Testing standards were a hell of a meth
It may be a big job to clean up the mess from all those clean-ups of methcontaminated houses that, it turns out, weren’t particularly, contaminated at all.
The Prime Minister’s chief science advisor Sir Peter Gluckman’s report makes chastening reading in light of the extensive human and financial disruptions resulting from the stern imposition of nationwide testing standards that were giddyingly out of proportion to any actual health risks.
The standards imposed for properties where methamphetamine was used were the same as those used internationally for places where it had been industrially, or at least industriously, manufactured using a range of truly hazardous chemicals in fairly substantial quantities.
Sir Peter’s finding was that although we were collectively reacting as though even trace levels of meth residue posed a health risk, there wasn’t a single case in medical literature of anyone being harmed from ‘‘passive’’ use, at any level.
It’s little wonder the pitch of reproach is so high given the cost to homeowners, landlords and the state. For its part Housing New Zealand has spent about $100 million on the problem.
The wasted money from landlords and householders will be massive, though the damage goes much further.
At a time of acute housing shortage, many properties have been off the market.
Others have been sold for prices that the vendors will right now be bitterly regretting.
And tenants have been as good as of the blizzard of commentary and reporting.
While corrective measures are being lined up to apply more considered testing standards, interesting issues of compensation and legal consequences may yet lie ahead
And more widely, some will draw comparisons between what’s happened here and other issues of widespread alarm ranging from M bovis to climate change.
But to whatever extent science and sense were sidelined in the public agitation about meth contamination, there’s scant indication that scientists are being disregarded in the plan for the phased eradication of M bovis.
And as for human impact on climate change – oh, please. The dissenters are consequential only as noisemakers. The overarching scientific consensus about the urgent need for significant corrective measures is emphatic and long has been.