Exhausts may cause ‘motorway madness’

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 32

Exhausts may cause ‘motorway madness’

By

SARAH SANDS

“Motorway madness” caused by high concentrations of vehicle-exhaust fumes could be the cause of some road accidents, says a vistlng expert on allergies and addictions. Dr Richard Mackarness, an English doctor now living in Australia, was in New Zealand to speak to a symposium on environment, nutrition, and behaviour, organised by the Foundation for the Healing Arts.

Dr Mackarness believes there is a relationship between the chemicals in the environment and food, and aggressive behaviour. “There is a part of the brain responsible for aggression — if a person has an allergy to certain chemicals, the allergic reaction can irritate that part of the brain and make them aggressive. “This is apparent in motoring and motor accidents. If a person is sensitive or allergic to traffic fumes and they get stuck in a traffic jam or fog and start inhaling fumes in high concentrations, they

would go berserk and have what 1 call motorway madness." Linking allergic reactions with aggressive behaviour did not mean that all accidents were caused in this way, said Dr Mackarness.

“This is a new factor which is just another shot to have in your locker — I am not disregarding psychological factors, and I am not saying the work that Freud did with unconcious motives is not valid.

“It is simply, 'Here is an aspect of behaviour linked to the environment’ —■ as we put more sprays on our crops and more chemicals in our food, so things seem to be getting worse with behaviour." Other factors that affected behaviour were definitely psychological, he said.

"If you put rats in a cage and you put them too close, they start attacking one another — that is not an allergy, that is a psychological reaction to being too . close.”

The same effect could

be seen in tenement housing and in football crowds, said Dr Mackarness.

The symposium at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, was organised in response to a call from the Roper Commission on Violence for more research on the connections between diet and violence.

Dr Mackarness said it would be relatively easy for New Zealand to affect some changes in aggressive behaviour.

“When you have a compact community like this, it is easier to get ideas round than in a huge place like America.” New Zealanders could start at an individual level and work up to the bigger changes, he said. “First of all at a personal level, if you think you have an illness (related tp chemicals in the environment and food), you can seek a doctor who is interested rather than someone who just reaches for a prescription form.

“Also at a personal

level you can look at what you are doing with food and your house and try to clean it up a bit,” said Dr Mackarness.

“If you are reacting to gas in your house, you can switch to electricity, or if you are hooked on junk food you might try to change to a more nourishing food which did not do you so much harm,” On a wider level, concerned persons could try to influence members of Parliament and others to try to change the way things were done, he said. “This means change so that farmers are encouraged to go organic rather than use more sprays which are becoming more expensive for them.”

Other changes such as listing all chemical contents of food on the labels were already slowly becoming apparent, said Dr Mackarness. “The idea of a link between environment and behaviour has become much more accepted in the last five years than it used to be.”