Nerve agent victims should be helped

“NERVE agents including sarin, VX and novichok all prevent nerves functioning normally. This includes those that are necessary to breathe and keep the heart beating. They work by disrupting an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase at the junction between nerves”.

This above is a quote from a knowledgeable source, and I do not wish to engage in the complex secretive world of the Salisbury poisoning, of which I know nothing, but I hope it can be resolved soon.

The nerve agents quoted above are chemically complex and we are told they are extremely difficult to produce. However, there is one nerve agent that is quite primitive, that has been around for over half a century, originally developed for conflict, but now easily obtainable and extensively used in agriculture livestock farming and horticultural crop-growing in the UK and worldwide.

This nerve agent is organophosphate, what many of us commonly called Sheep Dip. It is widely used globally to kill “ticks and external parasites” on farm animals and on fruit and vegetable crops.

It also works, as quoted above, by “disrupting acetylcholinesterase”.

Many Welsh shepherds on sheep farms have succumbed to what is termed as “sheep dip syndrome” over the years. It leads to lethargy, pain and depression, and even suicides, on our doorstep here.

It affects fruit handlers to a lesser extent. Many of those suffering Welsh hill farmers have never had justice or compensation.

It seems to be strangely a bit selective in affecting some but not others.

It is high time that Wales’ Public Health Officers and the farming unions pressed for justice for these sufferers. Ioan Richard Craigcefnparc, Swansea