said patients who collapsed during the festival at Holliwell suffered blurred vision, muscular weakness, sickness, and acute pain in the abdomen and chest.

These symptoms exactly resembled those ' caused from contact with organophosphous compounds — nerve-gas derivatives, of which more than 50 brands are used as farm pesticides in Britain.

One adult patient, Terry Bingham, steamed open a letter from Kilton Hospital, Worksop, before passing it to his local doctor. The diagnosis was “inhalation of organic poison.” The same diagnosis was also seen hanging at the foot of a hospital bed occu-

pied by a girl patient, Debra Saunders.

The article said the hospital authorities made tests on some children for organophosphorus compounds which they said proved negative.

The local authority also said no traces of the compounds were found in the field.

However, according to a senior biochemist, even if the compounds had been present in the soil on the day of the festival, they might not have been detectable a few days afterwards. And simple blood tests might not have picked up the more sophisticated compounds, since o.3mg would have been enough to provoke the symptoms seen. The article also said the official explanation did not show why some children were still listless and complained of nausea and pain in the legs more than two weeks after the festival. It said that there was now strong evidence that agricultural pesticides were to blame, and this raised disturbing questions about the extent to which such chemicals were used on farm land.

Last month, doctors investigating the mystery illness denied that there had I been any “cover-up” over I the cause, and stuck to their ! theory that mass hysteria [was the culprit